In Search of a Miracle? Cut Out Flour and Sugar.

Why Flour?

I have said it so many times in my articles and discussions. “Just cut out flour and sugar and a miracle might happen!” And I hear back from people reporting just that miracle for themselves.

Sugar is, or should be, a no-brainer. So that leaves flour. What is it about “flour” that is so bad?

Flour is made out of grain, the stuff that makes up a huge part of the average American’s diet. Bad because all that grain can and frequently does produce a mineral deficiency in the consumer.

This Earth is a really large mineral structure, a garden of sorts, upon which live animals and plants. Rocks, right? While it is tempting to consider the minerals as only rocks, in truth they are inherently critical to vegetative development and the nurition that vegetation provides to consumers – the animals.

This all revolves around natural reproduction.

Reproduction

Beyond any spiritual issues, every living on this earth has one purpose, to reproduce itself so life can go on. It is, legitimately, every animal/plant for itself.

Reproduction depends on the animals/plants staying alive, getting enough/the right energy and nutrients and protecting themselves from anything that wants to eat them. In other words, it’s a competition and there is conflict of interest.

Find food, eat, digest, fight off the predators, reproduce, repeat.

Animals are mobile but plants are stuck in the ground, possibly blowing in the breeze but cerainly not walking around.

Animals depend on size, teeth, claws, eyes, strength, speed, and other factors to feed and protect themselves. Plants, unable to move, extract their nutrients and energy from the sun and the earth within which they grow, protecting themselves chemically.

When all goes well, everybody reproduces.

Food for the Animals

Animals eat the plants or each other and sometimes both.

The Consumers

Some animals are herbivores like cows, deer, and elephants, There are about 4000 species (not counting fish) making up about 32% of animals, eating low protein, low calorie, difficult to digest plant food – often stuff like grass and leaves – while warding off the carnivores. Actually an elephant might eat a whole tree.

Herbivores eat pretty much all the time to make up for the nutrient deficiency in their diet. Animals that only eat other animals (carnivores) make up about 63% of animals and they particularly prey on the poor herbivores.

Herbivores might make up a larger part of the population were they not such an easy mark. They usually can’t just hide out waiting for a better time to eat.

Animal food, as opposed to plant food, is nutritionally complete, higher in calories, and easier to digest. All the hard digestive work got done by the animal being eaten.

Thus the carnivores spend far less time eating and more time sleeping/digesting, fighting off animals getting in their way. Large birds of prey like eagles fall into this category. Your cat is a carnivore.

Then there is a tiny little sliver, about 3% of the animal population, who are omnivores, animals that eat both animals and plants. Omnivore examples are you and me, your dog, pigs, bears, squirrels, poultry, and small birds. Bear in mind that insects are animals.

Omnivores will eat whatever they can find, wherever it is. Herbivores and carnivores are specialists with digestive systems to match. Omnivores don’t fit perfectly anywhere. So there aren’t many of them.

Humans, in their earliest form, were ill equipped to do much of anything when it came to finding food and protecting themselves. They were essentially scavengers hiding out in caves without ways to kill other animals and digestive systems not designed to handle the chemical protections employed by plants. It was a tough life.

Evolution

But, over time, the human genome evolved to cope and humans developed really nice, clever brains, discovering and creating technological advances like fire, stone tools, spears, guns, electricity, etal. In other words, technology to overcome human limitations.

The rest of the omnivores in the wild (the ones without nice, clever brains) are just holding their place in line.

One of the things humans eventually learned to do was process plants to make them more digestible, to minimize the inherent chemical protections. Humans moved from the end of the marching band to drum major.

Unfortunately technology got ahead of us humans, and the traditional processes required to minimize the chemical protections built into plants got lost in the commercial shuffle.

It’s that plant protection thing that is at issue with flour. Next week we will look at more about plant protection.

Pat Smith is the author of “It’s All about the Food,” a book that guides nutritious food choices as the way to avoid illness and maintain a healthy weight. Proceeds from her book benefit the Montgomery County Food Pantry. Her website is http://www.allaboutthefood.org/ She can be contacted at patsmith2@live.com, 501-605-3902. Her Facebook page is www.facebook.com/patsmithbooks. ______________________________________________________