Grains Grains Grain???

What is your opinion on grains? I know alot of you are against grains in general, but just how much. Are grains completely evil or just the highly processed grains? (E.g white bleached flour)

I personally get unprocessed grain and grind it at home. Thus taking out most of the needless processing! And then make bread/cookies/ect... with Honey Sucanat (SUgar CAne NATural) ect...

Is even this bad for you?

At their worst (highly processed) I think they are horrible and notice a direct impact on performance if I allow them in my diet. At their best, I believe they are basically like cardboard. They are okay for filling you up. For my goals for being as lean and strong as possible, they don't provide anything. Their one benefit though is they are very cheap.

Oh and to add another question. I am not just asking about Wheat. I am also asking about Buckwheat Oatmeal ect...

I also have freshly flaked homemade Oatmeal or Buckwheat (not flaked. Whole) for breakfast once every 3 days.

Well most people here on the forum believe in a paleo diet which dictates no grains.

Grains provide calories but their overall nutritional value in terms of micronutrients is pretty poor. They also contain many compounds that are unhealthy: gluten (or similar proteins, depending on which grain we're talking about) and lectins. These are implicated in autoimmunity and 'leaky gut syndrome'. Grains also contain antinutrients such as phytates (these bind trace elements and prevent them from being absorbed into your body). Whole grains may be 'better' than refined stuff but that doesn't mean they don't have all the nasty stuff in them!

You're better off getting your carbs from veggies and fruit and perhaps sweet potatoes, and getting more of your calories from fats and proteins.

Buckwheat, quinoa, all those grain substitutes are also still pretty much the same thing. If it looks like a grain and sounds like one, it usually is.

What is your real question? Do you really just want to know peoples opinions on grains, or are you asking if WE think they are bad for YOU? If that is the case, which I assume it is, all the responses in the world from other people could not answer that question. If you are wondering if you'll feel better, try going without it. People have had success without grains, and with them. So nobody on this forum can tell you if YOU'LL have success, because we are not you.

If you're wondering how you'll react, don't ask others, try it. Remember that the poison is in the dose for many things, so try backing off grains little by little for awhile, than try ramping up little by little. Maybe you can eat a bakery and perform superhuman feats, maybe a crumb will negatively affect you. We simply cannot tell you, and you will never know unless you fiddle with things on your own.

You should definitely experiment on yourself but if you find that removing grains from your diet makes you feel better (after a period of adaptation of course) it doesn't hurt to know what could be the cause of this effect (i.e., removing certain unhealthy compounds from your diet). So I think Newguy was right in asking his questions.

I was mainly asking your opinions on grains. Because I have heard quite a bit on the forum that they are bad for you. And since I tend to eat "Healthy" Grains on a regular basis I was wondering everyone's opinions on whether they are horrible for you no matter what. Or if they are good for you.

And yes I agree, experimentation is the best route 99% of the time. I am just trying to get some info before I at least back of a bit from grains (I can't really fully stop eating them due to my current situation)

My advice would be to save a couple of $$ and buy Robb Wolf's book 'The Paleo Solution'. Not necessarily because I think you need to be converted to Paleoism but because it has a lot of good background info and it is fun to read, too. Reading his book and maybe researching a bit more, based on the extensive list of references in his book, combined with a bit of self-experimentation should be a good start.

In my opinion a good diet is a good diet: lots of fruits and veggies, quality protein, plenty of all types fats - variety is very important here - Very few people will tell you that such a diet plan is a bad idea. Now grains, to me this depends on the person some people are very carbohydrate and grain tolerant, most are in between and a select few should really stay away from them. Ones you figure out which one you are in you can adjust your intake accordingly if you want to. Personally I eat plenty of grain with the exception of wheat, mainly because I am slightly allergic to it but also because it is the most processed of all grains even high-quality whole wheat bread. I eat plenty of brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa, sweet potatoes and so on. I never eat any sugar (occasionally raw honey with tea especially before a workout) or white rice (sushi is an exception until they start offering it with brown rice).

I've played around with the macronutrients plenty of times higher carb, higher fat, always high protein. Honestly I never noticed a drastic differences neither in how I felt or how I looked (calories stayed the same). The one thing that always works for me is to manipulate my caloric intake when I want to change my body composition. Perhaps this is because I always eat a consistently healthy diet where as other people when they switch to paleo or some other diet weren't eating as healthy so they have a big difference in body composition.