We personally went grain free almost two decades ago to deal with Crohn’s disease. The benefits of a grain-free diet had been explained to us by our healthcare practitioner and an initial trial of being grain free brought immediate relief to my husbands Crohn’s disease symptoms. We were encouraged also when reading the personal experiences of hundreds of people worldwide who had experienced significant relief from a wide variety of auto-immune diseases. Since that time many years ago, the rise of the paleo movement has introduced grain-free eating to the masses, and today is embraced by millions as a healthy way of eating.
Inevitably, mainstream medicine disputes this as the “so-called evidence” is anecdotal in nature, and cannot be backed up or substantiated by clinical trials or studies. They will tell you that there is no evidence that diet can play such a pivotal role in the treatment of serious diseases like Crohn’s – they will say that all there is drug-treatment and surgery.
Well, unsurprisingly, a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies are not going to spend millions on a clinical study that proves that, for some people, certain foods harm and other foods heal? Where is the profit in that?
Since when are the sugar and wheat industries going to fund clinical studies that prove that all carbohydrates are not all the same? What happens to their market share then?
When we first started eating grain free, all we had to go on were the personal stories of those who had been prepared to make the changes and experienced the amazing benefits from doing so. To me, having a husband who is both drug and surgery-free despite serious intestinal scarring, who is living a healthy and symptom-free life was proof enough. Whenever we have drifted away from our healthy eating lifestyle, within a few weeks his symptoms start returning, and when we return to our healthy eating lifestyle, within a few days his symptoms disappear. It has happened so many times over the past decade that we are convinced of the direct link, and don’t need any more painful episodes to prove that it is not just a coincidence.
More recently, my own personal struggles with autoimmune disease resulted in my also embracing 100% a grain-free way of eating (previously to 2015 I was eating grain-free at home but eating gluten and grains when eating out/away from the house, which was probably up to 40% of my meals). I also found relief and remission from my disease when I applied my knowledge seriously to my own situation.
However, many of you are new to being grain free and may want more information as to why it is an approach worth investigating. In the decade since I started this website, there is now so much more “data” out there supporting the damaging impact grains can have on our health.
Here is a list of my favourite articles that I feel cover the reasons nicely:
Marks Daily Apple – Why Grains are Unhealthy. Can’t really beat an article by Mark.
Wellness Mama and an article on Why Grains are Killing you Slowly.
The Body Ecology website presents The Risks of Consuming Typical Grains and discusses the alternative grain-like seeds that can be used as an alternative.
Some books that I found useful when starting out are in the Recommended Reading section.
Article updated 16 June 2018