How to keep chicken out of your blood (why cereals are bad for you)
{A conversation I’ll have with my son in 12 years}
My dear son, back in the year 2010 I was already planning a conversation I wanted to have with you during dinner in the year 2023 or so:
Me:
Allergies are a reaction from the immune system when it recognizes harmless molecules (chicken) as a thread. People with a chicken allergy might have tongue swelling whenever they eat it. The tongue becomes bigger because the immune system is trying to fight the “dangerous invaders”.
Son: For heavens sake, here we go again… So why is the immune system getting it wrong?
Me:
Because they got too much chicken in your blood stream before.
Son: What? How did get chicken in anyones blood?
Me:
Short explanation: When you eat food it goes through your gut, and when your gut has microscopic holes, little chicken molecules can enter your blood stream. If that happens many times, your immune system will thing: “Hey those atoms don’t belong here. They are invaders, lets fight them.” Now every time you eat chicken your immune system goes berserk and that is how you can get allergic to chicken (or any other food).
Son: Next question: How can there be little holes in my gut?
Me:
That one gets long: Stuff that can damage your gut lining:
- Bacteria / Viruses / Parasites
- Alcohol
- Grains!
- Dairy!
Seriously milk and cereals can make holes in your gut. The long explanation is as follows.
Humans eat cereals only since 10.000 to 12.000 years. That is a very short time evolutionary speaking. Before that we ate flesh, fish, vegetables, roots, fruits, beans because those kinds of things you could hunt, or gather. Cereals one must cultivate.
If one eats a berry the berry gives us delicious fruit-flesh and in return we transport the kernel of the berry to a different location and put it down (feces). So the berry is very happy to be eaten. If a grass is eaten (all cereals are a from of grass) this was it. Once it exits your digestive system it cannot grow to a grass again, because you chew it. So cereals didn’t like to be eaten and developed several mechanisms to fight that. Under the skin of wheat there are many minerals, vitamins and alike to help the corn to grow. But there are also poisons to fight off hungry birds, mice, and humans. Whole wheat is very bad for us, and in the history of men we never voluntarily ate whole wheat. Except during famines we always took the outer layer, the bran, off.
The bad news is, the skin of the grain is not the only place with poison, basically the whole grain is filled with antinutrients (stuff we cannot eat).
Lectins are one example. The most famous lectin is “wheat germ agglutinin” (WGA). WGA is found in all grains and is a problem for 3 main reasons:
- We cannot break them down in our stomach, gut, or any other part of the digestive process.
- Some lectins trick the wall of our gut (intestinal lining) to believe they are something yummy, like sugar, so they can slip though into the blood stream. (They are not allowed to go there.) When they slips through it makes holes in the gut because the WGA molecule is many times too big.
- Big proteins like WGA are easily mistaken by our immune system for a vicious invader (bacteria). So the immune system starts fighting it and you get allergic to cereals.
Son: Okay, that was long, thank you, may you…
Me:
… explain why our immune system is fighting against it?
Our immune system is designed so it fights everything that does not look like it comes from our own bodies. It hates everything it doesn’t know.
When the immune cells find some molecule time after time they recognize it by it’s shape. Every molecule is made of atoms with a very specific structure, if the structure changes it is not the same molecule anymore. Lets say atoms are like Lego-bricks. Imagine a structure of 7 to 10 Lego-bricks with specific colors, shapes put together in one specific way. This structure is like a protein in our pancreas. Now imagine the 7 to 10 bricks structure to be on top of a several meters huge structure, with many hundredths of bricks. This huge structure of Lego-bricks is like WGA. One tiny part on one side looks the same as the protein in your pancreas, but the rest is completely different.
Now imagine a cell from our immune system coming along and seeing this huge thing. It docs on any random side of the WGA molecule to mark it as something dangerous. The immune system does not care where exactly it docs on, as long as it can recognize the new “dangerous” invader. There are hundreds of sides on the WGA molecule to mark it, but sometimes the immune system just happens to recognize the molecule at the little area on top with the 7 to 10 bricks. The area that looks exactly like the innocent protein in our pancreas. Then the immune system does not only learn to attack the WGA molecule, but also the innocent hormone. When this happens, people get type 1 diabetes.
This also can happen to the myelin sheath of your brain, it is called multiple sclerosis.
Being allergic to gluten (part of cereals) is called “celiac”.
Only 3 examples of a long list of “auto immune” disease.
Son: Okay I got it! Now…
Me:
… you want more examples? Sure, here is a short list of autoimmune response caused by a leaky gut:
• Infertility • Type 1 diabetes • Multiple sclerosis • Rheumatoid Arthritis • Lupus • Vitiligo • Narcolepsy • Schizophrenia • Autism • Depression • Huntington’s • Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma • Hypothyroidism • Porphyria
Son: I don’t need any more explanations.
Me:
Glad you asked, yes there are further ways in which little holes in our gut can harm our body. When the microvilli (gut wall) gets damaged not only can chicken molecules and feces enter your blood stream, but also your gall bladder does not release bile salts (they are needed to process fats and other nutrition). Now when all the bile salts stays in the gall bladder, cholesterol crystals can form in your gall bladder and then become gallstones. Removing gallstones is like killing the “canary in the coal mine”.
Son: Great basically I cannot eat anything. Thanks for making me miserable.
Me:
Yes, my pleasure, here is a list of stuff you can eat:
• Meat • Fish • Vegetables • Fruits • Beans • Nuts • Eggs • Roots • Mushrooms
Some recipes you can find here: 30-day meal plans
Son: Dad, you are an asshole, hand me the rice now.
Me:
Oh, sorry you have been waiting for me to hand you rice… Why didn’t you say so? That reminds me of another interesting fact…
Honestly, I don’t know where I stand on that issue by now. But back in the day it seemed like an amazingly great idea. I read on the side huntergatherlove about an Anthropologist who was surprised by the excellent bone structure of tribes who continued and ancestral diet. Also people in the Paleolithic Age were about 20 cm taller than people in the Neolithic Ages. We evolved over millions of years without access to dairy products or grasses. It makes sense to assume that bacteria in our gut are not adapted to this relatively new diet.
In the case that whole thing is real, health improves if you stop eating pasta and you can buy “Paleolithic foods” now, remember: your old man was amongst the first to have known about it.