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Progress report and a warning about brown rice
I've never much liked brown rice, nor my family. However, we do seem to like brown rice pasta well enough. Maybe grinding it up makes it more palatable.
It seems to me like tradition tells us to eat the white portion of seeds and feed the outer parts to our animals and eat their eggs, milk and meat.
The first thing my ancestors did when they hit the howling wilderness was to build grain mills, lol. The old recipes for bread are basically white. However, my grandmother told me that her old-country mother did put a small amount of whole rye in the bread. Just for the record, Nana didn't eat rice, as I've said before she considered it "foreign", LOL. Her fave carb was english muffins. She lived to 99, and two of her sisters lived to be 100. Hubs and I have a running joke that english muffins are the fountain of youth.
Quote from lil chick on April 16, 2021, 4:58 amI've never much liked brown rice, nor my family. However, we do seem to like brown rice pasta well enough. Maybe grinding it up makes it more palatable.
It seems to me like tradition tells us to eat the white portion of seeds and feed the outer parts to our animals and eat their eggs, milk and meat.
The first thing my ancestors did when they hit the howling wilderness was to build grain mills, lol. The old recipes for bread are basically white. However, my grandmother told me that her old-country mother did put a small amount of whole rye in the bread. Just for the record, Nana didn't eat rice, as I've said before she considered it "foreign", LOL. Her fave carb was english muffins. She lived to 99, and two of her sisters lived to be 100. Hubs and I have a running joke that english muffins are the fountain of youth.
The old white flour would have been less pure starch I would think and also fresher. Today, the flour is not ground fresh, is probably further processed to make it whiter, can sit months on shelves and has added vitamins to it.
I have established that fortification does affect me negatively (folic acid is my new nemesis). I will try to reintroduce sifted whole wheat flour which is probably closer to what white flour was before.
Quote from lil chick on April 16, 2021, 4:48 amwavygravygadzooks said: "I think withdrawal/limiting A could also lead to IRIS(immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome), since A also has powerful steroidal effects(like many other vitamins), so people thinking of detox are probably experience effects from the immune system instead, since a lot of damage to gut and tissues should be fixed which was previously masked/balanced with continuous A intake."
This is a new idea that I haven't seen yet on this site: that VA would have steroidal effects. I had to go out to the interwebs to find a quick answer to "what are steroidal effects". I got this quick answer: "Steroids reduce the production of chemicals that cause inflammation. This helps keep tissue damage as low as possible. Steroids also reduce the activity of the immune system by affecting the way white blood cells work"
It's nice to have new people like you here, @wavygravygadzooks because we get some new ideas in.
It does seem like most "commonly accepted ideas" about VA get turned on their head here, though, LOL.
Do we know that it is true, this idea that VA has steroidal effects? I suppose it might explain why people use it on acne, or in antibiotic ointments.
BUT If VA has steroidal effects, then why is steroid cream the go-to medicine for VA-affected areas, like eczema? It seems to me that steroids reduce almost all bad effects of VA, (but of course, temporarily, with hell to pay later).
It seems to me that VA has the opposite of a steroid effect, LOL.
I think you could see steroid cream has having more powerful steroidal effects and so, when vitamin A does not get the job done anymore, steroids work because you don't need to convert them to steroids before they are effective. They are steroids.
Long term use of steroids is not recommended either, I don't remember exactly why though.
@sonia, organic white flour (here where I am) has no additives.
"Pure starch" actually sounds good to me, as I think the most important thing we get from food is calories. And most food is, in some way, toxic. I'm pretty sure that is why white rice is exalted in major portions of the world. (and white wheat too)
It seems to me that trying to apply "anti-inflamatory" properties to VA is really kind of convoluted at this stage of the game, if you agree with Grant's premise... But this is a strange world. 😉
Freshness does seem to be important for whole grains. I have a grain grinder, but rarely use it. When I used to make bread I would grind up spelt right then and there and the bread I made was lovely. I made a half and half (white and whole grain) sourdough. Price served extremely fresh whole-grain rolls in his experiments, as he considered fresh grains a good source of VE.
I think one of the problems with long-term steroid usage is that you become dependent.
BUT If VA has steroidal effects, then why is steroid cream the go-to medicine for VA-affected areas, like eczema?
VA by itself helps to reduce inflammation for many, maybe it stimulates one type of immune cells(humoral?) while suppressing others(innate?).
Steroidal effect is well defined, i believe i posted it somewhere here, even the comparison with typical steroids like prednisolone (they both suppress TLR receptors of the immune system).
VD also suppresses inflammation .. it would be interesting to compare the strength between VA and VD.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12230799/
Vitamin A also has a role as an anti-inflammatory agent. Supplementation with vitamin A has been found to be beneficial in a number of inflammatory conditions, including skin disorders such as acne vulgaris, broncho-pulmonary dysplasia and some forms of precancerous and cancer states.
Quote from lil chick on April 16, 2021, 6:34 am@sonia, organic white flour (here where I am) has no additives.
"Pure starch" actually sounds good to me, as I think the most important thing we get from food is calories. And most food is, in some way, toxic. I'm pretty sure that is why white rice is exalted in major portions of the world. (and white wheat too)
It seems to me that trying to apply "anti-inflamatory" properties to VA is really kind of convoluted at this stage of the game, if you agree with Grant's premise... But this is a strange world.
Freshness does seem to be important for whole grains. I have a grain grinder, but rarely use it. When I used to make bread I would grind up spelt right then and there and the bread I made was lovely. I made a half and half (white and whole grain) sourdough. Price served extremely fresh whole-grain rolls in his experiments, as he considered fresh grains a good source of VE.
I think one of the problems with long-term steroid usage is that you become dependent.
Unfortunately, that's not the case in Canada, organic, or not, it is mandatory to fortify it. I've been mostly gluten-free for a while, but recently put together that it's folic acid I'm sensitive to and that's in all fortified wheat products here. I'm hoping that the sifted flour will be closer to a white flour and that every one in my house will be fine with it. Oats were recently reintroduced with success.
You might be right that calories are most important. I know that not poisoning oneself is very important.
Quote from Orion on April 16, 2021, 11:44 am@sonia How much oats are you eating per day, I was thinking of adding them back in. I recently shifted to more white potatoes than rices.
About 1/2-1 cup a day for breakfast at the moment. I use them to make cookies or baked oatmeal mostly, one of my children is not a fan of oatmeal's mushy texture.
I also include rice and potatoes and will try unfortified wheat flour this coming week.
About 14 minutes into this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3CHsbNkr3c it shows a way to reduce arsenic in rice almost by half; you boil the rice in lots of water, then drain the water off. Apparently this is very common in India and other areas where the rice is high in arsenic, while in other areas you wash the rice first then you don't drain it. This video also is the first one I've seen that gives solid info on the enrichments they add to rice, and how they do it. Washing rice gets rid of those "enrichments" they don't have to mention on the label, unless you are in Costa Rica where they add the enrichments a different way that isn't so easy to get rid of.
Long time ago I read somewhere that the organic Thai Jasmin rice is the lowest in arsenic.
This is what I have been eating. My last hair test did not show any arsenic. I probably will do another one in a year or so just to see if there are any changes.