Choosing refined grains such as White bread, rolls, white rice, cakes, cookies, or white pasta over whole grains can boost your heart attack risk. Everything prepared with refined products lacks nutritional values and is harmful to the health.
You’ve got to be a savvy shopper, don’t be deceived by label claims such as made with wheat flour or seven grain. Or even by breads which are made with white flour and topped with sesame seeds, or oats etc…. or colored brown with Molasses. They are all just same old refined grains that raises risk for high cholesterol, blood pressure, heart attacks, diabetes and belly fat. If you have been trying to reduce your belly and still using refined grains you are not helping yourself at all.
Many studies have shown that women and men who eat more whole grains such as breads made with whole wheat, whole grains cereals, popcorn, cooked oatmeal, brown rice, bran, etc… have less trouble of heart disease. So, if you want to be healthy together with your family go for whole grains.
It is wise to read the ingredients list on packaged grain products, if the first ingredient is whole wheat or any other whole grain then that is the best to buy for your family.
This is how a grain is refined. The bran (fiber-rich outer layer) and the germ (the nutrient-rich inner part) of the grain are removed during the milling process. Only the endosperm (middle part) remains. This process makes the grains easier to use in cooking, but gone are many B vitamins, iron, vitamin E, fiber, and other disease-fighting components.
Here the example of refined grain product: white bread, white flour products, pasta, crackers, white rice, corn flakes cereal. Some refine grains products are of course enriched, which means that some of the nutrients are added back. However enriched does not restore insoluble fiber and other nutrients that are lost during milling process.
I want you to imagine for a moment!!!! Let’s say you were walking in town and someone come behind you and steal your 20 dollars!!!! He goes with it and starts spending it but his conscious is not at ease. After he has spent about 15 dollars he decides to come back and give you the rest. There he comes and explains everything to you and give you the rest 5 dollars. How would you feel? It is the same thing that happens with refined grains, they take more from you and give you back just very little artificial nutrients. You see how much you lose. The choice is yours. They don’t care about your health.
Here is why whole grains are more wholesome: they contain the bran, the endosperm, and the germ. Because they have not gone through the refining process, they are good sources of fiber, B vitamins, iron, zinc, magnesium, etc… They also contain plant chemicals called phytochemicals which are believed to have many health-promoting effects.
Here is what whole grains can help you with in the physical problems: constipation, hemorrhoids, low cholesterol levels and decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease. Reduce the risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes. They also increase the absorption of nutrients, because they take long to digest.
The table as killed many more than the war. What kills people today more is what goes unto their stomach. Being healthy does not come by chance, you need to choose to be healthy. It’s a choice you have to make. Make a good choice in choosing whole grains over refined ones. Those people don’t care about your health but their businesses. Diseases listed above are diseases that as health reformers should not complain about. If you are still troubled by such diseases don’t trouble God in prayer, trouble your appetite and your taste. Learn to say no to food that brings diseases, learn to put simple wholesome meals on the table for your family. Especially as mothers, the health of our families depends very much on us. So, let us fear God while in the kitchen. You might be cooking death for your family without knowing.
One fascinating study was done on chickens to determine the effects of refining on health and development. “Three groups of chickens were fed diets as follow:
1) 100% whole wheat flour,
2) enriched white flour,
3) unenriched
White flour. The effect of the reduction in B-vitamins caused the third group of chicks to die in five days. Those fed brown flour and enriched flour both feathered out and gained weight in a normal fashion. The first group having only
the barest detectable difference in five days, the advantage being in favor of the brown flour group. Although the chicks in both groups were about the same weight and feathered about the same, the chicks fed the enriched white flour had a high-pitched, rapid chirp. They were untidy in their cage, stepping in the water, then in the flour, making ‘boots’ for their feet. The chicks were high-strung and nervous, often pecking each other, or jittering together in one corner of the cage, if a slight noise frightened them. We can conclude that plumpness and condition of skin, hair, or feathers are not the only criteria to be used to determine the adequacy of a diet. Cheerfulness, self-control, order, mental efficiency, and productivity all count in this determination.
May God richly bless you and give you good health.
