[PostOnce]

Humans are very much equipped to eat grains, we built agriculture, and thus the whole of civilization, on top of cereal grains like rice, wheat, and corn. Grains are the staples of most cultures.

What are you talking about? Some hand-wavy paleo theory that isn't scalable?

[DoreenMichele]

Eh, some folks sincerely believe that grains need to be consumed as sprouts or (some other mitigating form) because the phytic acid or whatever is hard on the digestive tract.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they're not edible, but criticism of grains doesn't seem like outright crazy talk either.

[PostOnce]

"Some folks" sincerely believe vaccines cause autism. "Some folks" believe the earth is flat.

I don't care what "some folks" beliefs are, I care about the ground truth.

It doesn't take a lot of equipment to deduce that billions of people eating grains consistently over the course of millenia means that people are in fact well equipped to eat grains.

[jodrellblank]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809873/

"Bread and Other Edible Agents of Mental Disease

how cereal grains—the world’s most abundant food source—can affect human behavior and mental health. We present the implications for the psychological sciences of the findings that, in all of us, bread (1) makes the gut more permeable and can thus encourage the migration of food particles to sites where they are not expected, prompting the immune system to attack both these particles and brain-relevant substances that resemble them, and (2) releases opioid-like compounds, capable of causing mental derangement if they make it to the brain. A grain-free diet, although difficult to maintain (especially for those that need it the most), could improve the mental health of many and be a complete cure for others."

[DoreenMichele]

The truth is we are only just now beginning to understand the impact of food on health and we have tons more to learn.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

[PostOnce]

I provided some evidence (billions of people have been eating many kinds of grains since the dawn of agriculture).

The Semmelweis effect is regarding rejecting new evidence -- and yet you provide no evidence, while dismissing mine.

Perhaps you should question your beliefs.

[mycelium]

One counter-argument to agriculture is Jared Diamond's classic article: "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race"

http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in...

[PostOnce]

His counterpoint appears to apply only to individuals and small bands; without density we never achieve industry, which brings us, well, the modern world and all its medicine, internet, refrigeration ... satellite-based forewarning of enormous storms and time to prepare against those and other existential threats to large areas.

People live to be 100 and happy and productive on largely grain-based diets, not thanks to the grain, but thanks to the modern world it allows. Pre-grain, we didn't live so long.

On balance I think grains are a no-brainer. Maybe there is some extraordinarily minor benefit to the individual not to eat grains, but, obviously, in light of the past 10,000 years of history, grains are fine for you and will keep you both alive and happy.