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10 Reasons To NOT EAT WHITE BREAD
Beth M. Ley, Ph.D.

Bread has been a dietary staple since the early days of the Bible. When the Israelites had no food in the desert, God provided them with manna. Unfortunately, since then, man has totally corrupted BREAD from they way God originally intended. Note the following pertinent scriptures and how they relate to the way GOD wants us to eat.

Gen 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

(Whole foods fill you up and satisfy you - processed foods you can eat and eat and still crave more!) When fiber is removed foods are much less filling and we tend to eat more - which means more calories and more weight!

After the flood, God preserved all clean animals (as most vegetation was destroyed in the food) for us to eat and said, Gen. 9:3-4 Every living thing that lives shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things - but the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Living foods are perishable. The foods that God gave us to eat are all perishable - even if you cook them and refrigerate them, they have a relatively short shelf life.

I have a problem with Low-carb / No-grain diets Many popular “diets” today recommend elimination or restriction of grains and grain products usually for the purpose of losing weight.. For long term health... this is NOT God’s plan. Actually, I am not a FAN of “diets” in general as unless it is a DIET that is something you can live off of, after you go off the diet, your health problems - excess weight, etc. will return.God intended BREAD (made primarily of grains) to be a staple in our diet.

Exodus 16:15 And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.

Ezekiel 4:9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and fitches (spelt), and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according]to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. This was the only food he ate for over a year.

The problem with bread today....

1. Grains the way God made them are highly nutritious. Processing strips the nutritional value down to nothing... 90 and even 100% of some nutrients is lost. When grown in well-nourished, fertile soil, whole wheat is rich in complex carbohydrates, vitamin E and B complex, many minerals, including calcium and iron, as well as omega-3 fatty acids, fiber and protein. Proper growing and milling methods are necessary to preserve these nutrients and prevent rancidity. Unfortunately, due to contemporary farming and processing of modern wheat, the end result is so far from the original that many people have become intolerant or even allergic to this once-nourishing grain. These indiscretions include depletion of the soil through the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals, high-heat milling, refining and improper preparation, such as extrusion.

2. The chemicals added are carcinogenic and lower our resistance to other diseases. Although all these chemicals are approved for use and considered safe, we are wise to reduce their exposure as much as possible. Besides contributing to the overall toxic load in our bodies, these chemicals increase our susceptibility to neurotoxic diseases as well as to conditions like cancer.

3. Many of these pesticides function as xeno-estrogens, foreign estrogen that can reap havoc with our hormone balance and may be a contributing factor to a number of health conditions. For example, researchers speculate these estrogen-mimicking chemicals are one of the contributing factors to boys and girls entering puberty at earlier and earlier ages. They have also been linked to infertility, abnormalities and hormone-related cancers including fibrocystic breast disease, breast cancer and endometriosis.

4. Farmers apply hormone-like substances or “plant growth regulators” (such as Cycocel) that affect wheat characteristics, such as time of germination and strength of stalk. These hormones are either “natural,” that is, extracted from other plants, or synthetic. There is substantial evidence about the dangers of increasing our intake of these hormone-like substances.

5. Chemicals Used in Storage. Chemical offenses don’t stop after the growing process. The long storage of grains makes them vulnerable to a number of critters. Before commercial grain is even stored, the collection bins are sprayed with insecticide, inside and out. More chemicals are added while the bin is filled. These so-called “protectants” are then added to the upper surface of the grain as well as four inches deep into the grain to protect against damage from moths and other insects entering from the top of the bin. The list of various chemicals used includes chlorpyrifos-methyl, diatomaceous earth, bacillus thuringiensis, cy-fluthrin, malathion and pyrethrins. Often, grains are fumigated to “maintain a toxic concentration of gas long enough to kill the target pest population.” The toxic chemicals penetrate the entire storage facility as well as the grains being treated. Two of the fumigants used include methyl bromide and phosphine-producing materials, such as magnesium phosphide or aluminum phosphide.

6. High Heat is a serious problem that results from the artificial drying of damp grain at high temperatures. Overheating kills all enzymatic activity, causes denaturing of the protein and can also partially cook the protein, ruining the flour’s baking properties and nutritional value.

7. Milling and Processing. A grain kernel is comprised of three layers: the bran, the germ and the endosperm. The bran is the outside layer where most of the fiber exists. The germ is the inside layer where many nutrients and essential fatty acids are found. The endosperm is the starchy middle layer. The high nutrient density associated with grains exists only when these three are intact. The term whole grain refers to the grain before it has been milled into flour. It was not until the late nineteenth century that white bread, biscuits, and cakes made from white flour and sugars became mainstays in the diets of industrialized nations, and these products were only made possible with the invention of high-speed milling machines. The unmistakable consequences of these dietary changes not only resulted in tooth decay, but problems with fertility, mental health and disease progression.

Flour was originally produced by grinding grains between large stones. The final product, 100 percent stone-ground whole-wheat flour, contained everything that was in the grain, including the germ, fiber, starch and a wide variety of vitamins and minerals. Without refrigeration or chemical preservatives, fresh stone-ground flour spoils quickly. After wheat has been ground, natural wheat-germ oil becomes rancid so refrigeration of whole grain breads and flours is necessary.

For mass-production, the industry uses high-speed, steel roller mills that eject the germ and the bran. Much of this “waste product” (the most nutritious part of the grain) is eliminated. The resulting white flour contains only a fraction of the nutrients of the original grain. Even whole wheat flour is compromised during the modern milling process. High-speed mills reach 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and this heat destroys vital nutrients and creates rancidity in the bran and the germ. Vitamin E in the germ is destroyed--a real tragedy because whole wheat used to be our most readily available source of vitamin E.

8. Diabetes, heart disease, elevated triglycerides, cholesterol and obesity.. are just a few of the health problems associated with our high intake of refined grain products. The conversion of the complex carbohydrates natural found in whole grains to simple carbohydrates, lacking fiber, proper minerals and essential fatty acids needed for the body to metabolize these carbohydrates correctly.

9. Literally dozens of dough conditioners and preservatives go into modern bread, as well as toxic ingredients like partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (containing transfatty acids which are also carconogenic). The extrusion process, used to make cold breakfast cereals and puffed grains, adds insult to injury with high temperatures and high pressures that create additional toxic components and further destroy nutrients--even the synthetic vitamins that are added to replace the ones destroyed by refinement and milling.

10. People have become accustomed to the mass-produced, gooey, devitalized, and nutritionally deficient breads and baked goods and have little to no idea of how real bread should taste. Chemical preservatives allow bread to be shipped long distances and to remain on the shelf for many days without spoiling and without refrigeration.

What to Eat Instead:

Click here for the link to the recipe that God gave Ezekiel for him to eat for over a year. This was his only food.

References:

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