Can I get Jack’s take on non-gluten grains and beans?
Additional Details: I have been on a paleo diet for quite a while. I know Christa eats grains and beans, and I think Jack said he personally doesn't. After hearing him on a call talking about how all vegetables have "poisons" in them, and our bodies have adapted to get the good stuff from them, I am curious. I have heard this argument applied to the "anti-nutrients" in grains and beans by Christa and others.
(Jack) All foods have “poisons", meaning that all plants have chemical deterrents for virus, fungus, bacteria, molds, grazing animals, insects, etc. Our human bodies have adapted to "pot herbs", which refers to the plants at the grocery store that go into the soup pot or salad bowl. Thus our bodies live in symbiosis with food plants to which we've adapted. In the last 250 years, human beings have adapted to tomatoes, and thus only recently incorporated them into the food chain. Other plants have been found in petrified feces, and thus were in the human food chain 200,000 years ago.
NOW, beans— I just yesterday had a most wonderful bowl of soaked, ferment-exposed (during soaking) navy beans with a marvelous array of added veggies (carrots, celery) and spices (rosemary, bay, and secret recipe herbs). I’m just setting the record straight that I eat beans. The reason I do is because they work fine for me when:
- Organic
- Soaked with culture
- Sprouted a day
- Kombu added
- Low heat cooked (crock pot), and served plump and well-seasoned
However I don't do so well on grains, so I make tortillas out of almond flour (really yummy) and I make pizza with an almond flour crust, topped with fresh goat cheese and basil.
Here's the answer— you include as many foods that work for you as possible— a full and varied diet, non-inflammatory, non-allergenic. I don't like to follow what a book says, but I do follow my own book, The Pro-Vita Plan For Optimal Nutrition (not a pitch, just letting you know there's congruency and integrity). Diet becomes simply a matter of asking your two bosses, "What's right for me?" And your two bosses— your gut microbiome and your cells— will indeed "speak" to you via Nature's secret code of symptoms, energy, and well-being.