This is a picture of our refrigerator. More precisely, it is 25 pounds of meat, or 7 days worth of nourishment for me. With the help of my girls, this meat probably won't make it past day 5

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The following are two posts from the Heart Scan Blog on wheat addiction and its subsequent withdrawal. For most of you, giving up grains has and always will be super easy. For the rest of us, we struggle with withdrawal because of the addictive properties of wheat.

"I can't do it"

Anne sat across from me, bent over and sobbing.

"I can't do it. I just can't do it! I cut out the breads and pasta for two days, then I start dreaming about it!

"And my husband is no help. He knows I'm trying to get off the wheat. But then he brings home a bunch of Danish or something. He knows I can't help myself!"

Having asked hundreds of people to completely remove wheat from their diet, I witness 30% of them go through such emotional and physical turmoil, not uncommonly to the point of tears. For about 10-20% of people who try, it is as hard as quitting cigarettes.

Make no mistake about it: For many people, wheat is addictive. It meets all the criteria for an addictive product: People crave it, consuming it creates a desire for more, lacking it triggers a withdrawal phenomenon. If wheat were illegal, there would surely be an active underground trafficking illicit bagels and pretzels.

Withdrawal consists of fatigue and mental fogginess that usually lasts 5-7 days. Just like quitting smoking, wheat withdrawal is harmless but no less profound in severity.

People who lack an addictive relationship with wheat usually have no idea what I'm talking about. To them, wheat is simply a grain, no different than oats.

But wheat addicts immediately know who they are. They are the ones who can't resist the warm dinner rolls served at the Italian restaurant, need to include something made of wheat at every meal, and crave it every 2 hours (matching the cycle of blood sugar peaks and valleys, the "valley" triggering the craving). When they stop the flow of immediately-released glucose that comes from wheat (with blood sugar peaks that occur higher and faster than table sugar), irresistible cravings kick in. Then watch out: They'll bite your hand off if you reach for that roll before they do.

Break the cycle and the body is confused: Where's the sugar? The body is accustomed to receiving a constant flow of easily-digested sugars.

Once the constant influx of sugars ceases, it takes 5-7 days for metabolism to shift towards fat mobilization as a source of energy. But along with fat mobilization comes a shrinking tummy, reducing the characteristic wheat belly.

If you try to quit smoking, you've got "crutches" like nicotine patches and gum, Zyban, Chantix, hypnosis, and group therapy sessions. If you try and quit wheat, what have you got? Nothing, to my knowledge. Nothing but sheer will power to divorce yourself from this enormously destructive, diabetes-causing, small LDL-increasing, inflammation-provoking, and addictive substance.

Wheat withdrawal

It happens in the hospital every so often: A clean-cut, law-abiding person is hospitalized for, say, pneumonia, kidney stones, knee surgery, etc.

Everything's fine until . . . they're running down the hospital hallway stark naked, screaming about snakes on the wall, accusing nurses of trying to kill him, all while yanking out IV's and monitor patches.

It's called alcohol withdrawal. Alcohol withdrawal can range from tremulousness and sweatiness, all the way to delirium tremens, the full-blown form that leads to disorientation, seizures, fever, even death. Withdrawal can also be associated with a number of chronically used agents, such as sedatives/sleeping pills, pain medication/opiates, among others.

How about wheat?

I wouldn't have believed it, but after witnessing this effect countless times, I am convinced there is such a phenomenon: Wheat withdrawal.

You'll recognize it in someone who previously ate bread and other wheat flour-containing products freely, then eliminates them. This is followed by extreme cravings, usually for bread, cookies, or cake; profound fatigue; shakiness; mental fogginess; blue moods. The syndrome can last for up to one week.

Then, bam! Sufferers of wheat withdrawal report mental clarity superior to their wheat-crazed days, improved energy, decreased appetite and cravings, heightened mood, and, of course, fantastic drops in weight.

Why would removal of wheat from the diet trigger a withdrawal phenomenon? I can only speculate, but I believe that at least part of this response is due to a physical conversion from a glycogen (sugar)-burning metabolism to that of a fatty acid (fat mobilizing) metabolism. People who lived in the up-and-down cycle of craving and eating wheat constantly fed the sugar furnace for years and are enzymatically impaired in fat burning; they've been growing fat stores. Eliminating wheat deprives the body of this easy source of glycogen, forcing it to mobilize fatty acids in the fatty tissues. Sluggish at first, people feel fatigue, mental fogginess, etc. Once the enzymatic capacity for fat mobilization revs up, then these feelings dissipate.

Could it also relate to the opioid sequences apparently present in wheat? I wasn't even aware of this fact until a reader of The Heart Scan Blog, Anne, left this comment:

Wheat protein contains a number of opiod peptides which can be released during digestion. Some of these are thought to affect the central and peripheral nervous systems.

When I gave up gluten, I felt much worse for a few days. This is a very common reaction in those who stop eating gluten cold turkey.

Dr. BG provides a fascinating commentary on the addictive/opioid aspect of wheat addictions in her Animal Pharm Blog.

Whatever the mechanism, I believe it is a real phenomenon. It can, at times, be so overwhelming that about 20% of people who try to eliminate wheat find they are simply unable to do it without being incapacitated. Of course, that might be a lesson in itself: If withdrawal is so profound, it hints that there must be something very peculiar going on in the first place.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t0L8WAkfVE[/youtube]

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I first came across Greg and Nikki a few years back on the CrossFit and Performance Menu forums. They were two of the people from whom I originally learned about the Paleo Diet. Here is an excerpt from a recent interview Nikki conducted of Greg:

Q.
The paleo diet has been shown to consist of foods which promote good health, while eliminating foods which do the opposite. However, is there a way someone could go 'wrong' when following the paleo diet to an extent that it would play negative effects on their health?

A.
Yes, and I'm glad you brought this up because I think it is an important issue to touch on. One of the things that I commonly see with people who think they're eating paleo is that they tend to assume that just because a food could have been attained in nature that it can and should be consumed in unlimited amounts. For example, when I first started eating paleo I ate nuts as my staple source of calories. I loved the taste of them and they filled me up quickly.

At first I felt great, probably because I eliminated all bad foods from my diet, but eventually I started getting some serious digestive disturbances. I eventually started to feel sick and lethargic after eating nuts. The reality is that it is hard to obtain large amounts of nuts in nature because it is very labor intensive and the nut intake of our paleo ancestors was probably not very high because of this. Nuts also contain protease inhibitors, which can interfere with digestion. A good way to reduce this effect is to soak the nuts in water over night and then dehydrate them (if they stay wet they'll grow mold).

You could also run into problems with a very high fruit intake. I have nothing against fruit and I eat quite a bit of it myself, especially during the summer months. However, modern varieties of fruit have been selectively bred over the years to contain much more sugar than wild varieties, and can cause some problems with insulin resistance when consumed in large amounts.

I would also advise people to keep their consumption of paleo deserts to a minimum. Some assume that just because a food has more natural ingredients that they can consume it in unlimited amounts with no consequences just because it's "paleo".

A good example is almond cookies. They contain butter, almond meal, and honey all in one snack.

Sure, they lack the anti-nutrients found in regular cookies and have a greater nutrient density, but when you combine large amounts of fat (from butter and almonds) with sugar (from honey) you're setting yourself up for fat gain. Not to mention that paleo deserts tend to also be quite high in calories. That said, I would save paleo treats for special occasions, which is completely acceptable and is obviously better than snacking on regular sugar/trans fat laden cookies.

About Nikki and Greg

Nikki Young is the founder of Feed the Fitness and the author of The Paleo Cookbook.
Greg Battaglia is a certified Level I CrossFit trainer and a dietetics student at Immaculata University.

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Mark Sisson, from Mark's Daily Apple, recently posted about saturated fat. Check it out: Mark's Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat

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Bottom Line

Asking me to recommend a sweetener, natural, alternative, artificial, or otherwise, would be like asking me to choose between burning the roof of my mouth on pizza or poking myself in the eye with a fork. There is no good option (ask Coach Rip). Sugar is sugar is sugar is sugar. Along with trans fats, sugar is the worst thing you can put in your body. Not only does it make you fat, but it wrecks you from the inside out with a myriad of different diseases.

Even fruit is no longer “natural”. Farmers have been genetically selecting and breeding fruit over the years to produce the sweetest fruits possible. Fruit from the past was never even close to as sweet as it is today. A raspberry before the agricultural era would have been much smaller in size and very bitter in taste compared to today’s.

If you absolutely must have a sweetener of some kind, then at least use the least processed. This means using raw honey or evaporated cane juice.

Here is a chart listing the sugar content of fruits and other foods: Table of Fruits and Sugars

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Hmm, maybe I'll just try to outsmart Mother Nature?

Now, I know what some of you are think, “I’ll avoid the pitfalls of sugar consumption by using artificial sweeteners instead.” I compare this line of thinking to the whole butter vs margarine debate or the removing of “unhealthy” yolk from eggs. People are wrongfully taught to be scared of saturated fat so they turn to a truly deadly manmade substitute instead.

Artificial sweeteners also generate a false sense of security amongst its users. Health concerns aside, artificial sweeteners may actually contribute to weight gain. Sure, artificial sweeteners are non-caloric, but they still stimulate the sweet receptors of your tongue. This in turn signals the body to prepare for sugar so the pancreas begins to secrete insulin. Your blood glucose level was at fasting levels before this surge of insulin and will now plummet to lower than normal levels. This will put you in a hypoglycemic state and you will crave more sugar and more than likely overeat while drinking that diet soda.

With those thoughts in mind, let’s take a look at your options:

Saccharine (Sweet ‘n Low)

This one was an original in the artificial sweetener game. It consists of an organic molecule made from petroleum. Animal studies conducted during the 1970s showed saccharine to cause cancer of the bladder, skin, uterus and overies, among other organs. Due to these findings, the USDA moved to ban saccharine, but a deal was struck. Instead, food products could contain saccharine as long as a label, warning against the possible cause of cancer, was used. In 2000, this requirement was removed. To this day, the true risk is still unknown. However, it is known now that saccharine does indeed cross the placenta during human pregnancy.

Aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal)

To create aspartame, one must combine two amino acids, phenlalanine and aspartic acid, with methanol. Women who are pregnant and individuals with liver disease or the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) may have an inability to metabolize phenylalanine. This is a problem because high levels can result in brain damage. This is why an FDA-mandated warning exists on the packaging.

Also of note is that aspartame, like MSG, is thought to be an excitotoxin. That is, a compound that overstimulates nerve cells in the brain until they die. Thus, each serving of aspartame has the potential to cause a little bit of brain damage. This damage can accumulate over time and eventually lead to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or some other neurological disease.
Sucralose (Splenda, etc.)

Sucralose starts out as sugar, but turns into something that has 600 times the sweetening kick that sugar does. This is accomplished through chemically adjusting sugar by swapping three hydrogen-oxygen groups with three chlorine molecules. This results in a non-caloric sweetener that you are unable to metabolize.

Relatively new to the scene, there have still been reports of some people experiencing allergic reactions from sucralose containing products.

Stevia

OK, so stevia is herb-based, making it an alternative to sugar and not an artificial sweetener, but I had nowhere else to touch on it. Stevia is similar to the artificial group only in that it is non-caloric. Like sucralose, it packs a very powerful punch. A few drops of liquid stevia have about the same sweetening power as an entire cup of sugar.

Stevia is currently banned in the US, Canada, European Union, Hong Kong, and China. Toxicologists claim that stevia consumption may cause reproductive problems, cancer, or even metabolism disruptions. More specifically, males may experience reduced sperm production, lighter seminal vesicles, and increased cell proliferation in the testicles while females may experience fewer and smaller offspring. Cancer concerns arise from the metabolizing of stevia which may produce a mutagenic compound. As for the metabolism concerns, stevia may interfere with your body’s absorption of carbohydrates and disrupt the conversion of food into energy.

Stevia is currently sold in the US as a dietary supplement. This is because stevia has the potential to interfere with your body’s absorption of carbohydrates and disrupt the conversion of food into energy. You can see how this would be popular amongst people looking to lose weight. This becomes a major concern though if it were to be used in such things as diet pop because children would also be put at risk.

Stay tuned for part 7 where we will wrap this all up.

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