How do antinutrients protect grains? page

[Greenbean]

I can't figure this out. OK, so grains like wheat don't want to be eaten, so they have antinutrients. If they actually don't want to be eaten, why don't they have poisons? It seems like the antinutrients they defend themselves with can have effects that could take decades to "take down" the wheat's predator. For antinutrients to have an actual detrimental effect that would discourage further eating of wheat seems like a plan that requires thousands of years to play out until the wheat-eater's species has succumbed to degenerative diseases to the point of not being able to reproduce anymore. Only then will the wheat have "won."

I can understand that maybe the antinutrients exist for some other reason and coincidentally affect us badly, but I can't get the idea that they exist because the grain doesn't want to be eaten straight in my mind.

[jojohaligo]

It seems like the antinutrients they defend themselves with can have effects that could take decades to "take down" the wheat's predator. For antinutrients to have an actual detrimental effect that would discourage further eating of wheat seems like a plan that requires thousands of years to play out until the wheat-eater's species has succumbed to degenerative diseases to the point of not being able to reproduce anymore. Only then will the wheat have "won."

I might misunderstand what you are saying here, but isn't that what is happening now? The grain is winning, and we are losing?

[Greenbean]

Yes, but nature seems to work much more quickly than that. Like having plants that are poisonous. Why isn't wheat simply poisonous? I am finding this difficult to articulate.

[mom5booklover]

It's not that they don't want to EVER be eaten as thats pretty much how most plants reproduce. They want to be eaten WHOLE so that they can seed and sprout and reproduce somewhere else (through animals fecal matter). They don't want to be ground to a fine powder, cooked, and then eaten so over time they are fighting back. Of course who would want to eat wheat in it's whole form? Not to mention I think it is actually really poisonous to humans. Someone who understands it a little better can tell you more but I had to chime in because to me it makes total sense. All I know is when I was younger I could eat bread, noodles, you name it with not a care in the world, now my body says............uh no...aint gonna happen So I don't eat any grains or any legumes as PB makes total sense to me.

[jojohaligo]

All I know is when I was younger I could eat bread, noodles, you name it with not a care in the world, now my body says............uh no...aint gonna happen

Me too. Major bloating and discomfort.

[Kinnell]

I think I read somewhere that the anti-nutrients were involved in preventing the seed from sprouting too early, i.e. when the right conditions arise, the anti-nutrients are removed by some process and the nutrients are used by the seed to sprout. I could be way off the mark here though

[Paleobird]

Wheat will make you very sick if you try to eat in raw off the stalk. We manage to make it edible by drying, grinding, fermenting, sprouting, baking, and all the other processing we do to it.

If something needs that much processing just to be edible at all, kinda makes you think that it is not a good idea to eat it in the first place.

[BennettC]

Wheat will make you very sick if you try to eat in raw off the stalk. We manage to make it edible by drying, grinding, fermenting, sprouting, baking, and all the other processing we do to it.

If something needs that much processing just to be edible at all, kinda makes you think that it is not a good idea to eat it in the first place.

damnit where is the like button!

[Greenbean]

Thank you all for your help. Paleobird, ok, that makes total sense. What you said got me straightened me out. That's a good way to judge foods, by the amount of processing they require in order to be edible.

[Paleobird]

Thank you all for your help. Paleobird, ok, that makes total sense. What you said got me straightened me out. That's a good way to judge foods, by the amount of processing they require in order to be edible.

Yes, this is the ultimate test when you are considering , "Is <x food> Primal or not?" Ask yourself the question, "Could I eat this straight up raw, right off the tree, vine, ground, whatever?" Even meat and fish and eggs are perfectly edible raw. That doesn't mean you have to eat them that way. Indeed there are some health benefits to cooking some foods in that it makes the nutrients more bio-avaliable. But you could eat a string bean raw, or sushi, or steak tartare. These are Primal foods.