| Food & Diet
The Oat Myth: Do Not Eat This Grain...
By Jayton Miller
If you’re concerned about consuming excess estrogens and other endocrine disruptors, carcinogenic rancid toxins, and mineral chelators that cause micronutrient deficiencies, then you may want to take oats out of your diet.
Oats contain large amounts of estrogens proven to promote estrogenic activity in the body, compounds that suppress reproductive hormone production, and they contain large amounts of the notorious mineral chelator phytic acid.
In today’s article, I will explore the evidence showing this reality, and by the end of this you will understand how your body will be so much healthier when you stop eating oats.
Key Takeaways:
What Does “Good Health” Mean?:
First off, it’s important to identify what it means by the word and the idea of “Good Health.” At UMZU we view health in the human body from a systemic view. In doing so, we see the body as one whole system that operates optimally only when two major conditions are met:
- Micronutrient Balance - All micronutrient deficiencies are corrected (therefore, anything that causes micronutrient deficiencies would be anti-health)
- Hormonal Balance - The body is hormonally balanced. Meaning the stress hormones (like cortisol, estrogen, prolactin, and SHBG) are low, while protective hormones like all of the reproductive hormones and thyroid hormones are high. The balance of the ratios of stress to protective hormones are absolutely essential for health in the body. (Therefore anything that causes hormonal imbalance and endocrine disruption is considered unhealthy).
Read More: What Does It Mean To Be Healthy
If anybody disagrees that the body does not need adequate micronutrient levels to operate properly, or that the body should have higher stress hormones and low reproductive hormones, well, then it’s understandable that they’d disagree with the UMZU philosophy. I wish them the best of luck in attempting to live a long, healthy life.
But if you agree with me, that the body needs sufficient raw material from vitamins and minerals to operate properly without deficiencies, and that it should exist in a state of hormonal balance, then you’ll naturally follow my logic as to what is healthy for the body, and what is NOT.
Under this definition, Oats are considered a food to avoid.
Let’s dive in…
Phytic Acid In Oats?:
The phytic acid in oats (and many other foods like nuts and seeds) is a powerful mineral chelator meaning that it attaches to minerals that have the opposite charge. It has a strong attraction to multivalent metal ions in particular like zinc, calcium, iron, and more.
By having these properties phytic acid can cause the formation of insoluble compounds that cannot be digested and causes the minerals that are present within the plants it is in to become poorly bioavailable for the human body.
Phytic acid even has the potential to deactivate certain enzymes in the digestive tract such as pepsin, causing the body’s ability to properly break down foods and absorb the vitamins and minerals within those foods to be hindered.
Phytic acid also has the ability to damage cell membranes, causing damage to the cells within the digestive tract and leading to a less optimal functioning digestive system even at the cellular level (this might be another reason oats can cause constipation in some people).
Read More: The War On Micronutrients | The Battle You Never Knew You Were Fighting
What Are The Health Effects Of Oats?:
Oats are claimed to be healthy because they are high in fiber and they have the ability to lower cholesterol, but when you take a deeper look at the hormonal effects that oats have on the human body the healthiness of oats becomes more of a fallacy.
Cholesterol is one of the primary components that is used to make steroid hormones such as testosterone inside of the body. When you take steps to lower your cholesterol too much you begin to take a hit at the amount of steroid hormones that are able to be produced, causing a lowering of total steroidogenesis (the making of endogenous steroid hormones).
If you want to learn more about the misconception of cholesterol I recommend checking out this article.
Oats have been shown in several studies to have a negative impact on all male reproductive parameters including testosterone and spermatogenesis. It is no wonder that the average males testosterone levels have been declining by about 1% every single year since the 1980’s! Doctors, dietitians, and nutrition “experts” have been recommending foods such as oats to men for decades with no consideration for what these foods might be doing to their endocrine health.
Beta-glucan is yet another compound that is found in oats that can effectively lower testosterone and dht levels (the two primary hormones responsible for male reproductive health.
This isn’t just specific to men though, this study showed that an oat based diet in human women effectively increased estradiol almost doubling the estradiol measurements of some women in the study.
Note* - Although higher levels of estrogen are typically needed for women compared to men, having estrogen levels that are too high is also a very unhealthy thing for women as it is men.
All of the naturally occurring chemicals aside in this food the processing of oats has been shown to be just as chemically loaded if not more. This study shows a range of alcohols, aldehydes, alkyl benzenes, dienes, and ketones was identified in the processed samples.
If you want to learn the principles behind eating a diet to achieve both micronutrient and hormonal balance then make sure to check out our Thermo Diet program! The Thermo Diet teaches you everything you need to know about what's actually in your food and hows its effecting your body. Stop taking your health for granted and come join the Thermo Diet today!
Conclusion:
Overall oats are not meant for human consumption, and getting them out of your diet, along with any other endocrine disrupting foods like soy and polyunsaturated fats, is going to make a massive impact on your health. We need to begin to start thinking for ourselves and not blindly taking the advice of authoritarians without thoroughly questioning the WHY behind things.
Cheers to your health.
