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Nutrition Heresy №1: Avoid Wholegrains if You Care About Your Health

If you eat wholegrains don’t expect any health benefits. There, I said it

Maria Cross
6 min readJul 18, 2024
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I’ll go even further and say that if you base your diet on wholegrains, you might experience some gut problems. You might also experience blood sugar issues along with protein, vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Don’t expect to live longer, either, because wholegrains are said to be the stars of the Blue Zones diet. Or is it the Mediterranean diet? Because neither diet actually exists in the real world. They exist only in books and articles.

Despite this, you’ll find plenty of guidelines urging you to fill your plate with these rarely spotted wholegrains.

How did it come to this?

Misguided by guidelines

In March 2016, Public Health England launched its revised Eatwell Guide, the most recent incarnation of guidelines that began life as the Balance of Good Health in 1994, then became the Eatwell Plate in 2007, before settling into its current identity as the Eatwell Guide. The plate has now gone, but the message remains very much the same.

If you were to follow the Eatwell Guide, you would:

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Maria Cross
Maria Cross

Written by Maria Cross

MSc. Registered nutritionist, specialising in gut and mental health. OUT NOW! My new book, How to Feed Your Brain. mariacrossnutrition @mariacross

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