by Melissa Diane Smith

A key part of my message for more than a decade has been to encourage people to eat further against the grain than they are accustomed to or even than they think they should. If you stop and think about it, reducing or avoiding grains in one’s diet and eating more vegetables in their place is really eating more of a Paleolithic (or Stone Age hunter/gatherer) diet. A good portion of the clients I counsel gradually adopts this diet or goes more and more that way as time goes on, especially when dealing with serious health conditions.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

Do you eat gluten free, but gain weight or end up feeling not well during the holiday season? If so, consider this: There’s a little-known secret to enjoying the holidays with health, energy and no weight gain: Eating against the grain. Preparing low-grain foods and even no-grain foods may be unknown to most people (even many people who eat gluten-free). But it is an overlooked strategy for making delicious holiday meals quicker, easier and with far less fuss.

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A follow-up to my previous post: Improvement in a wide range of health indicators was documented in nine sedentary, non-obese people with no known health problems who ate a grain-free, dairy-free, hunter-gatherer-type diet for ten days. These people were supposedly healthy to begin with, but they still, on average, saw these large improvements in health:

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Many people want to know more specifics about my new holiday E-book, such as what type of flour and sweeteners I use in my recipes. Rather than answer people individually, I decided to put the most common questions I have been receiving and my answers in this Q&A interview in case you were wondering about these questions, too.

Q. How is your book different from other cookbooks?

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Copy from the Back Cover of the Book:

There’s a little-known secret to enjoying the holidays with health, energy and no weight gain: Eating against the grain. Preparing low- to no-grain foods may be unknown to most people but it is an overlooked strategy for making delicious holiday meals quicker, easier and with far less fuss.

In Healthier Holidays Going Against the Grain, nutritionist Melissa Diane Smith offers 135 simple tips and 25 original recipes that can help people who eat any of the following diets:

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If you like the against-the-grain information you receive in Nutrition News and Notes but are hungry for more, join the Going Against the Grain Group! By not yet being a member, here are topics you’ve missed:

How to Spring Clean Your Diet

Creative Vegetable Ideas

Eating Further Against the Grain — when a gluten-free diet isn’t therapeutic enough

Baking with Coconut Flour

Eating Gluten Free in Restaurants

Summer Vacation from Cooking

More Summertime Strategies

Recipes, including Filet of Sole Florentine, Greek Halibut, Cool Noodle Tabouli for One, and Banana Coconut Muffins

Helpful Convenience Products from Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and more

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A reader from Canada wrote me to let me know about a post she wrote today on the Sjogren’s World Community Forum. She told me that my Going Against the Grain book helped her and that eating completely against the grain proved to be the answer to greatly improve many symptoms she was experiencing.

Sjogren’s disease is an autoimmune disorder characterized by dry eyes and a dry mouth. It also can be a more systemic disease, affecting many organs and involving connective tissue disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erthematosus or scleroderma.

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