In the current renegade nutrition climate, “Healthy, Whole Grains” often seems like an oxymoron. We owe that to the rise of gluten intolerance as well as the number of people who find improved health through ditching grains altogether. Yet, many traditional food cultures around the world have successfully incorporated grains into their diets without any ill effects at all. These people remain just as robust as ever, just as free of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. How is this even possible?

I think of grain-free diets the same way that I think of a high raw food diet — helpful for particular kinds of healing, but not the be-all-end-all-diet-for-optimum-health. In other words, some people with particular kinds of hormonal imbalances or damaged gut flora will benefit greatly from removing grains from their diet altogether. But, as most people on the grain-free GAPS Diet have found, these same people can return to eating properly prepared grains once they’ve effectively been healed.

The key words here are “properly prepared” — grains that are prepared via sprouting or fermentation (like a traditional sourdough).