10 Wednesday 27th October, 2010 The Island Features white flour and are at high risk for dia- betes. If you can't handle the taste of natural garlic, you can take it in widely available supplements. Aloe vera [Komarika] is also a traditional diabetic remedy in the Unani system of Arabian medicine, and its thera- peutic characteristics are now gaining worldwide acceptance in the treatment of diabetes. According to both human and animal research studies, aloe vera lowers blood glucose levels by a mechanism that’s still unclear to researchers. According to the Clinicians Handbook of Natural Healing, this natural hypoglycemic effect extends to over a period of 24 hours. Adding onions to your diet (along with gar- lic and cinnamon) can also significantly reduce your blood sugar level. Additionally, according to the book: The Healing Power of Herbs, studies have demonstrated that ginseng controls blood glucose in both dia- betic humans and diabetic laboratory ani- mals. It all comes down to asking if putting yourself at risk for diabetic coma, blind- ness, limb amputation and death is it worth eating white bread. If you're willing to risk your quality-of-life and your life itself, then go ahead and eat all the foods made with refined white flour you want. However, if you want to stop poisoning yourself with alloxan, a known toxic chem- ical, then make a few simple dietary changes. Eat groceries made with whole- grain wheat flour and other acceptable and more nutritious substitutes, not processed wheat (white) flour. What you have read so far are the unvar- nished facts about the effects of eating refined wheat (white) flour products, the most common and widespread of which is bread. Looked at in the light of these facts, the price increase should be consid- ered a ‘blessing in disguise’ even though it is so very inconvenient to change long- standing dietary habits. The options, in our particular context, are acceptable substitutes made of: BY J.B. MÜLLER 1.Whole wheat flour 2.Black gram (Undu/ulundhu) flour istorically,bread is one of humani- 3.Chickpea (Konda-kadala) flour ty’s earliest and most important 4.Corn (Maize) flour Hfoods, basically consisting of baked 5.Finger Millet (Kurakkan) flour dough—a mixture of flour and water. In 6.Green gram (Moong-ata) flour Westernized,developed societies world- 7.Manioc (precooked) flour wide, wheat flour is most commonly used 8.Indian Millet (Meneri) flour and the dough is leavened using yeast. In 9.Soya bean flour making bread, the chosen blend of flour is 10.Unpolished or brown rice flour mixed with water, yeast, shortening, salt It is now up to the Private Sector, espe- (and sometimes sugar and milk) to form cially the small and medium enterprises the dough. This is then kneaded to distrib- (SMEs) to take up the challenge of produc- ute the gluten [the grayish, sticky compo- ing satisfactory substitutes for refined nent of wheat flour and other grain flours] wheat flour and food products made from throughout the mix, left to rise, kneaded it. The National Nutrition Alliance, the again, moulded into shape and left to rise a Centre for Ecocultural Studies and second time before baking in a hot oven. Community Development and Non- Wheat flour bread is generally high in car- Governmental Organizations such as the bohydrates and low in protein. The vita- Lanka Mahila Samiti and the Housewives’ min and mineral content depends on the Association could take the lead in produc- ingredients and additives used. It is not a ing the recipes for low-cost items for con- basic item of food in the tropical belt to sumption made from these varieties of which it was introduced during the eating "beautiful" white flour bakery prod- have risen from two to 7.7 percent in the effect of alloxan is common scientific flour or their combinations. When this is Colonial Era by Europeans whose staple ucts. Is it worth it? year 2000 and are now much more. knowledge in the research community,the undertaken we could begin rolling back food it was. Scientists and diabetic specialists If we are to seek answers, we should American Food and Drug Administration the silent killer that diabetes has become, During the Second World War it was throughout the world have known of the look at the pronounced life-style changes [FDA] still allows companies to use it when save an enormous amount of foreign widely distributed when imports of rice alloxan-diabetes connection for years; in among the generally and slightly more processing wheat and other foods we exchange spent on importing wheat and from Burma (Myanmar), Siam (Thailand) fact, researchers who are studying diabetes prosperous urban dwellers which predis- ingest. wheat flour, make our farmers both pro- and China were interrupted. This inter- commonly use the chemical to induce the pose them to the disease. An increased Regulatory authorities and the wheat ductive and prosperous AND change the ruption in supplies provided a fresh new disorder in lab animals. In the research pace of living, combined with a marked flour industry worldwide could counter- eating habits of our people to their benefit. market for Australian wheat. It also began sense, giving alloxan to an animal is simi- partiality for inactive life styles and desk- argue that, if alloxan were to cause dia- (See: Kurakkan, the Crop of Hope, the the process of changing food consumption lar to injecting that animal with a deadly bound jobs, is proving highly damaging to betes, a higher proportion of people would Cereal for a Healthy Life, by Visakha habits drastically,mainly if not entirely, virus, as both alloxan and the virus are the average town dweller's health. Stress be diabetic. After all, more consumers con- Tillekeratne, Island, Saturday 14th October because it was extremely convenient to being used specifically to cause illness. and lack of physical exercise are a volatile sume refined wheat flour on a regular 2010) obtain and consume. It also accelerated Every day,consumers ingest foods made mix which invariably prepares the ground basis than are actually diabetic. Whilst this A hint to the powers-that-be: We Sri the trend and the mobility of the process of with alloxan-contaminated flour. Would for the onset of diabetes. point is valid, but it does not disprove the Lankans have a sufficient number of ‘Westernization’ that moved rapidly from they just as willingly consume foods taint- The urban life-style spreading to the alloxan-diabetes connection. While alloxan indigenous sweetmeats, short-eats, snacks urban centres into the rural areas. Whilst ed with a deadly virus? Unless they had a rural areas, leading the population there to is one cause of adult-onset type 2 diabetes, or whatever to replace refined wheat flour it might appear not be a matter to be taken death-wish, they probably would not. emulate their urban cousins, the influence it is of course not the only cause. As the products including bread. Government too seriously,what, if any,are the negative Unfortunately,most consumers are of TV advertising and urban pop culture Textbook of Natural Medicine states, "cur- should undertake to publish handbooks in aspects of this change in eating habits? unaware of alloxan and its potentially fatal are other factors for the rise in the disease rent theory suggests a hereditary beta-cell Sinhala, Tamil and English giving the hun- Here are some facts that we should con- link to diabetes because these facts are not throughout rural Sri Lanka. predisposition to injury coupled with some dreds of recipes with local ingredients. sider: The rapidly rising demand for well publicized by the bakery industry. It defect in tissue regeneration capacity" may Some of the items are: Aappa, aasme, wheat-flour based junk food on the part of should also be said that whole-wheat prod- Even if you are already diabetic, some be a key cause. For alloxan to cause injury aggala, alu-eluvang, aluva, athirasa, atira- urban dwellers is matched by an increase ucts, i.e. bakery products made from unre- simple changes to your diet can help treat to an individual's beta cells, the individual ha, bibikkan, bittara-aapa, chippy/soki, in diabetes in both urban and rural Sri fined wheat flour, are much safer or rela- your diabetes. First of all, stop eating foods must have the genetic susceptibility to curd vadai, Galkisse bibikkan, haalpiti Lanka. The new culture of ‘success at any tively harmless to consume. made with white flour. Even though you injury.This is similar to the connection pittu, hakuru-aappa, halapa, haalpitti-iddi- price’ a.k.a. the rat race for ‘la dolce vita’ Diabetes is not only increasing through- already have diabetes, vitamin E supple- between high-cholesterol foods and heart appung, iddiappung-dodol, kalu-dodol, kiri- or the "good life" deprives the average out the country but is claiming an increas- ments can still help you, as can many com- disease. Eating high-cholesterol foods caus- bath, kokis, konda kavum, kesari-bath, urban dweller of both the time and the ing number of victims among the younger mon foods. Garlic, for example, does won- es heart disease, especially in people who koppa-pittu, kurakkan-pittu, kurakkan- opportunity to cook his or her food accord- generation. Whereas, about a decade ago, ders for diabetes. A leading authority stat- have family histories of heart disease. The halape, laddu, lavariya, masala vadai, ing to time-tested ways. The result is a high this incurable disease was predominantly ed: "When fed garlic, the rabbits' elevated link between alloxan and diabetes is as maskat, moong-ata kavum, muddai-maa, dependence on mainly wheat flour-based prevalent among the elderly,today it is blood sugar dropped almost as much as it clear and solid as the link between choles- murukku, paal-roddi, paal-appum, pana- junk food. It is, therefore, loaded with dan- proving to be no respecter of age. In fact, did when they were given the anti-diabetic terol and heart disease or tobacco and lung kavum, pani pol, parsong, pastola, pol- gerous health risks and you’ll know just diabetes is most widespread among those drug tolbutamide. Researchers postulated cancer. kotta, payasam, prawn vadai, roda-kokis, why as you read on. The increase in dia- between the ages of 30 and 45 years. that garlic may improve the insulin effect." If you've been eating white bread for rotti, sau dodol, seenakku, seeni ariy- betes and diabetes-related ailments is due Equally alarming is the detection of dia- How does alloxan cause diabetes? years and you have a family history of dia- atharam, thenmurukku, thala guli, thotal, to these indisputably damaging dietary betes victims below the age of 15. Some According to another leading authority,the betes, all hope is not lost for you. Clinical ulunthu-vadai, uppu-ma, valli-pittu, vandu- habits that have been quietly creeping into school goers and undergraduates are now uric acid derivative initiates free radical studies have shown that you can reverse aappa, vattalapam, vellavahun and many, the entire population, particularly since suffering from the disease, whereas a damage to DNA in the beta cells of the pan- the effects of alloxan by supplementing many others. World War II. decade ago, such a trend was absent. A creas, causing the cells to malfunction and your diet with vitamin E. According to the Why should we ignorantly continue to Now, you may want to think twice newspaper report published in 2002 said die. When these beta cells fail to operate Clinicians’ Handbook of Natural Healing, wail and be wretched because the price of before eating your next sandwich on white that in 1990, although no diabetes victims normally,they no longer produce enough vitamin E effectively protected lab rats bread, wheat flour and all that is made bread. Studies show that alloxan, the chem- below the age of 30 years were detected, insulin, or in other words, they cause one from the harmful effects of administered from refined wheat flour has gone up? ical that makes white flour look "clean" today such cases have increased to 8.7 per- variety of adult-onset type 2 diabetes. alloxan. Now, you're not a lab rat, but This price increase is unparalleled but that and "beautiful," destroys the beta cells of cent of the diabetes-affected population Alloxan's harmful effects on the pancreas you're a mammal and vitamin E is definite- isn’t the only issue of concern. We should your pancreas. That's right; you may be [estimated at 10 per cent of the country’s are so severe that the Textbook of Natural ly worth adding to your daily regimen of view the increasing price as a blessing in destroying your pancreas and putting your- population or about two million sufferers]. Medicine calls the chemical "a potent beta- nutritional supplements, especially if you disguise instead of an unmitigated curse. self at risk for diabetes, all for the sake of Then, diabetes victims in the rural areas cell toxin." However, even though the toxic have a history of eating foods made with Let’s begin to change our eating habits!

There's more to taste than taste buds, writes Steve toothpaste show that heat and cold receptors play a part. The real mysteries, though, lie deeper in the brain. A their brethren on the tongue, may influence flavour. Jones: the secrets of flavour lie deep in our brains. Some people have "phantom tastes" when a warm rod is restaurant might have fine china, white linen, décor, polite staff As Proust realised, memory helps as well. Variety is the touched to the tongue. Smell, with its hundreds of receptors, is and soothing music. These give a place its "atmosphere" – but spice of diet (although Wittgenstein claimed that he did not BY STEVE JONES important (try pinching your nose while eating a steak) – and science suggests that such signals may be linked to taste. The care what he ate, as long as it was always the same). how you smell food also counts. The durian fruit smells dis- proteins that pick up salt, sweet, bitter and the like are related Expectation is important: give people an cheesy taste and a here was once no accounting for taste, but things have gusting when sniffed, but delicious when it enters the nose to others in the body. Each spans a cell membrane and each different part of the brain lights up than if they are told it comes changed. The new science of molecular gastronomy from the mouth. from dirty socks. Learning starts early. Babies whose mothers Tshows why we like some foods and hate others. The Touch (what the marketers call "mouth-feel") is crucial. ate aniseed when they were pregnant are happier to eat food subject is booming: Harvard has a physics and chemistry containing that herb. course entitled "From haute cuisine to soft matter science", I was once involved in an experiment that showed the which uses the laboratory to make, among other delights, No accounting subconscious effect of childhood diet on later preference. After chewy jelly with just the right balance between elasticity and a student practical on animal physiology I purloined the lobster viscosity. It is accompanied by online lectures, today's on which had been our subject and took it home and ate it. I used "Gelation" (midnight our time, but the lectures will be posted for taste? a recipe learned from my grandparents when I was very on YouTube), the next on "Browning and Oxidations" and after young. They lived in a Welsh coastal village where lobster was that "Meat Glue Mania". Harvard is an epicurean place: baking so cheap, so much so that I complained whenever it powder was first made there and its latest wheeze is "Le Not any more appeared. Their trick was to mash it up with salad cream. That Whif", a student invention that turns foods into an aerosol for calmed – and formed – my infant tastes. Nowadays I still, to calorie-free dining. Toffee and caramel are more or less the same, but their tex- my wife's annoyance, add salad cream to an inappropriate El Bulli: many factors combine to enhance a dining experience. For any gustatory experience, from El Bulli to Kentucky tures make them taste different. Vision helps – in some coun- range of foods. I have never dared ask for it in an expensive Fried Chicken, more than taste buds are involved. We have tries beef is sold in packages with an atmosphere of carbon looks like a multiply bent hairpin, with seven back-and-forth restaurant (El Bulli probably makes its own to a secret recipe). sensors for salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (or "savori- monoxide, which combines with the blood pigment haemoglo- crossings that form a channel which links the inside of the cell Steve Jones is professor of genetics at University College ness", a sensation discovered a century ago in Japan, giving bin to give it a red colour. Hearing, too, is important: think to the outside. They are involved in colour vision, in hearing, in London rise to the use of monosodium glutamate in food), but they are "Snap, Crackle, Pop!" (or, in German, "Knisper, Knasper, nerve transmission and in the balance of hormones influenc- © The Telegraph Group just part of the story. The burn of chilli and the cool of mint Knusper!"). ing mood and appetite. Perhaps their response, and that of London 2010