Someone asked me this week to post on grains bc evidently there has been a lot of talk about them.  I wish I could say that I will make this crystal clear for everyone- I cant, but, I will make it as clear as possible.

Basically, most people do fine even from the beginning of treatment with potatoes, rice, spelt, and kamut. If in bread form, they must be yeast free sugar free as you all already know. However, some patients who are really bad tend to be sensitive to grains/starches even in the tiniest amount. And that sensitivity translates into a lot of pain. IN those cases, taking them out is wise bc one does not want to set off the inflammatory response. The reason I keep them in is bc one needs starch for energy and if a person eats the starches proportionatly to everything else, then those starches will be used for energy and not be left over for unhealthy reactions after the meal. 
 
If pain is resulting from the consumption of those foods however, they need to be removed until such time they can be eaten without causing pain. And, in some cases, I have had to do this with patients for time periods of even two years. I have had several patients that have gone through this and swore we would never get them to be able to eat those foods again, but, we were able to achieve this in the end. It just took time and patience.

After these starches above are tolerated then other grains can be put it, such as quinoa, amaranth, and millet. Wheat can follow these, but, should always be consumed in limited amounts. Wheat tends to create an inflammatory response, and we have much too much of it in our diets which only exacerbates this dynamic. It is OK to eat, but just like everything, one must be wise and moderate in her food choices.

As the body becomes more and more balanced, a person should be careful to preserve that balance and take care of it accordingly.
 
Other grains like oats and buckwheat should be added very far down the list, as those grains can cause a lot of pain--not because they cause inflammation, but because by nature, they are more abrasive cleansing kinds of grains. Oats for example, reduces cholesterol. it does that because it is a more cleansing kind of food. So, it should not be eaten until the body can handle that effect, and from experience I can tell you, in 99-100% of the cases, this is not until well into list 5.  Sweet potatoes and Yams and other starches like Yucca may be added in even before oats and buckwheat! They are more on list 4-5. 

Towards the latter stages of treatment, I have found that even the most sensitive of patients have been able to resume to eating grains normally--but time is the essence of this treatment--time, and patience.

I hope this answers most of the mysteries surrounding grains and starches.