Brown Rice, Wheat, Malted Barley

[rachael]

I've seen some mentions on here of avoiding brown rice and wheat. Are those things that should be avoided with HFI? Eg, what about puffed Wheat, Kamut, and brown rice?

Are some folks with HFI able to tolerate malted barley, or should I completely avoid it for my HFI little guy? It's in some of his foods and he doesn't seem to have a reaction, but I don't know if that's because we never fully eliminated it in the first place.

Thanks for entertaining all of my questions these last few days. My son's dietician is not very helpful and his doctors never discuss the blood test results with us so it feels like we are flying blind.

[rysmom14]

we avoid whole wheat, and brown rice. as far as the malted barley. we have excluded it and he seems better. The only example I can give is the Cascanian O cereal. we had stopped giving it to my son because of the malted barley, but silly me never threw it away. Grandma was over and gave him some. he had a sore butt all the next day and had a night terror that evening. The night terror could have been because my husband and I were not the ones to but him to bed and so he may have been a little off in the sleep department, but having the red sore butt was a red flag for us.

I know some people do eat the malted barley and It does open up a lot more food options. Hopefully some others will weigh in too

[Stefanie (Ziba)]

Is there citric acid in the cascadian farms purely Os? I have found my guy has a red butt after anything with citric acid, but then again, the few times, he has malted barley flour, I feel like there is an issue as well.
I have decided to stick with "straight white wheat" products, such as pasta, artisan crackers, and french bread (frozen section at my grocery).

[colormist]

I need to remove Cascadian Farms Purely Os from the list of safe foods for kids. I also noticed a reaction after eating them for a few days straight. I'm not sure if it's in the ingredients or some cross-contamination with another cereal made in the same factory. So disappointing.

[biologybill]

Hi rachael
Rice and barley are safe. They contain very little sugar and what they do is refined to produce malt, made of maltose glucose-glucose. All plants contain a little fructose, so I suggest getting most of your calories from protein and naturally occurring fats (in meat, dairy and plants, not hydrogenated). But small portions of these grains should be fine. 
Wheat has a bit more sugar, but it varies with the breed of crop, rye as well but a bit less than wheat in my experience, so I recommend favouring rice, barley and oats if you want to eat grains.

PS. white wheat has minimal fructose. But my sister ate too much wheat (white) and reacted enough times to give herself a wheat allergy on top of the HFI, so I strongly recommend eating small quantities (a couple of slices of bread (no added sucrose, fructose or such) a day no more). 

[ukbill]

Biologybill

Take a look into the breakdown products from digestible fibre in the small intestine.

[biologybill]

Hi ukBill (loving the name contrast btw!)
I have a rough idea, but there are so many fibres which all break down into base sugar and may get processed by bacteria into proteins or local enzymes into ATP and their base sugars but I am unclear on what the main polysaccharides contained in various foods are (other than starch), and lots of inulin in Jerusalem artichoke so we should definitely avoid that. 

The difficulty is it is unclear which of these is in which food, and then the digestion rate of these, for example per oligofructose molecule you are unlikely to get a full 8 fructose molecules (and potentially give the body a better chance to expell these before it hurts our liver). 
But I am fully aware of this issue, at the end of the day we should work on the assumption that a plant will have some fructose, and test how well our bodies can cope with these different quantities in these different forms. Looking at these various polysaccharides by composition most of the main ones luckily are not based on fructose. 

Due to this as a rule I try to test foods, white wheat = okay in moderation, wholegrain wheat = okay in smaller moderation. white rice = okay, brow rice = still testing, barley = fine, oats = fine. 
Of course this is my experience and based on the numerous genes we may have different tolerance levels. 

[biologybill]

Good advice ukBill, found wheat and rye has high inulin as well, however it is worth noting the human digestive system cannot digest it, and we rely on probiotic bacteria, which will take some of the sugars for themselves. As a result large amounts won't do us good, but they won't harm cause as much harm as they may on the surface (as not all the sugar molecules in this carbohydrate will be broken down, and not all that will be broken down will need to be digested by us).