Rice and Nuts: Bad Foods?

While peanuts are good sources of monounsaturated fatty acids, they do present problems for enough people to exercise caution. At least 1 to 3% of the US population (that's about three million people) is estimated to have peanut allergies. If you're among this group you probably already know it since Skippy undoubtedly has sent you to the emergency room.

While I don't have a lot of support for my caution, I'm cautious about hyper-allergenic foods for the remainder of the population (i.e. milk, peanuts, etc). I speculate that food allergy isn't an all or nothing thing. There's probably a spectrum to food allergy, meaning that certain foods may not cause anaphylactic reactions, but may lead to "sub-clinical" problems, meaning physiological stress.

In normal peanut allergy, the body produces an immune response to some of the components of the peanut. This response leads to an intense physiological stressor (anaphylaxis — the throat swells shut). However, if my speculation is true, then many individuals may experience some type of milder "stress" as a result of the allergen.

As you well know, whenever the body is suffering from stress — whether training stress, job stress, or digestive stress — cortisol levels rise. Chronic elevation of cortisol is linked to muscle growth impairment, increased fat gain, and risk for many disease states.

Due to the high likelihood of peanut allergy (however mild it may present) and the stress that's associated with it, it's wise to just avoid peanuts and other allergenic foods altogether. Although I realize that peanut butter has been a dietary staple of my iron brotherhood for generations, there are certainly better sources of dietary protein out there as well as alternate sources of dietary fat.

As far as your rice question, my rationale is this: Simply put, I avoid recommending very carbohydrate-dense foods, despite what the glycemic or insulin indices tell us. While rice and pastas are reasonable on these lists, these foods provide a very large amount of carbohydrate in a small serving size and they are low in fiber. This makes it easy to overeat on these foods by randomly selecting portion sizes. But even if you do moderate your servings, these foods may end up leaving you unsatisfied due to the low volume to calorie ratio.