When we eat processed foods, you exclude from your diet essential nutrients. For example, when the nutrient rich outer cover is removed from whole wheat to make it into white flour, the most nutritious part of the food is lost. This is because the outer portion of the wheat kernel contains trace minerals, phytoestrogens, hytoestrogens, lignans, phytic acid, indoles, phenolic compounds , and other phytochemicals, as well as almost all the vitamin E in the food. You must realise that the whole grain foods which are associated with longer life, are vastly different from the processed rubbish that makes up the bulk of the calories in the modern American diet. (MAD for short!). To support this, medical investigations clearly show the dangers of consuming the quantity of processed foods that Americans do (… and by extension those in other countries who emulate the American way of life). Because refined grains lack the fibre and nutrient density to calm our appetite, they also cause obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and significantly increased cancer risk. For example, one recent nine-year study involving 34,492 women between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-nine showed a two-thirds increase in the risk of death from heart disease in those eating refined grains.