How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

by Michael Greger

The other group ate the same exact foods, but ground into flours and pastes. The first group ate nuts instead of nut butters, whole chickpeas instead of hummus, and muesli instead of muesli ground into a cream-of-wheat texture. Note that both groups were eating whole foods, just in different forms. What happened? The intact-whole-grain diet group doubled their stool size, which was significantly greater than that of the ground-whole-grain group, even though they were eating the same foods in the same quantities.55 How is that possible? There is so much more left over for your gut flora to eat when you eat your grains intact. Few people realize that the bulk of stool is not undigested food but pure bacteria—trillions and trillions of bacteria.56 That may be why you get an increase of nearly two ounces of stool for every one ounce of fiber you eat.