Mike Thompson, Local Columnist

Let’s talk about flour.

Specifically, why it’s quietly plotting against you.

Flour is the polite villain of the modern diet. It doesn’t shout “danger!” like bacon grease or Mountain Dew. It just smiles and slides into every meal-toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta for dinner, cookies for dessert-looking all innocent and comforting while slowly staging a nutritional coup. We now live inside what I call The Flour Fortress.

Walk any grocery aisle and 80 percent of what you see is some version of ground-up grain in disguise. Crackers.

Muffins. Pretzels. Cereal.

Bagels. Pizza crusts. It’s like a flour flash mob with better marketing.

The Bread Boom

Once upon a time, bread was a sidekick. A helpful understudy to the main act of meat and vegetables. But sometime after 1983, bread hired a publicist. Now it’s the headliner of every meal, backed by a chorus of chips, wraps, and “artisan” rolls.

Here’s the problem: when your entire diet revolves around flour, you’re basically eating sugar with better branding. Flour digests lightning-fast, spiking blood sugar and then dropping it faster than your Wi-Fi during a storm. Ten minutes later you’re raiding the pantry, wondering why your self-control left the building. For people over 50, this flour-heavy pattern isn’t just annoying-it’s metabolically expensive. Metabolically expensive means your body has to work overtime to deal with constant blood sugar spikes-like running your phone with 47 apps open at once. Eventually, the battery (your pancreas) wears out, and the whole system starts glitching.

The Gentle Revolution

I’m not here to ban bread. I’m here to restore balance.

Because banning foods never works-it just turns dinner into a hostage negotiation.

Try this instead: flip the ratio. Make vegetables and protein the stars, and let flour play backup guitar.

Start small, one meal at a time.

• Instead of cereal, eggs with vegetables.

• Instead of a bagel, yogurt with nuts and berries.

• Instead of a muffin, eggs with cheese and salsa.

• Instead of toast with jam, toast with eggs and spinach. (You just cut the flour in half and tripled the nutrition.)

That’s it. You’re not subtracting-you’re crowding out. Add color and protein first, and suddenly the beige stuff looks less exciting.

The Brain Hack

Humans hate losing things. Tell your brain “no bread,” and it starts daydreaming about croissants.

Tell it “I’m adding flavor, color, and crunch,” and it cheers like it just won a door prize. That’s nutritional judo- using psychology instead of willpower.

When you trade processed flour for real food, you stabilize your energy, hormones, and mood. You stop living on the hunger hamster wheel. And best of all, you rediscover taste.

People who swap one flour-based meal per day for real food report feeling fuller, thinking clearer, and needing fewer afternoon naps disguised as “quiet reflection.”

The Simple Equation

Real food + reasonable portions + regular enjoyment = wealth. That’s the math your body understands. No calorie app required.

So this week, take one step outside the Flour Fortress. Butter optional- but highly recommended. Because when real food returns to the center of your plate, everything else-energy, health, and yes, even joy-finally has room to rise.

Mike Thompson is a health coach based in Richmond Hill. Reach him at mike@selfcaresustained.com or on LinkedIn.