Wheat and why it’s not what it used to be

Wheat - a quick history

Once upon a time, around 10 000 years ago, a wild grass called wheat, (or more specifically Einkorn, Emmer, Kamut or Spelt depending on where you were hanging out in the early Neolithic world) lived. It grew sporadically around the place just like wild grass does. Once a year at the end of Summer when the wheat grass was ripe, folks could spend a day foraging for a bunch of it with friends and family. If enough was collected, the seed was stripped from the heads and crushed with rocks to get a flour that was mixed with water and cooked into porridge or bread on the fire.

Fast forward to now.

How many times a day do you eat wheat? How many days a week do you eat wheat? Do you ever go a day without wheat…..ever? I’m not saying you don’t but…….

Let’s think about it.

• Breakfast - Cereal (almost all are wheat based) or toast, crumpets or pancakes, waffles
• Morning Tea - A biscuit or cookie or a donut or muffin
• Lunch - A sandwich, wrap or foccacia or maybe a pie, a pasty or sausage roll
• Afternoon Tea - Maybe a piece of cake or a biscuit or cookie
• Dinner - Some pasta or a pastry covered dish or some bread on the side, breadcrumbs or croutons, noodles or cus cous or flour to thicken the casserole or roast gravy

You can see how easy it is to eat wheat at every meal. And I haven’t even mentioned things like salad dressings, sauces, sausages, small goods, even some chocolate and lots of confectionery, vinegar, beer and so many other products. If you check the ingredient list on packaged foods, you’ll see it in lots of unlikely places.

The 50′s and 60′s

Now lets take this story to the 1950′s and early 60′s. Back then, Coeliac Disease and Gluten intolerance really weren’t heard of. Everyone ate bread. Everyone ate cakes and biscuits. You just did it and didn’t think about it.

But it was not so bad back then. Our bodies were still able to recognise wheat as a natural plant. However by then, some laboratory work had started which would mean that by the early 60′s, a strain of wheat had been developed to be more disease resistant and higher yielding.

You see, back in the fifties, the world had a problem, a big problem! There was not enough food to go around. Countries were in famine, crops were failing and people were starving. A well meaning and clever scientist, Norman Borlaug, using very intensive breeding techniques, came up with a semi-dwarf high yielding pest and disease resistant wheat variety that essentially solved that problem for many nations. Known as the father of the “Green Revolution”, Norman Borlaug went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and other humanitarian awards for his work on improving the world hunger situation.

The only problem with this wonderful discovery was that our systems don’t seem to recognise this new wheat in the same way as the old strain. And now it’s grown all over the world and pretty much exclusively. It’s a long way from the wheat that our grandparents grew up on and a very long way from the wild grasses of 8000 years ago. According to Dr William Davis, who wrote the very informative and entertaining book Wheat Belly, “this thing being sold to us called wheat—it ain’t wheat. It’s this stocky little high-yield plant, a distant relative of the wheat our mothers used to bake muffins, genetically and biochemically lightyears removed from the wheat of just 40 years ago.”

In fact the wheat mentioned in the bible called “the staff of life”, was the Emmer wheat which has 28 chromosomes. The wheat we get today has 42 chromosomes. It’s a completely different plant!

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that diseases caused by inflammation such as obesity, diabetes and of course Coeliac Disease and other auto-immune disease have increased massively over the last 40 years. They’ve become among the most prevalent types of illness in the world at the same time as the consumption of this modified wheat has increased.

Symptoms of wheat intolerance

If you suffer any of the following symptoms after eating any wheat containing food, try going without it for 3 weeks.

• Excema
• Bloating and gas
• Tiredness and lethargy
• Diahorrea or constipation
• Poor skin
• Moodiness or depression

I can hear yelling from here. I can’t do that. I won’t do that! And there’s a very good reason for your reaction. Simplistically speaking, parts of the gluten protein bind to opiate receptors in your brain making it a highly addictive substance. There’s a reason you want it and can’t imagine your life without it. You’re very likely to be addicted to it!

But please, if you do suffer from any of these symptoms, try to go without it for even a few days and see how you feel and how your body reacts! Just try it and see. You may even experience withdrawal symptoms of headaches and body aches etc. Work through it if you can. Don’t lose sight of the fact that any of the symptoms listed may well be masking more serious issues.

If you are interested in finding out more about the ancient wheat varieties mentioned earlier, all of which are available today, have a look at this great article by Natural Family Today.

 

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