Is wheat making me fat?

*I'm moving on from processed foods to my next goal in Project Real Food but I'll keep posting about processed foods alongside other things since there's so much to cover.  As for buying processed foods?  I've mostly kicked that habit.  My husband had to wake me up last Saturday morning to ask me what to feed the kids for breakfast and then called me while I was out shopping later that day to ask what to feed them for lunch.  "Nothing is labeled anymore!" he said.  While I know it frustrated him, it secretly made me happy because I know that means there's almost nothing processed in our house anymore!  I'm still buying canned tomatoes, cereal for my hubby, spelt bread, cheese (and probably always will - I am no cheese maker!), jelly (organic) and frozen hashbrowns.  I did at least buy them from TJs and they only have two ingredients, but I cannot for the life of me get hashbrowns to turn out when I make them myself from shredded potatoes.  Someday maybe I'll get to the point that I'm buying absolutely nothing processed, but maybe not.

I don't know where I've been hiding, but I only just recently learned of the book Wheat Belly, by Dr. William Davis.  I'm not sure how long it's been published, but it already has almost 600 reviews on Amazon. I've had it on hold at the library for almost two months, and I was still 22nd in line (seriously?) so I finally gave in and bought this book.  I can't say I regret it!

The basic premise can be heard here.  Basically, modern wheat (since about the 60s) has been genetically modified to produce a higher yielding crop, and in doing so, has essentially ruined our wheat.  In addition to other issues with modern wheat, there is a protein in it called gliadin, and it is an opiate.

This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year," Dr. William says.

Like I have been learning about genetically modified food lately, our bodies often don't recognize these modified "foods" as food, resulting in a range of health problems.  It passes my common sense filter, but I'd never thought about GMOs like that before.  I suppose when you get in there and play around with the very essence of food - modify its genes and whatnot - it's not that surprising that our bodies then cannot recognize what it is we're eating.

There is much more science behind the premise that modern wheat is no good for us, and I'll touch on some of it over the course of the next week or two I'm sure, but for now I am on a trial of a wheat-free life.  This will be week three, but last week I cheated on multiple occasions.  :/  I'm down four pounds so far though!  As someone whose weight hasn't budget since Landon was born, this is a big, big deal.  I'm not carb-free, just wheat-free.