Should I skip over the fluffy intro and dive right in? Okay. Thanks for giving me permission. Except when noted, all of the information below comes from the book Wheat Belly.
Modern wheat was created not by the process we know today as genetic modification, but by a process that predates GMOs. In other words, it was an even less refined process than the genetic modification we know today. Modern wheat was basically created through a hybridization experiment. I don't exactly love being a Guinea pig, do you?
Over the past 50 years, thousands of different strains of wheat have hit our supermarket shelves...without ever being tested for safety. Scientists went in, genetically modified these grains, and then tossed it to unsuspecting grocery store patrons without any concern for the implications on our health. I really try not to be alarmist and I try to look at things from as many different perspectives as is possible for me, but this issue (and genetic modification in general, now that I'm learning about it), is particularly difficult for me. I'm finding myself, over the course of this Project Real Food, getting increasingly upset about the level of secrecy and the lack of testing in the products we buy every day. Don't we have a right to know? Why are companies fighting so hard to keep these things a secret if they're so confident they're safe? I just don't get it.
Most people, me included until the past year or two, assume that everything they are putting in their bodies and feeding their children is tested and government-approved. We can't buy unsafe food, right? Wrong. We depend on the government or these food companies to protect us, but we are playing a dangerous game by doing that, because it is very often untested, unlabeled and the government is never even notified.
I love the way Dr. Davis describes modern day wheat on his blog:
The genetic distance modern wheat has drifted exceeds the difference between chimpanzees and humans. If you caught your son dating a chimpanzee, could you tell the difference? Of course you can! What a difference 1% can make. But that’s less than modern wheat is removed from its ancestors."
For a long time, we've been told that complex carbohydrates are good, simple carbohydrates are bad. Dr. Davis says there's much more to the story. Skipping over the somewhat confusing science to sum it up (please read the book if you're interested in reading about the exact science behind it - better yet, read the book no matter what! This is just my summary of the book), 75 percent of the complex carbohydrate in wheat is amylopectin A.
Amylopectin A is easily digested into glucose. Because amylopectin A is easily digested into glucose, it makes its way into your bloodstream quickly, spiking your blood sugar and causing you to gain weight. As a side note, beans (and rice and starches) are high in amylopectin, but it's amylopectin B or C, which is the least digestible form. This is good for us, even though it sounds like a not good thing, because it means most of it makes it to your colon, where the good bacteria in your gut (remember - you want good bacteria!) eat these undigested starches, meaning they are not absorbed into your bloodstream and don't spike your blood sugar. Two pieces of whole wheat toast will spike your blood sugar higher than sugar and many candy bars!
Spikes in blood sugar lead to visceral fat. Visceral fat is fat that accumulates around organs. Skinny people can actually have visceral fat and they wouldn't know it! In a study of molecular imaging at Imperial College in London, Dr. Bell scanned 800 people and found that up to 45 percent of people who were skinny on the outside and thought they were healthy actually had excessive levels of internal fat. Among men, the percentage was almost 60 percent. Experts believe visceral fat contributes to the risk of heart disease and diabetes (on a side note, when studying this I learned that skinny people who are sedentary are at a much higher risk for mortality than obese people who are active and fit - whoa).
Another problem of modern wheat is a protein called gliadin. It breaks down into polypeptides, or small proteins, in your GI tract. Once they're broken down like this, they can cross into the brain and bind to morphine receptors. This is why, Dr. Davis hypothesizes, so many people are addicted to wheat and/or it increases their appetite.
As I've said on my blog before, I am particularly interested in things that increase risk factors for autoimmune disease since it is rampant in my blood line. Wheat appears to be one of those things, as the lectins it contains can "unlock" the proteins that line your GI tract that determine what substances can enter the blood or lympatic system. Wheat lectins disable this process, thus increasing your risk factors for lots of diseases, autoimmune being one. Dr. Davis says this is the suspected reason behind wheat causing rheumatoid arthritis, skin diseases, Hashimoto's thyroiditis and more.
According to this article,
Visceral fat acts as a gland, secreting hormones that make the immune system react. This produces more fat to store and protect pathogens from invading our organs. It's the proverbial vicious cycle, and it also produces low level chronic inflammation that can result in various autoimmune diseases."
Dr. Davis says very occasional wheat consumption can be fine unless you have celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, cerebellar ataxis, peripheral neuropathy, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, dermatitis herpetiformis, etc. Basically if your conditions can be triggered by wheat, you should avoid it entirely at all times. He also says if you have a propensity for wheat addiction (one piece of bread leads to five), you should try to give it up entirely.
Additionally, there is something called re-exposure reaction that Dr. Davis has seen with countless numbers of his patients who went off wheat, lost lots of weight, felt great, got healthier, and then upon re-introduction, had all sorts of problems like asthma attacks, GI issues, joint swelling and pain, anxiety or even rage. He suggests that if you do give up wheat, you should plan on giving it up for good.
This one actually hit home for me because it's what happened to me in as short a period as a week and a half. I completely avoided wheat for a week and a half with not one trace passing my lips (as far as I'm aware), was feeling really good and had lost several pounds. I ate some homemade pizza I made since I was too scared to attempt a wheat-free pizza dough recipe, and that night I commented to my husband about my asthma flaring up and how I'd had to pull my inhaler out of the closet for the first time since giving up wheat. I thought it might have been a coincidence, but it has now happened on all three occasions that I consumed wheat again. It appears that for me, wheat is something I either have to be all on board for or give up completely.
I haven't decided for myself how I feel about all of this yet. I completely buy the fact that our modern wheat is not the wheat God gave us at all. I subsequently buy that it is damaging to our bodies then. I mean, makes sense, right? Put something in our bodies that isn't the God-given food of yesterday and our bodies cannot recognize it as normal food, which triggers a host of bad reactions, many of which science has probably not even identified yet.
What I'm confused about, though, is the idea that WHEAT is the problem because of hybridization, but he recommends consuming other grains only in moderation. I've been eating spelt bread and spelt tortillas since going wheat-free, but I've seen him mention in literature that spelt is also not great. Why? What can I eat? How infrequently should I be consuming grains? There's a Wheat Belly cookbook coming out on December 24th, and I am all over that bad boy! After seeing the extremely positive reactions in my own body (weight loss when I hadn't been able to lose at all, complete cessation of asthma, increased energy, cravings almost disappear), I am definitely willing to keep doing this. It's been surprisingly easy, and I've noticed a drastic improvement in my cravings. But of course, as soon as I fell off the wagon and had wheat, the next few days were plagued with cravings of cookies and bread. Wheat begets wheat just like sugar begets sugar.
The filter I run my food choices through is typically one of tradition and history. Have we been eating {insert food in question here} for generations? Is it a traditional food, talked about in historical documents? For the same reason I went back on my decision to stop drinking milk (after all, the Bible tells us ours is a land rich with milk and honey), I have to second-guess the idea that we should give up all grains. Grains are traditional and while I buy that modern grains may be bad for us, my own personal verdict is still out on how I feel about consuming traditional grains. I've got my own little experiment in the works...
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