Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 delicious wheat-free recipes for effortless weight loss and optimum health. Dr Davis William
Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 delicious wheat-free recipes for effortless weight loss and optimum health
of genetic changes, agribusiness sells it, farmers grow it, bakers put it to use and then you and your family eat it.
Imagine one day the FDA announces that pharmaceutical manufacturers no longer need to file an FDA application to introduce new drugs; they can just develop and sell them, should they see fit. Pandemonium would result, of course, a scramble to introduce new drugs with uncertain side effects in the hopes of accelerating profits. Such a laissez-faire attitude, of course, would never be acceptable to the public – but that is precisely what has been going on in agricultural genetics.
When you examine the health effects of the various pieces within modern wheat, you can’t help but conclude: It is a perfect poison.
Why Pick On Wheat?
Why am I so intent on bullying poor wheat? Surely there are other problems in the modern diet and lifestyle besides wheat.
The proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, causing fructose consumption from corn sweeteners to skyrocket from an annual average per capita exposure of almost none in 1960 to 39 pounds in 2005, has undoubtedly contributed to obesity and other distortions of metabolism. Fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, as well as that in sucrose, is a uniquely metabolized sugar that does not generate satiety and is converted to triglycerides, introducing unique distortions that contribute to heart disease, insulin resistance, diabetes and weight gain.
Corn, soya, beets and potatoes have been genetically modified, i.e., gene-splicing technology has been used to insert or delete single genes, while wheat has not. Roundup Ready corn and soy, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup), dominate corn and soya fields on most farms today, meaning much of the processed food now sold contains these GMOs (as well as glyphosate residues). Preliminary observations of undesirable health effects in experimental animals suggest that they contribute to health problems, including weight gain, too.
Of course, the favourite explanation from ‘official’ sources for the widespread weight gain, obesity and diabetes epidemic is laziness and gluttony: You watch too much TV, spend too much time behind the computer or desk, don’t exercise enough, eat too much fat and drink too many soft drinks. In this worldview, we are a bunch of indulgent, slothful, chip- and fizzy drink-consuming people, no different from many 14-year-olds.
So why is wheat different? Why is wheat so bad, especially if the wheat sold today is not genetically modified?
First of all, the gliadin protein, the opiate-like compound that stimulates appetite, is unique to wheat. No other food or additive – high-fructose corn syrup, GMO corn, sucrose, fat, food colourings, preservatives, etc. – stimulates calorie consumption like wheat. Eat wheat, increase calorie consumption by 440 calories per day; remove wheat, reduce calorie consumption by 440 calories per day. The phenomenon is consistent and predictable. No other food is capable of such a phenomenon.
Second, due to the unique properties of the amylopectin A of wheat, few foods increase blood sugar and thereby insulin as much as wheat. Ice cream, Snickers bars and Milky Way bars do not increase blood sugar and insulin as much as two slices of wholemeal bread. Recall that foods that increase blood sugar and insulin the highest are the most likely to stimulate growth of visceral fat, the deep abdominal fat that is uniquely inflammatory. Grow visceral fat, increase inflammation, which in turn further blocks insulin and causes worsening resistance to insulin – around and around, until you have a big swollen collection of visceral fat, a ‘wheat belly’, that underlies even more health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and cancer.
Third, the intestinal ‘leakiness’ (the increased entry of foreign substances into the bloodstream from the intestinal tract) encouraged by the lectin in wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, is unique to wheat. No other lectin in any other plant is capable of disrupting intestinal health in such a way – not the lectin in lentils, nor the lectin in elderberries, nor the lectin in peanuts. This likely explains why eating lentils does not cause or worsen rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or polymyalgia rheumatica, but consuming wheat does. Wheat lectins therefore heighten inflammation that, in turn, worsens insulin resistance, causing visceral fat to accumulate.
Can We Go Back?
Can a return to the old ways teach us some useful lessons about wheat?
If the product of 1960s and 1970s genetics research, high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat, is the source of so many modern problems, what happens if we reject this genetic mutant and bring back some of the older, even ancient, forms? Are the predecessors of modern wheat free of all its problems? Should we ask farmers, for instance, to resurrect wheat strains (‘landraces’) popular during the 19th century, such as Russian and Red Fife, or the wheat that Moses and the Israelites carried with them in their flight from Egypt, emmer wheat?
Recall that modern wheat is a 2-foot-tall strain bred primarily for exceptional yield. It is the combination of three unique genetic codes, designated the A, B and D sets of genes (genomes), the most recently added D genome being the recipient of most of the genetic manipulations and the source of unique glutens, glutenins and gliadins that make modern wheat such a nasty creature.
In other words, say you, me and Sherman accompany Mr Peabody in the WayBack Machine, and we sample the wheat of bygone ages. If we go back in time, we’ll encounter:
Wheat of the early 20th century – i.e., Triticum aestivum, or 42-chromosome wheat that pre-dates the extreme breeding and mutation-generating interventions of the latter 20th century, with its genetics relatively untouched. These strains of Triticum aestivum share the A, B and D genomes, but this D genome lacks all the extreme changes introduced by 20th-century geneticists. This includes strains such as Sonora, a strain that flourished in rural late-19th- and early-20th-century California, and Ladoga, which was transplanted from Russia to Canada in the late 19th century and spawned several successful 20th-century varieties.
19th-century and previous landraces – These are the strains of Triticum aestivum wheat that developed unique to specific climates and terrains, similar to wine grapes’ terroir. Strains adapt to a location’s humidity, temperatures, soil, day-night cycles and seasonal changes. This includes several thousand varieties, all of which also share the A, B and D genomes.
Spelt – Spelt is a 42-chromosome A, B, D wheat dating from pre-biblical times and cultivated widely until the Middle Ages.
Emmer – Emmer is the 28-chromosome A, B offspring of an ancient natural cross between einkorn wheat and a wild grass. Emmer is likely the wheat of the Bible. It lacks the D genome that contains most of the genes coding for the most disease-causing forms of gliadin.
Kamut – Kamut shares genetics similar to that of emmer, i.e., 28 chromosomes, and the combined genes of einkorn wheat and a wild grass. Like emmer, kamut contains the A and B genomes, but not the D.
Einkorn – The great-granddaddy of all wheat, the grain first harvested wild, and the source of the original 14 chromosomes, the A genome, of wheat.
Obviously, experience with the various forms of wheat, particularly the varieties of ancient wheat, is extremely limited. But we do know a few things.
Hunter-gatherer humans who first began to incorporate wild einkorn into their diets experienced a downturn in health, including more dental disease, bone diseases and possibly atherosclerosis and cancer. Likewise, modern hunter-gatherer cultures who do not consume wheat are spared these conditions.
We also know that coeliac disease is not unique to modern wheat but was described as early as AD 100 by ancient Greek physician Aretaeus and by others many times over the centuries, meaning it likely occurred with consumption of emmer, spelt, kamut and Triticum aestivum landraces, though the relative frequencies were likely much lower.
If we go back step-by-step from modern semi-dwarf wheat, back to the wheat of 1950 that pre-dates human genetic intervention, back to the wheat of the early 20th and 19th centuries, back to the wheat of the Middle Ages and the first