Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 delicious wheat-free recipes for effortless weight loss and optimum health. Dr Davis William

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 millennium, back farther to the wheat of the Bible, then the wheat of pre-biblical civilizations, and finally to the einkorn wheat harvested wild, wheat becomes less and less destructive each step of the way, less likely to trigger human illness.

      But does wheat ever become entirely benign, perhaps healthy, the farther back we go?

      Here’s a tough question: How much better does a wheat strain have to be in order to be acceptable to most people – 50 per cent, 70 per cent, 80 per cent, 100 per cent better than our modern choice? What level of risk would you be willing to accept in order to consume foods made of this grain? If I had a cigarette, for instance, that posed 80 per cent less risk of lung cancer than conventional cigarettes, is that safe enough for you to consider?

      There are no right or wrong answers. It will be something to ponder in the coming years as information and experience with the older forms of wheat grow. In the meantime, given what we know (and don’t know) about these older forms of wheat, my commonsense advice is to steer clear of all forms of wheat, new and old, and be certain you have great health and nutrition.

      Fourth, and very importantly, wheat is about so much more than weight. Consumption of modern wheat is about acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome. It’s about neurological impairment and coeliac disease. It’s about water retention and leg oedema. It’s about allergies, asthma and chronic sinus congestion and infections. It’s about inattention and behavioural outbursts in children with ADHD and autism. It’s about worsening symptoms of bipolar illness and schizophrenia. It’s about mental ‘fog’ and depression. It’s about acne, dandruff, seborrhoea, psoriasis and a whole host of other skin conditions. It’s about triggering the number one cause of heart disease, small LDL cholesterol particles.

      Fifth, what other food contains the gluten protein that causes coeliac disease, neurological impairment (gluten ataxia, peripheral neuropathy and dementia), dermatitis herpetiformis and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity? Yes, barley, triticale, rye, bulgur and perhaps oats overlap with the immune properties of wheat, but the gluten of wheat remains the Emperor of Gluten. Corn syrup, sucrose, sweets, ‘trans’ fats – none of these foods can cause the range of diseases caused by wheat.

      In other words, even if you struggle to come to grips with the appetite-stimulating and blood sugar-provoking effects of wheat, there is so much more to wheat’s effects on health that you’ve got to conclude that weight is among the least important of wheat’s effects. Yes, it’s an important effect, but the many components of modern wheat impair human health in so many other varied ways.

      Put all these pieces together in the form of modern wheat, and you’ve got a heck of a health-distorting foodstuff. In short, wheat is the dietary perfect storm capable of generating in humans undesirable health effects that no other plant or food can match. And it enjoys the endorsements of ‘official’ agencies, all urging us to eat more ‘healthy whole grains’.

      So, yes, wheat is the worst.

      What’s in the Future?

      While no current commercially produced wheat products on the market today are, in the language of geneticists, genetically modified, i.e., the product of gene splicing techniques to insert or delete a gene, they are coming. Their appearance on your supermarket shelf is inevitable.

      Genetically СКАЧАТЬ