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

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СКАЧАТЬ humans consuming various Rht mutants with their accompanying changes? Nobody knows, since the question was never asked.

      Alpha Amylase Inhibitors and Other Allergens

      Allergy to wheat is on the increase (along with allergies to peanuts, dairy and other foods). This means that more people generate an IgE (immunoglobulin E) antibody response to various protein triggers, or ‘allergens’, in wheat. Eighteen per cent more children today have various dietary allergies, including wheat, than children did as recently as 1997.

      Clearfield Wheat: Product of ‘Traditional Breeding Methods’

      Clearfield wheat is a strain of patented semi-dwarf wheat, the product of ‘hybridization’ research at BASF, the world’s largest chemical manufacturer.

      Hybridization is a loosely used term. In common usage, of course, hybridization simply means mating two plants or animals to generate a unique offspring. Mate a red apple with a yellow apple, and you get a happy red-yellow hybrid. There is a presumption of safety with hybridization: The FDA doesn’t come knocking at your door asking for your animal or human test data. Hybridize to your heart’s content and you can just sell your unique vegetable or fruit, no questions asked.

      Clearfield wheat is resistant to the herbicide imazamox, also known as Beyond. Imazamox resistance is conferred by an alteration in the acetohydroxyacid synthase gene. The promotional literature to farmers proudly proclaims that imazamox resistance in Clearfield wheat is not the product of genetic modification: Clearfield wheat is non-GMO, unlike Roundup-resistant corn and soya. Clearfield brand wheat seed is sold to farmers in the northwestern United States. Farmers in Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and other states are now planting nearly one million acres of Clearfield wheat.

      So how did chemical company BASF (with the collaboration of Oregon State University), which holds the patent on Clearfield and sells the seed, create this genetic variant?

      Clearfield wheat was created through a process called chemical mutagenesis. Developers exposed wheat seeds to the chemical sodium azide, NaN₃. Sodium azide is highly toxic to animals, bacteria and humans, with human ingestion of small quantities yielding effects similar to those of cyanide. With accidental ingestion, for instance, the CDC recommends not performing CPR on the victim (in effect, just letting the victim die), since the CPR provider could be fatally exposed along with the victim. The CDC also advises not to dispose of any vomit into a sink, since it can explode (and this has actually happened).

      In addition to methods of chemical mutagenesis, gamma and x-ray radiation are also used on seeds and plant embryos to induce mutations. These methods of inducing purposeful, though unpredictable, mutations all fall under the umbrella of ‘traditional breeding methods’.

      So plants subjected to all manner of chemical- and radiation-based hybridization techniques are unleashed on the unwitting public, all presumed to be safe for human consumption, without safety testing in animals, just . . . used to create your foods.

      There are some efforts made to analyse carbohydrate content, fibre content and other crude measures of compositional change. Oh, you’ll be happy to know that they also did test for its ability to yield cohesive biscuits and light sponge cake.

      Numerous allergens have been identified in modern wheat that were not present in ancient forms like einkorn. Wheat contains alpha amylase inhibitors, probably the most common among proteins responsible for wheat allergy in children (usually resulting in hives and/or asthma, cramps and diarrhoea and eczema). The structure of alpha amylase inhibitors of modern wheat overlaps with that of alpha amylase inhibitors of ancient strains by 90 per cent, meaning that 10 per cent of the genetic code and alpha amylase inhibitor structure are different. As any allergist will tell you, just a few different amino acids can spell the difference between no allergic reaction and a severe allergic reaction, even anaphylaxis (shock). When it comes to allergy, little changes can have big consequences.

      Unfortunately, with the numerous protean changes introduced into the 25,000 strains of modern wheat, it is a virtual impossibility to track which strain contains which form of alpha amylase inhibitor. The loaf of bread you bought at the supermarket, the Cinnabon from the shopping centre, the bagel from the bagel shop – none are labelled, of course, with the strain of wheat they are sourced from. You can begin to appreciate the difficulty in tracking which strain of wheat might be associated with a specific individual’s allergic reaction. But one thing is certain: Modern forms of wheat, thanks to busy geneticists, are associated with increased potential for allergy, some of which are due to changes introduced into alpha amylase inhibitor genes.

      There are other forms of wheat allergy as well, with people in the baking industry who develop a condition called Baker’s asthma. There is also the peculiar condition called wheat-derived exercise-induced anaphylaxis (WDEIA). a severe and life-threatening allergy induced by exercise after eating wheat. Both conditions are likely due to allergy to a gliadin protein fraction.

      In addition, many other proteins – such as lipid transfer proteins, Ω-gliadins, α-gliadins, serpins and low-molecular-weight glutenins – have also been shown to trigger IgE-mediated allergic reactions to wheat. It is unclear whether the changes introduced in modern wheat have been associated with increased allergy to any of these wheat proteins, but clearly the potential is there.

      It’s Alive!

      ‘Come on! Wheat can’t be that bad! If it’s so bad, how come my mum ate bread every day and lived until she was 85 years old in perfect health?’

      What we are being sold today is so far removed from the wheat of even 50 years ago that I challenge that it should even be called wheat any longer.

      Let me weave you a scary tale that helps illustrate what has been done to this thing called wheat. This story might freak you out. So put the kids to bed, close the door and make sure no nosy neighbours are watching.

      Okay. Imagine you and I are evil scientists. We want to know what happens when we mate a 4-foot-7 Mbenga pygmy tribeswoman from the Congo with a 6-foot-4 blond Swedish male. We obtain the offspring, a child somewhere in between the Pygmy mom and Swedish dad. Once it reaches sexual maturity, we mate this Swede-Pygmy with yet another Pygmy, but this time chosen for the shortest stature among this short race. We repeat this process several more times over several generations. We also introduce mates that have other characteristics, such as hairlessness or resistance to malaria. We also ignore some of the unexpected genetic characteristics that emerge, such as peculiar facial features, missing limbs or other body parts, or unique metabolic derangements.

      Then the really creepy part starts. We mate our Swede-Pygmy descendant with some non-human primates, such as an orangutan, because we’d like to see whether our creature can be made to ably climb trees. The offspring are not always viable, but that’s not our concern. We just keep our creations alive with whatever artificial means are required. It might require surgical correction, antibiotics or artificial nutrition. We also take pregnant mothers and expose them to chemicals that induce mutations in the developing fetus in utero, and use gamma radiation and high doses of x-rays, also to induce mutations. Most of the mutations are grotesque and non-viable. But every so often, we’re lucky and the mutant survives. It may be really weird looking, with odd facial features, deranged teeth and deformed bones, as well as peculiar health problems, but that’s also not our concern.

      At the end of this process, repeated over and over again over many years, what do we call the creatures we’ve created? We can’t call them Swedish humans. We can’t call them Pygmies. They are artificially created things that bear no name, no resemblance to anything that occurs in nature because we used unnatural methods to create them. Maybe they’re 3-foot-tall creatures that, permitted some mix of synthetic food for sustenance, provide СКАЧАТЬ