Dan Charles, the food and agriculture correspondent for NPR, says in his article titled, “In the New Globalized Diet, Wheat, Soy and Palm Oil Rule”, that wheat has turned into an international “mega crop." He believes wheat has beat out many root crops because of its ability to be stored, transported, and processed into interesting foods easily. Think about it: with this one ingredient you get cereal, bread, pretzels, pasta, and cake! A huge chunk of the average American diet is made up of products that come from wheat. Now, what if I told you that by removing wheat products from your diet, you could not only decrease your risk of things like diabetes and dementia, but it would also help you lose weight. Would you do it?
I love carbs... so I know that's easier said than done. However, my mother gave up wheat four years ago, and by changing nothing about her daily routine except the exclusion of wheat, lost over 20 pounds in less than six months. On the other hand, both of my grandparents consumed very wheat based diets their whole lives, seeing as my grandmother loved to bake. My grandmother suffered from dementia the last three years of her life, and my grandfather has had type 2 diabetes for nearly 30 years.
We don’t actually know what we are putting into our bodies when we eat wheat products. From the evidence I have laid out so far, it is not a big stretch that people who eat wheat are at a much higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. When a person has type 2 diabetes, it basically means that their body isn’t able to make enough insulin. David Perlmutter says in his book, "Grain Brain," that when wheat is a part of your diet, the numerous blood sugar spikes which happen in your body as a result can cause a person to become insulin resistant. Insulin resistance is diabetes.
Few people realize it, but the wheat that we consider “normal” is actually drastically different than normal wheat from 50 years ago. Perlmutter says that the wheat we consume today in America contains up to 40 times the amount of gluten of grains grown only about 50 years ago. According to Dr. William Davis, world renowned cardiologist and weight loss expert, in his book, "Wheat Belly," after hundreds of years of hybridization, as well as genetic modifications in the last 50 years, we have been eating a crop that we really don’t know very much about. He says that these plants were not subjected to safety testing until the last 10 years, and the changes made to the wheat in years before went unregulated by the FDA.
Gluten is a protein found in grains. Perlmutter says that it has been proven, in a study conducted by Dr. Christine Zioudrou, to be an addictive substance that acts much like drugs such as heroine and morphine in terms of addiction. It’s no wonder that wheat has basically taken over our diets!
Dating as far back as we know in human existence, our ancestors ate a diet consisting of 75 percent fat, 20 percent protein, and 5 percent carbs. It is only within the last couple hundred years that our diets evolved, which now consists of about 60 percent carbs, 20 percent fat and 20 percent protein. Wheat is such a huge part of our diets now that few people realize humans survived tens of thousands of years without it in their diets.
Perlmutter also states in his book that the main issue with gluten is that it raises blood sugar in ways that no food in our ancestor’s diet can. Susan Rinkunas says on WomensHealthMag.com in her article, “Why a Wheat-Free Diet Could Help You Lose Weight-- and Improve Your Health,” that, “Eating two slices of whole wheat bread can increase blood sugar more than two tablespoons of pure sugar can.”
Wheat is a big part of our diets, and very few Americans are aware of the dangers that lie beneath the deliciousness. I know for me, it is really difficult to even fathom giving up wheat. The more I look into the subject, the more I wish I was a stronger person... If it is really possible to avoid things like dementia and diabetes by cutting wheat out of my diet, and maybe stay skinny for awhile longer, it’s a really hard idea for me to say no to. So laugh all you want at those who give up carbs, they have it figured out.
