What is gluten, and why is it harmful?
Why is Gluten a Modern-Day Epidemic?
Gluten is a common protein present in wheat, barley, and rye.
I recall working as a chef in the catering industry two decades ago, when no one had ever heard of gluten or food allergies and intolerances. However, more and more people nowadays are experiencing health issues linked to gluten consumption.
In America, celiac disease has increased 400-fold since the 1950s, and it is now considered a hazardous food for those who have issues with gluten-containing foods.
In this article, I will delve into the research to answer what gluten is and why it is so harmful.
Additionally, I will explore other effects of gluten on our health and waistline, how wheat has undergone many genetic modifications and whether we should be concerned about it.
What exactly is gluten anyway?
Gluten is a sticky, storage protein that is challenging for the digestive tract because it binds to the small intestinal wall where it can cause digestive and immune system disorders. Gluten sensitivity is an epidemic that is a significant contributing factor to inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease. Rheumatoid arthritis, type I diabetes, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, autoimmune cardiomyopathy, lymphoma, and dermatitis herpetiformis (skin disease). It is also a contributing factor in asthma, allergies, & eczema.
There are, of course, people who need to avoid eating gluten. This is due to gluten intolerance. Gluten, for these people, appears as an enemy in the body. The immune system produces chemicals to fight the gluten (the enemy) during digestion to fight this enemy, which can appear as rashes, pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting and digestive issues like bloating, excessive gas and irritable bowel disease.
A well-known gluten intolerance disease is coeliac disease. When a coeliac sufferer eats gluten, the immune system attacks its intestines, causing pain and horrific nutrient deficiencies. The damage to the gut limits the absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream.
Wheat is NOT farmed the way our ancestors grew it.
Frankenstein wheat is the term we use for modern-day wheat now. Mark Hyman explains that we eat a hybridised version of what our ancestors grew, which is einkorn. The strain of wheat today is dwarf wheat. This modern wheat strain has a super starch called amylopectin. It raises your blood sugar more than table sugar. It's sprayed with glyphosate (a weedkiller with the potential to cause cancer) at the end of harvest, which allows it to be harvested more easily. The hybridisation increases all the gluten molecules, so there's way more gluten in modern wheat.
Over the past 50 years, under the influence of agricultural scientists, their primary goal has been to make the wheat plant resistant to environmental conditions, including disease, drought, and heat, as well as pathogens such as fungi. Modern commercial farming has been intent on delivering features such as increased yield. Decreased production costs. Large-scale production of a consistent commodity. In fact, it has been modified by humans to such a degree that modern strains cannot survive in the wild without human intervention.
From the original strains of wild grass harvested by our ancestors, it exploded to more than 25,000 varieties, virtually all of the result of human intervention. As a result, wheat has undergone a more drastic transformation than Joan Rivers and Cher!
DR William Davis states in his book wheat belly that despite the dramatic changes in the genetic makeup of wheat and other crops, no animal-human safety testing was conducted on the new genetic strains that were created, with the efforts to increase yield. Plant geneticists were confident that hybridisation yielded safe products for human consumption because of the apparent world hunger.
These agricultural research products were released into the food supply without human safety concerns being part of the equation. Wheat gluten proteins, in particular, undergo considerable structural change with hybridisation. In one hybridisation experiment, 14 new gluten proteins were identified in the offspring absent in either parent wheat plant.
Multiply these alterations by the tens of thousands of hybridisations to which wheat has been subjected, and Houston, we now have a problem!
Gluten is in everything!
Take a look at your local supermarkets’ bread section. You can find hundreds of varieties, from sourdough bread, french bread, flatbreads, bagels, dinner rolls, naan and wraps, hamburger buns, 8 varieties of hot dog buns, crumpets, and fruit loaf. Danish pastries & croissants, then the snack section with 30 different crackers, breadsticks, and croutons galore.
And then there's the breakfast aisle top to bottom shelves of hundreds of different types of cereals to eat for breakfast. There's also an aisle devoted to boxes and bags of pasta, noodles, spaghetti, lasagne, penne shells, whole wheat pasta, green spinach pasta. Frozen food has a lot of wheat-containing products.
In fact, apart from the detergent and fruit and vegetable aisle, there's barely an aisle that doesn't contain wheat products. Even alcohol and sauces contain wheat. It's practically in everything. Wheat is among the most consumed grain on the earth, and you can see you cannot get away from it.
Has the food industry created the perfect storm?
In DR William Davis book he state that the increase of wheat products everywhere means the Food and Drug industries have had financial success and profited on a massive scale. It can make you wonder if this perfect storm was something man-made.
The company Kraft now generates 48.1 billion in annual revenues, an 1800% increase since the late 80s, a substantial portion of which comes from wheat and corn-based snacks. Did a group of powerful men convene in a secret meeting which mapped out an evil plan to mass-produce high-yield, low-cost dwarf wheat?
Then engineered the release of government-sanctioned advice to eat healthy whole grains, which led corporate companies to sell hundreds of billions of dollars worth of processed wheat food products, all leading to obesity and the need for billions of dollars of drug treatments for diabetes and heart disease and all the other health consequences of the city.
We have been told to eat more healthy heart-whole grains. It’s been the cornerstone of all nutritional directives. This essentially matches the advice given by the NHS and in America via the American Heart Association, American Dietetic Association, and the American Diabetes Association.
Are all these organisations in cahoots with the wheat farmers, seed, and chemical companies? In the West, we were advised to reduce our intake of saturated fats and increase our consumption of grain-based foods. In doing so we now have a massive rise in gluten sensitivities. It seems like the perfect storm and has made many people incredibly wealthy.
We have mutant seeds grown in synthetic soil, bathed in chemicals. They're deconstructed, pulverised to fine dust, bleached and chemically treated to create a barren industrial filler that no other creature on the planet will eat. And we wonder why it might be making us sick.
Has modern wheat affected peoples health & waistline?
A review paper in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 "diseases" caused by eating gluten. These include osteoporosis, irritable bowel disease, inflammatory bowel disease, anaemia, cancer, fatigue, canker sores, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and almost all other autoimmune diseases.
Gluten is also linked to many psychiatric and neurological diseases, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, dementia, migraines, epilepsy, and neuropathy (nerve damage).
It has also been linked to autism. Dr William Davis states in his book that after clinical experiments, he concluded that eating gluten & modern wheat makes symptoms of ADHD ,schizophrenia, and autism worse. Cut out gluten from their diet, and symptoms were alleviated.
What Makes Wheat Addictive and Fattening
Whole wheat bread has a glycaemic index of 72. It increases blood sugar as much as or more than table sugar or sucrose. High-glycemic index foods can cause people to store belly fat. Increased sugar levels in the body trigger inflammation, cause fatty liver disease and eventually lead to obesity, pre-diabetes and diabetes.
Modern wheat contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A, which makes bread fluffy, increases the starch content, and contributes to added weight gain. In addition, wheat also contains proteins called "exorphins." They are like the endorphins you get from a runner's high. They bind to the opioid receptors, creating a mild morphine-like effect.
The wheat polypeptides are absorbed into the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier. They are called "gluteomorphins," after "gluten" and "morphine." This high encourages the body to binge on bread, pasta, cookies, cakes and pastries.
It explains why some people experience incredible difficulty removing wheat from their diet. Most people bread is literally their crack. Some people have an obsessive wheat addiction. The thought of giving up their daily bread, pizza, pasta, and pastries is enough to send shivers down their spine. Wheat has addictive properties that actually cause us to overeat it even more.
It is an appetite stimulant. It makes you want more and more. It yields particular drug-like neurological effects, giving the person eating it a temporary high. If most of your diet is carbs, what are the chances that you are more likely to binge on carbs? Most report that they enter a carb coma after eating. Isn't that similar to a drug high once an addict has shot up??
The fantastic thing about wheat elimination is that removing this food that triggers appetite and addictive behaviour forges a brand new relationship with food. You eat food because you need it to supply your psychological energy needs, not because you have some odd food ingredient pushing your appetite buttons increasing appetite and the impulse to eat more and more.
If you eliminate foods that trigger exaggerated blood sugar and insulin responses, you eradicate the cycle of hunger and momentary saitey. You eliminate the dietary source of addictive exorphins you are satisfied with less. This is my mantra: eat better, not less! If you struggle with binge and overeating and struggle with cravings, you may consider cutting wheat out altogether.
Be gluten-free, but don’t eat gluten-free!
After reading this article, you may think of switching to a gluten-free diet and stocking up on gluten-free foods instead of thinking that you're being 'healthy'. Well, I hate to break it to you, but gluten-free bread is junk food. Many gluten-free foods are made by replacing wheat flour with cornflour, rice starch, potato starch, or tapioca starch.
This is especially hazardous for anyone looking to drop 20 30 or more pounds. However, they do not trigger the immune or neurological response of wheat gluten but still trigger the glucose-insulin response that causes you to gain weight. Wheat products increase blood sugar and insulin more than most other foods.
But remember, foods made with corn flour, rice starch, potato starch, and tapioca starch are among the few foods that increase blood sugar even more than wheat products. Gluten-free foods are not problem-free.
There is some good news!
Wheat and gluten-free products are out of the question, so you're probably thinking, what the heck can I eat?
I have some really useful resources that I think you will love! (Click on the pictures to go straight to these resources.)
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Most people can handle the undigested gluten with no problems. But in some people, gluten can trigger a severe autoimmune response or other unpleasant symptoms. An autoimmune response to gluten is called celiac disease. Celiac can damage the small intestine.
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Gluten intolerance basics
Bloating and stomach pain, the most common symptoms.
Constipation and diarrhea.
Nausea and vomiting.
Headaches (gluten intolerance can also be a migraine trigger)
Widespread body and joint pain.
Fatigue and tiredness.
Anxiety and depression.
Brain fog.
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Most gluten consumption comes from anything made with wheat - bread, pastries, basically all baked goods that are not gluten-free.
The other major sources of gluten come from oats, cereal, pasta, and pizza.
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AI Overview
"Gluten belly" is a colloquial term used to describe the bloating and abdominal swelling that some individuals experience after consuming gluten, particularly those with gluten intolerance or celiac disease. It's essentially a physical manifestation of digestive discomfort caused by gluten's effect on the body.
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There are several factors behind why is gluten allergy in rise such as: Changes in dietary patterns away from the traditional diet which stressed on rice to grains. Genetic predisposition for those who are born with gluten intolerance. Environmental factors.
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To test for gluten intolerance, a doctor will first assess your symptoms and medical history. If celiac disease is suspected, blood tests and potentially a biopsy of the small intestine may be performed. For gluten sensitivity (non-celiac gluten sensitivity), a process of elimination, involving an elimination diet and reintroduction of gluten, is often used to determine if gluten is the cause of your symptoms.
References & further resources
Wheat Belly by DR William Davis
Grain Brain, The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar, a
https://drhyman.com/blog/2022/01/24/podcast-ep483/
www.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26443339/
www.drhyman.com/blog/2011/03/17/gluten-what-you-dont-know-might-kill-you/
www.grainstorm.com/pages/modern-wheat
https://www.soilassociation.org/causes-campaigns/reducing-pesticides/the-pesticide-problem/
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