That Is the Question
In North America, one of the most commonly eaten grains is wheat. Toast in the morning, sandwiches at lunch, bread with dinner, not to mention the fact that wheat is an ingredient in the majority of processed and packaged foods found in your local supermarket and 7-Eleven.
Think about it, wheat is omnipresent. You can find it in different types of flour, bread, cereal extract, crackers, pasta, wheat germ, wheat starch: wheat, wheat, wheat . . . (resembling the shower-scene soundtrack of the movie, Psycho, for those with gluten issues).
And wheat is often present in somewhat hidden ways, such as artificial flavors, food starch, soy sauce, syrup, etc. You cannot escape it unless you carefully read labels and know which ingredients are wheat-based.
Good or Bad?
Here’s the thing: people have been eating foods that contain wheat for millenniums. But how wheat is grown and harvested has changed dramatically over thousands of years. Today’s crops are said to be vastly different from wheat plants of the past.
In fact, the past four decades have seen a shift to hybridized, high-yield wheat, which to quote Dr. William Davis, “is a genetically-unique plant that stands 18-24 inches tall, not the 4 1/2-foot tall ‘amber waves of grain’ we all remember.”
Dr. Davis is a renowned cardiologist who came to the conclusion that eliminating wheat from your diet can result in all sorts of health benefits, including weight loss, after asking his pre-diabetic and diabetic patients to remove wheat from their diets. The across-the-board positive results were beyond coincidence: weight loss, lower blood sugar levels and relief from a variety of health issues that included acid reflux, arthritic pain, chronic sinus infections, irritable bowel syndrome and migraine headaches. His claim that eating wheat causes heart disease remains controversial.
His book, Wheat Belly, became a bestselling book, and Dr. Davis went on to write several other well-received titles, including Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor. And a lot of people stopped eating wheat, which caused huge drops in sales of cereals and wheat in general.
It wasn’t just about eliminating gluten. Wheat contains over 1,000 proteins that have the potential to cause unexpected or odd responses, according to wheatbelly.com: “You might say that wheat is a perfectly crafted Frankengrain that almost appears like it was created to exert maximum health damage in the most desirable, irresistible form possible.”
Believe It or Not
Now, it is difficult to know what to believe these days, but with all of the Wheat Belly information and the initial idea of this blog being that wheat is such a dominant daily ingredient in North American diets, maybe there is something to be said for making a change.
This point in the blog is a “believe it or not” marker. Keeping anonymity by request, let’s just say that many years ago in a seasonally allergenic North American city, an individual was plagued by miserable springs, when pollen allergies created flu-like symptoms that made this person want to do nothing except lie on the couch, exhausted by sneezing and ever-flowing congestion. It was before the 2011 publication of Wheat Belly or the knowledge that city planners had played misogynistic Mother Nature and planted all-male varieties of trees that only produce pollen without dropping petals, berries or fruits that this red-eyed-in-the-spring individual decided to stop eating wheat. Why? Because wheat was something this person had eaten daily for a lifetime. Believe it or not, the result was no more seasonal allergies. No wheat, no allergies.
Perhaps others may want to take the wheat-less way and see what results. It’s tough because things like bread taste so good (because apparently wheat stimulates your appetite . . . and weight gain). Replacing wheat-based food with more vegetables that are fiber- and nutrient-rich without the weight gain is just one helpful step.
From an AIM perspective, choosing a glass of BarleyLife or the Garden Trio over two slices of buttered toast offers a nutrient-rich habit that you make on a daily basis. In other words, you train your stomach what is actually good for your body and not the other way around.
Testimonials should not be construed as representing results everybody can achieve.
–♦♦♦–
Since 1982, The AIM Companies has been dedicated to improving the quality of people’s lives with life-changing products, like BarleyLife and Garden Trio, and by rewarding passionate Members with a free-enterprise compensation plan.
The AIM Companies 