The average
American consumes nearly 133 pounds of wheat each year. And new
evidence suggests that cutting back has its benefits for your health
beyond gluten sensitivities, the environment, and small farmers.
1. Lower Your Blood Sugar
The big message from the bestseller book Wheat Belly Total Health
is that eating two slices of whole wheat bread can increase your blood
sugar more than consuming two tablespoons of pure sugar can. “There’s
just no way to deny that wheat raises your blood sugar to high levels,”
says William Davis, M.D, author of forthcoming Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain
Detox. Over time, it raises insulin and creates visceral fat—the kind
around your middle that’s hard to get rid of. The results are on a
spectrum, depending on what other complicating health factors exist, but
here’s what he can say, with certainty: “All pre-diabetics who drop
wheat become non-pre-diabetic and the majority with type-2 diabetes can
reverse or at least minimize their disease.”
2. Reduce Your FODMAPS
Some
people have learned through process of elimination that they are
sensitive to FODMAPS, short for Fermentable Oligo-Di-Monosaccharides and
Polyols. They’re found in a variety of foods—honey, dairy, wheat,
garlic, and onion, to name a few. According to Barry Sears, M.D., author
of The Mediterranean Zone, other than true celiacs, 99 percent of the
population doesn’t have a problem with wheat protein. It’s the FODMAPs
in wheat that are often what set off gastrointestinal distress. Sears
isn’t necessarily advocating we eliminate all FODMAPS, though. We need
some of them for microbial diversity in the gut. “The easiest thing is
to cut bread from the diet, which dramatically reduces the glycemic carb
load that can cause increases in insulin levels, which makes some
people feel sick.
3. Support Small Farms
If
wheat is high on the list of what you consume, it’s possible you’re
relying too much on processed foods—wheat lurks in some of the most
unlikely places, such as salad dressings and soy sauce. “Wheat is a top
three monoculture plant, along with corn and soy, and the more that we
can introduce variety into the types of grains we buy, the more we
support subsistence and small farmers and local producers,” says chef
Richard Jones of Green Door Gourmet, an organic farm in Nashville,
Tennessee. Jones suggests subbing wheat for some other grains with
promising nutritional profiles, such as oats, amaranth, millet, quinoa,
or sorghum—all of which are available as flours, too.
4. Give Your Thyroid A Break
Thyroid
dysfunction stems from a number of causes, among them endocrine
disruptors, iodine deficiency, and wheat consumption, says Davis. “We
know that 50 percent of people who have auto-immune Hashimoto’s
thyroiditis have antibodies to the gliadin protein in wheat. There’s
good circumstantial evidence that this condition is triggered by
consumption of grains,” says Davis. “Humans lack the capacity to digest
the proteins in wheat, so the gliadin remains intact, which then
increases intestinal permeability, initiating an autoimmune response,”
says Davis. When the gliadin goes haywire through the bloodstream, the
immune system produces antibodies that are tricked into attacking your
thyroid.
5. Avoid GMOs
If
you’re concerned about the safety of genetically modified foods, it
might be smart to consume fewer wheat products. Here’s why: Wheat is
found in many processed foods, which likely also contain refined
starches and sugars. And since sugar, soy, and corn are top offenders in
the genetically modified food category, this, in turn, means you’re
simultaneously avoiding GMOs in your food. (For the record, the USDA
maintains that no genetically modified wheat is in production.) So it’s
not necessarily the wheat itself but everything else that it gets mixed
up with that we should be worried about.
6. Improve The Soil
Organic
farming emphasizes biodiversity. “Planting the same crop year after
year—namely, wheat—in the same place may seem efficient, but in fact
you’re inviting pests to make a long-term habitat,” says Eric Skokan,
farmer and chef-owner of Black Cat Bistro and Bramble & Hare in
Boulder, Colorado. “If you put a different plant family in place of
wheat the following year, those same pests won’t come back,” he
explains. You can also reduce weed growth, which is a drain on the
soil’s nutrient profile. “Different weeds grow at varying times
throughout the season. By rotating crops that don’t have the same
growing season every year—wheat one year, quinoa the next—you disrupt
the weed cycle,” he says.
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Health