Wheat Belly Review: Part 1

Why Pick On Wheat??

1)  The "history" of wheat farming.
2)  What's an Exorphin?
3) Wheat and Celiac Disease          
4) Wheat and your cholesterol!
5) The Glycemic Index trouble (Diabetes)

I found this book to be really well written and scientific.  I really have found that eliminating wheat from our diets at home isn't difficult.  Eliminating wheat at school, parties, church, restaurants is much harder, especially since no one has full blown Celiac disease (Lainey and I got tested and had normal lab results thankfully).  I plan to be wheat free pretty much as a way of life but I haven't decided what to do about the kids outside of our house.

I am going to try to explain what I learned about wheat. All the info in this post, and any future posts comes from the book Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis.  You should read it yourselves!  It's great!

1) The "history" of Wheat 

- Wheat has been part of a human diet for 10,000 years.  It started as einkorn, then emmer, then Triticum asetivum (bread flour).
- Very small changes to the genetic make-up of modern wheat occurred but for the most part wheat from the 1600's was the same in the 1700's, 1800's, and early 1900's.
- In the latter part of the 20th century  hybridization methods aimed towards increasing yields (increasing food supply) and decreasing cost drastically changed the structure of wheat.
- The "amber waves of grain" have now been replaced with a drawf wheat and semi-dwarf wheat that makes up 99% of the worlds wheat today.  These hybridization efforts started around 1945, but I think didn't really take full effect until the 1970's.  (Dr. Borlaug was a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contribution to the hybridization effort/solving world hunger.)
- While the intention of the scientists that created this new form of wheat was good (there are a lot of hungry people in this world!!), the results may be negatively impacting humans in other ways.
-No safety measures/tests were/are required before new products are made available for human consumption.

2) What's an Exorphin?

Definition according to www.drugs.com....

-Food-derived opioid peptide, found in wheat gluten

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I was shocked to learn that wheat gets digested it is broken down into polypeptides that are able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

-These polypeptides (called gluteomorphins) bind onto opiate receptors in your brain (same receptors that morphine and heroin bind too). 

-This creates a please sensation, stimulating your need for MORE! (Wheat acts as an appetite stimulant).

-The effects of wheat on your brain can be blocked by the same drugs you would give a patient who overdosed on heroin/morphine.

- A study done at University of South Carolina found that when subjects were given naloxone (drug blocking opiate effect of wheat on your brain) they ate 400 LESS calories (over the course of 2 meals) than the subjects given a placebo.  

Are there other foods that act as an exorphin? 

 The protein Casein which is in dairy is believed to also possibly be an exorphin.  Most interesting part about this to me is that Casein is added to many, many, many processed foods (many of them that also contain wheat of course!). 

Here's a list of processed foods that contain added casein....

It's in everything ranging from infant formula to salad dressing to french fries. For more info go HERE. 

We already avoid eating processed foods so for the most part our casein intake is limited about 2 servings of milk/yogurt/cheese a day which I think is necessary for calcium (we supplement calcium too).

Part Three to be continued....