The Pros And Cons Of Eating Wheat

Wheat represents more than 20 percent of the world’s food, and more land is utilized for growing wheat than any other crop on earth. Furthermore it has overtaken rice as the second-most produced cereal after maize. But the question many people worldwide are asking is, how healthy is it?

I grew up believing that whole-wheat products, including bread were healthy and that processed wheat products should be avoided. But I also believed (and still do) that wheat products including bread should be limited when trying to lose weight. Overall, while I do limit the wheat I eat, I don’t believe it should be eliminated altogether. But that is my personal opinion, and there is a growing body of consumers who, for various reasons, believe that wheat should be avoided at all costs.

The Most Common Pros and Cons of Wheat as a Food

Not long ago my husband decided to try and lose weight by following a low-carb, high-fat diet that “strongly suggests” avoiding all baked and grain-based foods, including wheat. Within a week he was suffering from severe, very painful constipation – and this is a primary disadvantage of not including wheat in your diet. Fiber-rich, the wheat in whole-wheat products including pasta, bread and some breakfast cereals, does prevent chronic constipation. However, weight isn’t the only high-fiber food that keeps bowel movements regular. Fresh fruit, veg and legumes do too. He has found that one to two teaspoons of psyllium husks dissolved in a glassful of water daily does the trick. I find eating green chilies works for me.

READ Best Food for Constipation

Another advantage of eating wheat is that it contains vitamin B, which provides energy and is also essential for repairing body cells and tissue. But vitamin B is also found in other foods, including dark-green leafy veggies and red meat.

Eliminating wheat can also be a schlep, particularly if those around you are happy to eat bread, pasta and pizza that contains wheat, as all these provide relatively quick and easy meals that can be nutritious.

So what are the cons of eating wheat?

Eliminating wheat from ones diet is a common requirement for many weight-loss diets. But it’s questionable whether the motivation is in fact excluding wheat for wheat’s sake. More likely, by avoiding wheat and wheat products, you’ll be eliminating many processed foods that are rich in carbohydrates and very likely sugar as well. Dieticians and medically qualified people agree that refined carbohydrates can have an immensely negative effect on blood glucose levels which not only commonly leads to weight gain, but also, in many instances to diabetes.

Linked to the last point, there is a school of thought (including the authors of the low-carb, high-fat diet mentioned earlier) that advocates eliminating wheat simply to control blood glucose levels. It is particularly useful for those suffering from diabetes because it enables them to regulate insulin levels. Additionally, cutting out wheat to stabilize blood glucose levels can also help to prevent gluten intolerance and the risk of developing the autoimmune disorder, celiac (or coeliac) disease.

Wheat consumption can also result in a number of allergies, with symptoms that include wheezing, coughing, a runny nose, diarrhoea, nausea, and even skin reactions. There is even a condition dubbed “baker’s asthma” that is sparked by inhaling wheat flour.

In 2014 I edited a weight-loss book for a US-based self-publisher, Mary Riche. Inspired by anti-wheat cardiologist and author, William Davis, she cut out all wheat and gluten, and found that she was no longer constipated, bloated, and a persistent cough she had suffered from for years disappeared. She said that even her arthritis became less painful.

But how bad is wheat really?

Wheat Today Is Not the Same As Wheat Used to Be

Controversial US cardiologist William Davis, author of several books that advocate eliminating wheat from our diets, vehemently believes that wheat is an “unhealthy whole grain.” He also dubs the wheat grown today as “a good grain gone bad.” That’s because wheat has been hybridized and badly bred. He also warns that the “science of genetic modification has the potential to change wheat even further.”

Sayer Ji, author of a paper titled The Dark Side of Wheat warns that including wheat in what we eat results in a “biologically inappropriate diet,” largely because of its gluten content. He links most “diseases of affluence” including cancer, coronary heart disease and diabetes to grain-based diets, which (as we all know) include secondary sources that we don’t always acknowledge. These include grain-fed poultry, cows, and even factory-farmed fish. He also points out that the once rare celiac disease now affects one in every 133 people in the USA.

Like Davis, Ji has labeled wheat as “an exceptionally unwholesome grain.”

It’s a complicated topic, and one that can easily boggle the mind, particularly when it focuses on genetic modification (GM).

GM Foods and Wheat

The nonprofit consumer advocacy group, Whole Grains Council (WGC) argues that whole grains (as opposed to those that are refined) have health benefits. The organization defines whole grains (including the three pseudo-grains amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa) as those where the entire seed is still present, even if it has been processed in some way, for instance cracked or crushed. WGC also states that whole wheat is whole grain, except in Canada and other countries where some of the kernel might be missing (and they still call it whole grain!).

WGC maintains that Dr William “Wheat Belly” Davis is perpetuating a myth that US wheat has been genetically modified. US farmers have resisted the idea of GMO wheat they say, and it would be wrong to suggest otherwise. Of course they maintain many other things too, but the GM argument is one that cannot be ignored. But what is quite extraordinary is the fact that there is total denial that wheat has been genetically modified in the USA.

GM and Biotechnology – Are They Different?

In September 2014 Monsanto published a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report that they said vindicated them from accusations that they were selling GM wheat seed and grain. The irony though is that they reckon (in black and white on their website) that “almost everything you’ve eaten in your entire life was genetically modified.” This, they explain is because humans have selectively bred animals and plants for more than 10,000 years.

READ GMO Causes Cancer And Large Tumors

Monsanto is, of course, a long-standing (founded in 1901) multinational “agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation” responsible for GM maize (corn), rice, soybeans, and canola. They also specialize in producing crops that with withstand their poisonous glyphosate-rich Roundup herbicide the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found to cause cancer.

While Monsanto denies genetically modifying wheat, the company boasts about its biotechnology successes and plant breeding. Monsanto also explains how this is done – by identifying genetic markers in the DNA of plants that link to things like yield, drought resistance, disease resistance, nutrition, taste and so on. Then they use these genetic markers to make better plants.

The WHO explains that GM foods are the result of modifying the genetic material (DNA) of organisms in “a way that does not occur naturally.” Further, they say that most of the GM crops being grown today have been developed to:

• Improve yield
• And this is done by making them:
  • Resistant to plant diseases
  • More tolerant to herbicides

And in spite of the USDA 2014 report, numerous registration documents out of their offices for new wheat cultivars indicate that these have both increased yields and improved resistance to diseases and chemicals.

The question is how are these not GM? And, if plants have been genetically modified for centuries, and all is okay, why the denial?

What Published Research About Wheat Tells Us

There has been a tremendous amount of research relating to wheat and the results are both good and bad. For example:

• A study on food allergies and migraine published in The Lancet in 1979 showed that wheat was the most common food to cause an allergic reaction and headaches (78 percent).
• A US study on wheat allergy published in 2006 found that delaying babies’ introduction to cereals grains would not protect against food allergies. A total of 1,612 babies were involved in the study and only 1 percent were found to have an allergy to wheat.
• A US study published in 2013 looked specifically at the alarming increase in celiac disease and gluten intolerance coupled with exposure to glyphosate (as in Monsanto’s Roundup) exposure. Their findings were horrific and ultimately called for new legislation to restrict the usage of this chemical which is commonly used to desiccate wheat and other crops prior to harvest. 
• A European study that looked at the effects of other grains and how they can lead to chronic inflammation within the body as well as autoimmune diseases. While they reported that adverse reactions are “clinically apparent” researchers felt that additional studies should be done to learn more.
• An Italian study published in 2014 considered problems relating to wheat and gluten and the effects they had on people without celiac disease or known wheat allergies. They found that this was a “new” disease that they called non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and advised that more research be carried out to define and understand it more thoroughly.

At the end of the day it is clear that a large number of people develop health problems as a result of eating wheat. At the same time many people live a healthy life eating wheat products. However it’s impossible to compare case histories and know whether one is comparing wheat with wheat (as in apples with apples). There are just too many variables worldwide and too much denial in terms GM and food quality.

The only answer is to assess how your body responds to wheat and then decide whether you should eat it or eliminate it from your diet.