The Gluten Paradox
The Gluten Paradox
There are a few questions I almost always get at any given event when the conversation turns to health and diet one of those is always about gluten or bread. The others include dairy, meat, and seed oils, but I’ll go into detail about those at a later date. For now, let’s chat about gluten. We know that Celiac disease is a real disease, but what about all these people with “gluten sensitivity”?
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t simple. There are so many factors at play that can cause reactions or difficulties with gluten or grains that it’s impossible to collect them all in one place, but I’m going to do my best because honestly, I don’t think the answer is just about gluten. Read on!
A Little History
We have been eating grains since the days of Neanderthals, literally. New research has shown that at least 70,000 years ago, in the times of the early hunter-gatherers, there is evidence of the preparation of seeds and grains. Evidence found in the dentition of ancient Neanderthals reveals traces of cooked grass seed (1). Archeologists have found various examples of breads, batters, and porridge that were created by both Neanderthals and early humans in different locations throughout the early world, so it begs the question of why in the span of less than 50 years suddenly struggling to consume something that we have been eating arguably since the dawn of our time?
The answer to that in my opinion comes down to industrialization.
In 1944 the Rockefeller Foundation, at the prompting of then Vice President Henry Wallace began working with the Mexican government and its initiatives to industrialize their nation to create the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program, under the Office of Special Studies within the Mexican Government. Together with both US and Mexican scientists, Dr. Norman Borlaug was credited with creating verities of semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat (3).
These varieties of wheat were able to increase yields without increasing the amount of land needed to cultivate it. This development saved countless lives by providing much-needed food during times of drought and starvation and sparked a large part of the Green Revolution. For all the wonderful things that these wheat varieties brought to the world they, as in all things, also had shortcomings. These varieties had arguably less flavor, fewer overall nutrients, smaller roots, less water retention, higher fertilization requirements, and so on. For our purposes, we are not going to dive too deeply into these topics, but know that these negatives do exist.
This video gives a great explanation of some of the pitfalls of this wheat.
Today, nearly 70% of the wheat growing in developing nations contains genes from Borlaug’s wheat (2). Prior to the industrialization of farming, wheat was grown the world over in millions of different varieties. In central New York alone there were thousands of varieties. Local farmers would save their own seed and breed varieties of wheat that not only produced the best for their areas but also had a flavor that they and their community appreciated.
It’s important to note that different varieties of wheat can have different constituents and therefore different types and amounts of gluten. Is it so far-fetched to think that one of these combinations of plant constituents could be more harmful to humans than another? Considering this is a concept that happens throughout the plant kingdom I’m going to say no, it’s not far-fetched at all.
Some Anatomy
Biologically we shouldn’t eat wheat but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water yet. Again, we have been eating wheat for about as long as we’ve been around, so how has it not come back to haunt us until now?
It hasn’t been until recent years that we stopped actually properly processing the wheat that we consume. Contrary to common sense that tells us that “Wonder Bread” is so over-processed that it’s not real bread, the truth is that it’s actually missing a key piece of processing that our bodies need to digest it.
Let’s go back a bit and talk about how other animals in nature are able to digest grains properly.
First the ruminants (cows, buffalo, sheep, deer, etc.), the animals that populated this planet by the billions prior to humans, but somehow get blamed for global warming (we won’t get into it here, that’s a different essay). Ruminants have a four-chambered stomach that allows them to use fermentation, and mechanical processes to break down plant material into usable parts.
In birds like chickens, and ducks a crop is employed to help soak, ferment, and even sprout the grains that are ingested before they can pass into the gizzard. At the gizzard, the food is then ground into smaller pieces so that it can be better digested in the stomach.
Humans do not have the anatomy to soak, ferment, or grind large volumes of grains (our teeth do some grinding, but our jaws do not articulate for proper grinding) inside their bodies. We are simply not capable of breaking down most grain seeds. This is why as far back as 70,000 years ago we began mimicking these processes outside of our bodies to create an easily digestible, high-nutrient food, that could also easily be transported and stored in its natural form (dried grain).
Then the Chemistry
The part of the wheat that we ingest is the seed. A seed’s only job is to survive, transport, and sprout. To do that many different plants have developed systems such as seed coatings that allow them to travel unharmed through the digestive system, or qualities to prevent being ingested at all. Some of these qualities include anti-nutrients, or chemicals that they contain that can make us sick, or uninterested in eating the seed in general.
In the case of wheat and grains, some of these anti-nutrients and coatings are broken down, or removed through the processes of grinding, soaking, fermenting, or sprouting. Whether these actions are done inside the body, such as with ruminants or poultry, or outside the body as with ancient humans, the result is the same, a nutrient-dense, easily digestible food.
The traditional method of making bread was to allow a combination of flour, water, and natural yeasts to ferment. Over time, typically days, the fermentation process breaks down the flour, including some of the gluten molecules, and makes it easier for humans to digest as well as making the nutrients in the grains more easily available. Traditionally fermented sourdough bread is not only higher in nutrients than other (even homemade) breads but it is also lower on the glycemic index (closer to that of a sweet potato), due to its already broken-down nature (4).
It’s true that we still grind our wheat berries into flour, but modern industrialized bread bakers turned to using cultured yeasts in the mid to late 1800s. Adding yeast cuts the fermentation time by leaps and bounds. While the additional yeast, or sometimes acids (like lactic acid to give it the flavor of sourdough) allows the bread to rise faster, it does not allow the wheat flour to break down, leaving all the anti-nutrients and hard-to-digest constituents in place. Essentially, this results in an “unprocessed” bread product that is not easily digested, despite nutrients being physically present in the flour, our bodies cannot extract them.
This information then begs the question, are our bodies reacting to the gluten or something else in the wheat? Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell because we don’t have a complete picture of how every single reaction takes place in the gut, and their effects on the human body or how to test them. The problem is complex, but I don’t think it’s fair to blame just gluten on the digestive issues people encounter when eating modern bread products.
Mixing it all up Together
To reiterate: 1) Humans have been eating various different types of wheat since, well, forever, however, we have only been eating one predominant type of wheat (that was bread for yield vs. nutrition) for less than 100 years. 2) Processing grains through grinding, fermenting, soaking, and sprouting makes them more nutritious and easily digestible, however, for roughly the last 150 years, we have used industrialized methods to shorten the time it takes for these processes. Shortening the process prevents the grain from breaking down properly, leaving behind potential anti-nutrients, blocking nutrient absorption, and causing digestive distress.
When put together, it makes sense that modern humans can’t tolerate grains in the current way that we are ingesting them. We simply do not have the anatomy, nor the variety that our bodies require to receive nutrients from grains in this way.
What’s worse is that breads and cereals have been portrayed as the staple of a healthy diet, resulting in them taking up a huge portion of the foods we ingest. Unfortunately, ingesting food that can be difficult for the body to break down can result in chronic inflammation and stress on the body. This kind of stress can appear as a food sensitivity or a chronic issue like an autoimmune disease. Additionally, the anti-nutrients found in these kinds of breads have been known to prevent the body from being able to absorb the nutrients in other foods eaten at the same time. Poor nutrient absorption can lead to deficiencies, which can exacerbate chronic conditions over time. Finally, because, these breads are often also higher on the glycemic index they can spike blood sugar, which also contributes to a whole host of other issues.
Is there any real question as to why we have an epidemic of dietary-induced sensitivities and intolerance? I propose that it’s not the wheat’s fault after all.
References
1. Barber, Dan. The Third Plate. The Penguin Press, 2014.
2. Henry, Amanda G, et al. Microfossils in Calculus Demonstrate Consumption of Plants and ... - PNAS. 27 Dec. 2010, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1016868108.
3. “Norman Borlaug.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Dec. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug.
4. Schindler, Bill. Eat like a Human: Nourishing Foods and Ancient Ways of Cooking to Revolutionise Your Health. Yellow Kite, 2022.
