The Problem with Modern Wheat

Although this is article is on a page that sells a product to replace modern wheat, it explains the issues that have plagues modern wheat so well. I am going to post just a few quotes from the article but I suggest you go to the link and read the whole article. This article talks about wheat but the problems with other grains, such as corn, have the same issues.


Source from: http://www.grainstorm.com/pages/rant

• Grain has been at the heart of humankind's diet for thousands of years. It is, in fact, the foundation of civilization: it cultivates easily, stores for years in kernel form, releasing its nutritional bounty when the seed is ground and prepared into fresh breads or porridges. This is how grains have been consumed over the millennia: stored in whole kernel form and milled fresh, full of life and nutrients.

So what’s changed? In fact, almost everything.

• The way we grow it, the way we process it and the way we eat. The very wheat itself. Since industrialization, everything has changed, and it has happened in two distinct “technology revolutions”. The first was in milling, the second in cultivation and farming. Both have had a profound effect, yet most people have no idea.
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• “From a human nutrition standpoint, it is ironic that wheat milling methods to produce white flour eliminate those portions of the wheat kernel (bran, germ, shorts, and red dog mill streams) that are richest in proteins, vitamins, lipids and minerals.”
• For 10,000 years, we cultivated wheat, stored it, milled it and consumed it. The system worked, and it nourished civilization. Then, in the industrial era, we changed things.
• First we invented mechanical technologies to turn wheat into barren white flour. Then, we invented chemical and genetic technologies to make it resistant to pests, drought and blight and easier to harvest, dramatically increasing yield per acre. And, while we were tweaking genetics, we also figured out how to increase glutens for better “baking properties” (fluffier results). Put another way:

We have mutant seeds, grown in synthetic soil, bathed in chemicals. They're deconstructed, pulverized to fine dust, bleached and chemically treated to create a barren industrial filler that no other creature on the planet will eat. And we wonder why it might be making us sick?

• You need to look for stone-ground “whole meal” flour, where the entire wheat kernel is ground and the germ is crushed into the flour. It’s hard to find because it doesn’t keep well—delicate fatty acids start to degrade immediately. So if you do find the real stuff, it has likely been oxidizing for months in the distribution chain, turning stale and rancid. Of course you can taste this. It’s that bitter unpleasantness that we so often associate with whole grains. Which is yet another irony, because that flavour signifies that nutrients have been lost. 
•  A farmer friend of ours told us: “Our pigs are grain-fed. We grind it for them fresh everyday. If it's not fresh, they don’t like it, and they don’t thrive.”

Heartweed: so today's wheat is not the same as the wheat our parents/grandparents grew up on. And even if you buy organic stone ground the wheat deteriorates so quickly that the wheat becomes rancid and inedible/unhealthy. Modern processing also prodeuces super gluten wheat.Todays wheat contains much more gluten.