Health Foods
and You
Natural Health & Wellbeing
the fuss about?
to heal the gut, but it will
take a considerable period of
elimination of gluten for the
healing to take place. Make
sure you seek advice from your
professional health carer, in
the management of your gut
health.
Gluten Is Not the Only
Problem
We are told by government
and industry-sponsored
nutritionists that wheat is
good for you, and that it’s an
essential part of a ‘balanced’
diet. The official Diabetes
dietary guidelines specify to
eat wheat and grains every
day in the processed form
of bread or cereal, yet these
guidelines are creating more
and more diabetes and health
problems in our population.
One has to ask, are health
authorities creating the
problem so they can fix it?
Or, a more likely explanation
is that the machinery of the
modern medicine industry
grinds slowly, and is not very
adaptable to the evolution of ideas.
We have seen, over the last 60–70
years the glacially slow uptake of
new information on health issues
such as the benefits of saturated
fats, the dangers of sugar, and the
management of cholesterol, just to
name a few. It’s looking increasingly
like the ‘gluten’ issue is in the same
basket.
Ancient Wheat
V. Modern Wheat
Many people
have health and
gut problems due
to eating modern
wheat, but when they eat
Spelt or Kamut (also
known as Khorosan),
or oats and rye which
also contain gluten, they have no
digestive issues. Clearly, the problem
extends beyond just gluten.
The wheat we are eating today,
in fact since the 1960’s, is a vastly
different product to the ancient
grains that have been consumed by
humans for about 10,000 years. The
strains that were grown, the way it
was processed and the way we ate
it has all changed. The very wheat
that is grown today is a product of
the “green” technology revolution
which took place last century. “New”
farming processes also included
the use of synthetic fertilizers and
pesticides. Modern wheat is smaller,
more starchy, higher in protein, and
contains less fibrous matter and
less complex nutrients than the
ancient grains. The only virtues of
modern wheat are the high yield and
improved efficiency of farming it,
but with little regard for its effect on
human nutrition and health.
A recent study from Italy
compared processed white flour
products and Kamut (Khorasan)
foods,