by THOMAS on Aug 28, 2012 • 9:00 pm
I have spent a good deal of time exploring various aspects of the nutrition spectrum over the years and am continuously looking for the underlying cause of many of today’s health problems. I have read numerous books, articles, and subscribe to some of the most current nutrition and investigative journals. But nothing prepared me for the information that was presented to me in the current book that I am reading: Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD. William Davis, MD is a cardiologist practicing in Philidelphia, New York. He has painstakingly and meticulously researched the history of wheat from it’s earliest known origins to the manipulated, hybridized nightmare grain that so dominates our food choices today. He has come to the conclusion that this so called “healthy whole grain” is responsible for a broad spectrum of health and digestive problems.
To see first hand the tremendous investment and dominance of wheat in our lives, all one has to do is pay a visit to your local grocer and take an inventory of the amount of space occupied by wheat products. Just look at the bread aisle, the cereal aisle, pasta, cookies, crackers, chips, and then pay a visit to the frozen food and refrigeration section. It is staggering the shear number of products and the amount of space given to this food source. But the wheat that we are consuming today bears little resemblance to the grain that our parents and grandparents consumed just fifty years ago. In the last half of the twentieth century through genetic engineering, we have seen the wheat plant change from a tall compact headed grain containing roughly 30% protein, to a short squat and fat headed plant with about half of the protein and twice as much gluten and carbohydrate.
If you were to take a random sampling of the population today and line up say twenty people you would see a dominance of overweight and even obese folks. Compare this to pictures taken of the same number of folks, say in the seventies. You get the picture?
I have just started reading this book but I have already read some incredible facts and histories pertaining to the health consequences of the consumption of wheat products. If you are a person who has struggled with weight problems, or who has some unexplained health or chronic health concerns, I urge you to go to the website of William Davis, MD and read this book. Better yet, just try giving up wheat for six weeks and see how you feel. And let us not forget beer. Yes beer is potentially a source of wheat and I not talking wheat beer. Wherever barley is grown there is wheat. It is impossible to not have cross contamination unless you are talking complete isolation. Luckily there are a number of gluten free beers on the market and some(not all) of them are good. My favorite is “O mission” by Widmer but there are many others.
Be well
Dr. T