"Wheat Belly"

[old3bob]

 

Have been reading some info on humans eating wheat and other grains.  The info says most grains cause us problems, even serious health problems, with wheat (including whole grain) being about the worse and brown rice being about the best as far as not causing an array of health problems.  Its kind of mind blowing considering that whole grains and greatly processed grains are in so many of our foods!  A major point the book talks about is that humans did not evolve to digest grains as ruminants did (like cattle, etc..) but only resorted to grains ages ago during hard times to prevent starvation.  Studies mentioned show that many native peoples who eat "modern" foods end up with many of the modern health problems but when returning to their much earlier types of food from foraging and or hunting that most regained much better health.  Anyway something to consider the next  time foods made with lots of grains are before us.

[Sanity Check]

All of which fuels the latest einkorn wheat craze.

 

 

[Lala Nila]

It's a fantastic book, I agree. I believe that glyphosate plays a huge role in illness associated with wheat consumption as well. 

[Sanity Check]

11 hours ago, Lala Nila said:

It's a fantastic book, I agree. I believe that glyphosate plays a huge role in illness associated with wheat consumption as well. 

 

 

1950s era wheat was engineered to multiply yields, at the expense of becoming less nutritious and less digestable for people.

 

Issues with wheat consumption are likely older than most realize.

[Lairg]

It seems that grains and fruit often protect themselves from predators by including toxic substances.

 

For years my body always chose white wheat flour instead of the wholemeal that I was taught was healthier.  It seems that wheat has lectins in the outer layer to poison predators.

 

When I was a child I would see cooking shows where the Italian cooks would blanche tomatoes - then take off and discard the skin and seeds and just use the pulp.

 

Apparently tomatoes keep their lectins in the skin and seeds.  How did the Italian cooks know what to do?

 

Here is a book about it

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/006242713X

 

Meanwhile: do organic growers use  desiccants before harvesting grains?  If so, I would not eat them.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 29 by Lairg

[Nungali]

Even switching from  wheat to rye helps (in bread ) and  from oats to rye (in porridge) .   Barley was big in the ancient near east , still is today in some Iranian food . 

 

Bread ( made from various natural grains ) is an ancient food .... if you look it up it will say  ' Oooooo  several thousand years in the middle east .  

 

Errrmmmm  ... try   

''  The world's first bread was likely made by Indigenous Australians, using seeds from native plants, with evidence of grinding stones dating back over 30,000 years at sites like Cuddie Springs in New South Wales. This practice predates the development of baking in ancient Egypt by thousands of years and represents one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated continuous agricultural traditions, making Indigenous Australians the world's first bakers. ''

 

of course they did not use wheat  but natural grass seeds, legumes. nuts and roots . 

 

Aussie grinding stones : 

 

 

 

Most of the time they would be left at a camp, but sometimes they would be taken with them .... Aboriginal woman walking far across the land  with a ring of twisted bark on her head and the huge heavy grinding stone on top, baby on one  hip  and a hand full of other stuff ( digging sticks, etc )   on the other side ...... wow ! 

[old3bob]

7 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

1950s era wheat was engineered to multiply yields, at the expense of becoming less nutritious and less digestable for people.

 

Issues with wheat consumption are likely older than most realize.

 

indeed!

[old3bob]

hmm, what's that about rye and LSD?

[Taomeow]

5 hours ago, old3bob said:

hmm, what's that about rye and LSD?

 

Well, ergot fungus is not part of rye, it's an infection that can contaminate rye more readily but it can also spread to wheat, barley, oats etc..  So simply preventing this infection takes care of LSD. 

 

A better question is, what about gluten and cereal grain lectins stimulating the opioidergic system in the gut and the brain to produce endogenous opioids -- similar to morphine, codeine, opium etc.?  Which explains why it has seduced our civilization into an ages-long drug addiction (which consuming those grains really is...)  And why does our body release endogenous painkillers (for both the body and the psyche) in response to being presented with gluten and cereal lectins? Because that's what it does in response to being hurt, damaged.  So the cycle goes on -- you eat that stuff, you hurt and damage your body, the body releases feel-good chemicals...  and a grain "civilization" is born.  

 

 

Edited September 29 by Taomeow

[Lairg]

Traditionally mother's cooking is best.  That is not because your mother is a better cook, but rather that she is putting intent and love into the cooking.

 

Long ago I lived in a spiritual community that baked its own bread.  There was a roster of bakers.  One baker's bread produced a warm tingling in my stomach.  I asked her about that and she said that she deliberately put energy into the bread.

 

I do the same when kneading my sourdough.  My bread is popular too.

 

 

 

 

[Sanity Check]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/08/12/farmers-aging-rapidly-is-food-at-risk/85577304007/

 

Average age for a farmer in america is 58.

 

40% of all farmland in the country is owned by farmers with an average age of 65.

 

Is grain economy is bad.

 

We may have to find alternative options soon.

 

 

[Nungali]

We are on the way down here ... 

 

 

 

 

[29Gathering]

I quit wheat many years ago and haven't looked back. Before I quit I was itching all the time, now it's very rare. Just that would have been enough to quit wheat products, but lesser effect were that stomach problems became less common and inflammation reduced.

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, 29Gathering said:

I quit wheat many years ago and haven't looked back. Before I quit I was itching all the time, now it's very rare. Just that would have been enough to quit wheat products, but lesser effect were that stomach problems became less common and inflammation reduced.

 

ditto on the digestive problems;  when we are younger our bodies are normally  better able to compensate or recover from certain problems but as I get older the balance related to staying on keel is not so forgiving of unforced errors that I made or could get away with during younger years!

 

btw, its common for college and some high school kids to really hammer their bodies with too much alcohol during parties,  I did some of that but thankfully I survived the few times I over did it and then basically quit.  (some time in my early 20's) I used to joke with the guys that they had to be in very good shape to knock the hell out of themselves with hard liquor and then be able to get back on their feet.

Edited October 2 by old3bob