trees to harvest coconuts.
Thankfully, nobody outside of Nazi Germany conducts such horrific practices in humans and our close primate relatives. But such practices are commonplace in plant genetics.
Apply something similar to wheat of the early 20th century: repeated crossings to select for specific characteristics such as short stature, ease of release of the seeds, extreme oil production to discourage birds, resistance to mould and fungi; occasionally mate with non-wheat grains to introduce entirely unique genetic characteristics; salvage otherwise fatal mutants by embryo ‘rescue’; and expose the seed or embryo to the process of chemical or radiation mutagenesis to induce random mutations that occasionally are useful – well, those are the techniques that agribusiness and geneticists like to call traditional breeding methods. These are the methods that lobbyists for the wheat industry don’t talk about, choosing instead to say things like ‘modern wheat is not genetically modified’, meaning gene-splicing techniques have not been used to insert or delete a gene.
So the truth of it is that ‘traditional breeding methods’ used to create modern semi-dwarf, high-yield strains of wheat were cruder, less controllable, much less predictable and prone to produce consequences outside of the intended characteristic. In short, they were far worse than genetic engineering, yet these products made it to your supermarket shelf, dinner table and gastrointestinal tract . . . no questions asked.
The result: what I call a Frankengrain, the result of extensive genetic changes, unable to survive without artificial chemical support, genetically stitched together with parts from various sources, like the creature created using the pieces from cadavers and charnel houses by Dr Victor Frankenstein.
Except this Frankengrain isn’t terrifying the countryside – we willingly invite it onto our dinner tables, package it in clever eye-catching ways and feed it to our children.
This raises a fundamental question that has not yet been answered in agriculture or agricultural genetics: How much genetic and biochemical change can a plant like wheat undergo, after being subjected to extensive efforts to change its genetics, yet still be called wheat?
At the very least, we should be informed of the degree of change introduced into our foods, but even that modest concession is vigorously opposed. For instance, witness the intense lobbying agribusiness has waged to block the Truth in Labeling Act that would require food companies to declare whether a genetically modified ingredient is contained in a product. Nobody is asking them to stop generating genetically modified crops, but just to tell us if they did it. But even this modest disclosure is vigorously opposed.
No, the extreme changes introduced into the genetics of food crops like wheat are a well-kept secret, not divulged on labels, certainly not discussed in advice to ‘eat more healthy whole grains’.
So we have increasing allergy to modern strains of wheat, occurring most commonly among children. Surely, such a substantial increase in allergic reactions in children would sound the alarm among geneticists and prompt some serious questions, perhaps even a moratorium on any additional changes? Nope. Changes introduced into wheat continue unabated, allergy or no.
Products made from wheat flour are delicious, smell great and make for all sorts of clever variations, from pitta bread to wedding cake. But wheat flour is a delivery vehicle for all manner of compounds that exert undesirable effects on the human body, including new forms of gliadin, new and unexplored glutenin sequences, new forms of lectins, new alpha amylase inhibitor sequences and many other new forms of proteins never before consumed by humans.
Surely, regulatory agencies like the USDA or FDA scrutinize each new change, study the biochemical changes introduced, examine the evidence of safety for every genetic alteration, look at animal safety testing and then ask for human safety data when necessary? Nope. No such thing. Geneticists create new strains of wheat with its collection of genetic changes, agribusiness sells it, farmers grow it, bakers put it to use and then you and your family eat it.
Imagine one day the FDA announces that pharmaceutical manufacturers no longer need to file an FDA application to introduce new drugs; they can just develop and sell them, should they see fit. Pandemonium would result, of course, a scramble to introduce new drugs with uncertain side effects in the hopes of accelerating profits. Such a laissez-faire attitude, of course, would never be acceptable to the public – but that is precisely what has been going on in agricultural genetics.
When you examine the health effects of the various pieces within modern wheat, you can’t help but conclude: It is a perfect poison.
Why Pick On Wheat?
Why am I so intent on bullying poor wheat? Surely there are other problems in the modern diet and lifestyle besides wheat.
The proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, causing fructose consumption from corn sweeteners to skyrocket from an annual average per capita exposure of almost none in 1960 to 39 pounds in 2005, has undoubtedly contributed to obesity and other distortions of metabolism. Fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, as well as that in sucrose, is a uniquely metabolized sugar that does not generate satiety and is converted to triglycerides, introducing unique distortions that contribute to heart disease, insulin resistance, diabetes and weight gain.
Corn, soya, beets and potatoes have been genetically modified, i.e., gene-splicing technology has been used to insert or delete single genes, while wheat has not. Roundup Ready corn and soy, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup), dominate corn and soya fields on most farms today, meaning much of the processed food now sold contains these GMOs (as well as glyphosate residues). Preliminary observations of undesirable health effects in experimental animals suggest that they contribute to health problems, including weight gain, too.
Of course, the favourite explanation from ‘official’ sources for the widespread weight gain, obesity and diabetes epidemic is laziness and gluttony: You watch too much TV, spend too much time behind the computer or desk, don’t exercise enough, eat too much fat and drink too many soft drinks. In this worldview, we are a bunch of indulgent, slothful, chip- and fizzy drink-consuming people, no different from many 14-year-olds.
So why is wheat different? Why is wheat so bad, especially if the wheat sold today is not genetically modified?
First of all, the gliadin protein, the opiate-like compound that stimulates appetite, is unique to wheat. No other food or additive – high-fructose corn syrup, GMO corn, sucrose, fat, food colourings, preservatives, etc. – stimulates calorie consumption like wheat. Eat wheat, increase calorie consumption by 440 calories per day; remove wheat, reduce calorie consumption by 440 calories per day. The phenomenon is consistent and predictable. No other food is capable of such a phenomenon.
Second, due to the unique properties of the amylopectin A of wheat, few foods increase blood sugar and thereby insulin as much as wheat. Ice cream, Snickers bars and Milky Way bars do not increase blood sugar and insulin as much as two slices of wholemeal bread. Recall that foods that increase blood sugar and insulin the highest are the most likely to stimulate growth of visceral fat, the deep abdominal fat that is uniquely inflammatory. Grow visceral fat, increase inflammation, which in turn further blocks insulin and causes worsening resistance to insulin – around and around, until you have a big swollen collection of visceral fat, a ‘wheat belly’, that underlies even more health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and cancer.
Third, the intestinal ‘leakiness’ (the increased entry of foreign substances into the bloodstream from the intestinal tract) encouraged by the lectin in wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, is unique to wheat.
