On the evils of wheat: Dr. William Davis on why it is so addictive

[Islander]

On the evils of wheat: Dr. William Davis on why it is so addictive, and how shunning it will make you skinny
Mike Demeter
Monday, January 9, 2012

William Davis, a preventive cardiologist who practises in Milwaukee, Wis., argues in his new book Wheat Belly that wheat is bad for your health—so bad that it should carry a surgeon general’s warning.

Q: You say the crux of the problem with wheat is that the stuff we eat today has been genetically altered. How is it different than the wheat our grandparents ate?
A: First of all, it looks different. If you held up a conventional wheat plant from 50 years ago against a modern, high-yield dwarf wheat plant, you would see that today’s plant is about 2½ feet shorter. It’s stockier, so it can support a much heavier seedbed, and it grows much faster. The great irony here is that the term “genetic modification” refers to the actual insertion or deletion of a gene, and that’s not what’s happened with wheat. Instead, the plant has been hybridized and crossbred to make it resistant to drought and fungi, and to vastly increase yield per acre. Agricultural geneticists have shown that wheat proteins undergo structural change with hybridization, and that the hybrid contains proteins that are found in neither parent plant. Now, it shouldn’t be the case that every single new agricultural hybrid has to be checked and tested, that would be absurd. But we’ve created thousands of what I call Frankengrains over the past 50 years, using pretty extreme techniques, and their safety for human consumption has never been tested or even questioned.

Read more: https://www.facebook.com/notes/mike-...50587775865619

[Reesacat]

I saw this article yesterday when Maurya posted it on FB and was stunned to read how much wheat has changed in 50 years.

[Islander]

I wish someone had copied it to HH. It would sure save me a lot of time. I see GREAT articles posted there that I try to chase down for HH but like all of you, I run out of hours at the end of the day. I've almost given up on FB, there's just too much to keep up with, but I don't want to miss gems like this!

[Islander]

Wait, sorry, that came off as sounding critical and I meant no criticism by it! I'm just tetchy, I'm having a bad day, have to put out a big paper mailing to people who are supposed to be accessing this information via e-mail but never bother to look at their e-mail more than once a month. Aren't we in the digital age?

* le sigh *

To put it another way, framed more positively: when you folks post something pertinent to FB, please think about the wide audience here that is hungry for that information as well. We have got over 10,000 different people logging in here every month. Sometimes, just for the halibut, look at Who's Online under QUICK LINKS. If you really want to be a force for good, well, you'll reach a lot of inquiring minds here!

And...thanks for all you do! We're the Team HH!