What's with Wheat?

Are you overweight, diabetic, suffering from arthritis, heart disease, allergies, rashes, acid-reflux, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, pre-diabetes, estrogen related cancer, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, Crohn's disease, constipation, high blood triglycerides, insomnia, cravings...or a belly you can't shed? I don't know too many people - especially in the baby-boomer generation - who can't find something they experience on this list.

I strongly recommend a book I just finished which is on the NY Times bestseller list: Wheat Belly, by William Davis, MD, a preventive cardiologist. This book is not just for people who are gluten-intolerant or thinking they have celiac disease, although it is good for all of those to read too, it's for everyone to read and benefit.

The basic premise of the book is that "…traditional wheat has been replaced by the high-yield, semi-dwarf strains that we know are genetically removed from the wheat of 1950." The hybridization of the wheat now grown worldwide has changed the way it affects our biochemistry, compared to ancient grains certainly, but even when compared to wheat grown 100 years ago. And this alteration is affecting us in many many negative ways.

You can get more of the flavor of the book at the author's blog:
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/

Read a review of the book, including the author's comments.
http://healthyfoodnaturally.com/2011/09/13/book-review-wheat-belly-lose-the-wheat-lose-the-weight-and-find-your-path-back-to-health/

Me and my husband Rick eliminated wheat from our diet over two weeks ago, after I read a lot of the blog. A wheat-free diet takes some adjusting, label reading, menu reading, and self-education, but it's been painless (literally). There are loads of tips on how to do it in the book, including recipes, and there's lots of helpful info online too. We've all seen the supermarket shelves full of "Gluten-Free" labeled products, but, as the author warns, you don't want to substitute other non-healthy foods when you eliminate wheat.

I'll report on my own progress in this blog, and I hope you'll read the book, at the very least.

From the author:
"…the U.S. government, with its repeated advice to 'eat more healthy whole grains,' transmitted via vehicles like the USDA Food Pyramid and Food Plate, coupled with the extensive genetic transformations of the wheat plant introduced by agricultural geneticists, underlie an incredible deterioration in American health…." - William Davis, MD