The wheat of all evil

[There are so many things I should be doing right now, other than researching wheat.  I'm not going to do them, obviously; I just want to acknowledge they exist.]

First, some salient (or at least interesting) facts:

• Wheat is a cereal grain, which are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain.  (The word cereal derives from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest and agriculture.)  The other major cereal grains are maize* (corn) and rice. Minor cereal grains include barley, sorghum, millet, oats, rye, buckwheat, and quinoa (although the last two are not true grasses.)  Rice grows better in tropical climates, wheat in temperate climates, barley in cold climates, and oats in cold, wet climates.
• Wheat was cultivated as long as 11,000 years ago, but wild wheat was exploited as long as 23,000 years ago. Animals, including dogs and cats, eat wild grasses (although they never thought to grind it up, mix it with water, and bake it).
  
• Wheat was a key crop enabling civilization not only because it could be easily cultivated on a large scale, but could be stored as well.
• Over the past 50 years, human population has increased by 227%, while wheat production increased by 300% (from 222 million tons to 682 million tons)  Between 2007 and 2009 alone, wheat production increased by 12%!
• Along with maize (817 million tons),rice (679 million tons), and other cereals (284 million tons),  that's 2.1 pounds of cereal per person per day.  (Of course, most of that is fed to animals -- it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat.)
• China and India produce more wheat than the US
• Wild wheat (including spelt) has a tough hull, while domesticated wheat has a brittle "rachis." To obtain the grain, wild wheat needs to be milled to remove the hulls, whereas in domestic wheat the chaff breaks up during threshing, releasing the grains.
• Once the plant has produced its seed grains, it dies and begins to dry out.  Once it is dry enough for storage, the wheat is cut, threshed, and winnowed.  (Today, a "combine harvester" does all three steps.
• Today, 81% of wheat cultivated is of a "dwarf" variety, both because the shorter plant allows more energy to be put into seed production, and because the stalks are less likely to fall over in the wind.
• Depending on the variety, 100 grams of wheat contain 12.6-15.4 grams of protein, 1.5-1.9 grams of total fat, 68-71 grams of carbohydrate, 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.2-3.6 mg of iron (17-20% of the daily requirement).  The whole grain is a concentrated source of vitamins, minerals, and protein, while refined flour is mostly starch.
• Wheat protein is called "gluten," and about 1% of humans are intolerant, or have trouble digesting this. Some people are also allergic to wheat. 
  

Overall, for the other 99% of us, wheat sounds like a superfood, but it has three problems:

• First, while gluten intolerance only affects about 1%, gluten sensitivity is estimated to effect about 33% of the population.  This sensitivity causes inflamation in the digestive system, which in turn is linked to cancer and heart disease!
• Second, wheat has been hybridized to the point where it barely resembles its original form, and the new hybrids have much more gluten.  (And "organic wheat" is still modern wheat.)
  
• Third, wheat is more efficiently converted to blood sugar than almost any other carbohydrate, including table sugar!  After two hours, your blood sugar crashes, causing you to eat more, and contributing to obesity.

Even more alarming, studies show that wheat (or more specifically, gluten-derived polypeptides) can bind to the brain's opiate receptors. This effect can be blocked by taking naloxone, the same drug given to heroin addicts!  It takes about 5 days for the withdrawal cravings to subside.

My favorite quote, though, was from Dr. William Davis, responding to the "research" that eating whole grain wheat was healthy:

The research...is all conducted the same way: white flour is replaced with whole wheat flour, which, no question, is better for you. But taking something bad and replacing it with something less bad is not the same as...eliminating it altogether. It would be like saying that filtered cigarettes are less bad for you than unfiltered cigarettes, and therefore, a bunch of filtered cigarettes is good for you.

Bear in mind this is not an occasional food -- for the average person, wheat makes up 20% of our total calories!

Mark Sisson also pointed out, grains don't want to be eaten.  Animals develop defenses, fruit developed an indigestible seed (and so wants to be eaten!), but all grains can do is poison you, which they do.  (Gluten is both a protein for the germinating seed, and a poison--hence the intolerance.)

So that's why I'm trying to cut wheat out of my diet...and also why I'm failing so miserably at it.  Help is on the way, however, from an unlikely source: Judaism.  This year Passover occurs In early April, which celebrates the Jews flight from Egypt with these words:

For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread ... you shall guard the unleavened bread, because on this very day I will take you out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day for your generations as an eternal decree. - Exodus 12:14-17

Of course, this isn't a prohibition against wheat -- matzoh is made from wheat flour, and you are required to eat it at the passover seder! -- but the fact is, unleavened bread tastes pretty awful, so I won't be eating much of it.  And hopefully, at the end of that week, the cravings will have passed, and I can cut one more thing out of my diet, having already done soda, meat, and nuts.

* Bill Bryson, in his book "At Home," pointed out that the Mayans managed to create corn from a grass, and tomatoes from an herb.  Nobody has any idea how they did it.