Yesterday the CBC documentary show The Fifth Estate was about a medical doctor who wrote a best-seller about zomg wheat is poison stop eating it right this second and you will live forever.
Millions of people are joining the anti-wheat revolution.
Kellogg’s, the world’s largest cereal maker, has seen its biggest drop in sales since the 1970s. Food companies are selling off their struggling bread divisions. It’s all because best-selling health evangelists say that wheat is causing everything from fat bellies to schizophrenia. But do they have science on their side? Mark Kelley takes a hard look at what’s driving a movement that is dramatically changing the way we eat.
There were a couple of women on it, Rachel and Rachel, who are very devout about their hostility to the dreaded Wheat.They didn’t come across as particularly credulous or sappy, but then when they started explaining how they knew Wheat was so very very bad for humans…oh dear. It was both depressing and annoying.
CBC News expanded on the subject.
Critics say the anti-wheat claims made by leading health crusader Dr. William Davis are based on shaky science, an investigation by the fifth estate has found.
Davis is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book Wheat Belly, considered the bible of the wheat-free movement. He argues wheat has killed more people than all wars combined, and that it is responsible for an astonishing array of diseases — diabetes, obesity, Crohn’s disease and autoimmune disease, among many others.
He also claims the wheat we eat now is not what it used to be. Rather, it’s a genetically modified monster he calls “Frankenwheat” — and he says it’s killing us.
I think there’s a rule there – if there’s a “Franken” prefix on it then it’s bullshit.
But the fifth estate’s investigation found that experts in the scientific community say scientific claims made by the anti-wheat movement are questionable at best.
Joe Schwarcz, a chemist at McGill University dedicated to demystifying science and debunking big claims, says, “This is one of these arguments that has one smidgen of scientific fact to it, which is then exploded into a whole blob of nonsense.”
Schwarcz says he hasn’t seen any evidence that wheat has addictive properties, as Davis claims in his book. Schwarcz also says “opioid peptides” are produced when some foods are digested. But just because they can bind to opiate receptors in the brain doesn’t mean they produce a morphine-like effect.
“If we’re going to say that wheat is addictive,” Schwarcz explains, “it’s along the line that people like foods that have wheat in them. It’s not a physical addiction.”
But it’s so much more attention-grabby to say it’s an addiction.
The Canadian Celiac Association, the American Heart Association, the Obesity Society and the American College of Cardiology all refuse to endorse gluten-free diets for anyone who does not have celiac disease.
They must all be on the payroll of Big Pharma Big Wheat.
Yoni Freedhoff, a family doctor and diet expert who runs a nutrition clinic in Ottawa, says the eating guidelines touted in Wheat Belly are similar to other carb-free diets that get results by dramatically reducing the carbohydrates and calories people eat.
But just reducing carbohydrates and calories is boring. Cutting out Wheat is exciting, because you get that whole purity – eliminate the toxins thing. It’s like learning ballet, or calculus.
I agree that WheatBelly is a just another low-carb fad diet. As a Type 1 diabetic, I eat a low-glycemic-index diet. I’ve had to do this for the past 20 years, and I’ve seen fad diets come and go while I had to steadily control my carb intake. The Paleo diet everyone’s so crazy about? For the most part, it’s just a low-carb diet; you cut out processed foods, you cut out most of the carbs. Meat and whole milk and (most) vegetables are actually low-carb. It’s become quite the thing for many of my attention-seeking friends to insist they are gluten-intolerant (while still drinking beer and eating bagels…) and to spout quotes from WheatBelly.
Ya that’s what Rachel and Rachel did – just regurgitate claims from Wheat Belly. It was painful to watch.
[OT + meta]
I recommend this: Flex-Fuel Humans.
Heard bits of this the other day, and it inspired my own conspiracy theory: the Gluten Is Evil fad is being covertly engineered by the celiac lobby to encourage the general availability of gluten-free foods via market forces. Hey, it’s no less likely than that Wheat Is Poisoning You.
(The CBC’s been on a roll lately: they were trashing anti-vaxxers the other week. No, strike that: they had an anti-vaxxer on, asked her a few hard questions, and let her trash *herself*. It was pathetic. But in a *good* way.)
@1 Katydid – Is my crazy sister-in-law in Minnesota one of your attention-seeking friends? Because you just described her perfectly… For a long time, it was high-fructose corn syrup that was the poison du jour; now it’s gluten. No, she doesn’t have celiac disease. But I cut her slack since she’s in a cult – she obviously doesn’t have much sense :b
There’s of course nothing to wheat- and gluten-scaring, but…
Pharma and industrial ag/chemical are among the most powerful and destructive corporate-government rackets and propaganda outfits on the planet. A vast number of people are very much on their payroll. It’s not a joke.
Reducing the issue of health or obesity to individual dietary choices makes about as much sense as reducing unemployment to individual interviewing skills.
Salty Current,
I don’t think anyone is saying that we should ignore concerns about Big Pharma and the Ag/chem industries — the point is that they have become bogeymen to be trotted out whenever anyone has a crappy fad diet to promote. As someone concerned about the adverse actions of the pharmaceutical industry on public health, I do not need passionate-but-ignorant people muddying the waters. So, sure, criticise Big Pharma/Big Ag for specific actions deserving of criticism, but I’m not going to give my support to the Rachel-and-Rachels of this world. They have a large overlap with anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, pro-homeopathy, pro-“liver cleansing”, and numerous other illogicalities, some of which are highly *harmful* to public health.
In short, one can criticise ridiculous claims made against Big Pharma/Big Ag AND criticise Big Pharma/Big Ag for supportable complaints. One can support Big Pharma’s production of useful vaccines AND criticise them for submitting flawed evidence to regulatory agencies.
Eamon Knight @4:
Shh…you are not supposed to talk about the celiac conspiracy.
By coincidence I had recently re-read this post:
Wheat: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
I agree with all of this, and my comment last night was probably a bit snippy). But I have a pet peeve about jokes about advocacy groups, scientists, professional organizations, or government agencies being on the payroll or in the pocket of pharma or ag/food. They tend to trivialize the real power and influence of these corporations, which can only help the woomongers in the long run, when it’s revealed that these people and organizations aren’t the unbiased purveyors of scientific information they’re being presented as.
For instance, I hadn’t paid too much attention to the organizations Ophelia had referred to with her remark, but sure enough, looking this morning at the Obesity Society – one of those listed – I find this. They’re actually more transparent than most. You can read all about their “longstanding” “industry partnerships.” Amusingly (?) enough, they’re on the payroll of both big pharma and big ag/food. The American Heart Association – also on the list – takes millions from big pharma and big ag/food….
If anyone’s interested, I wrote about this issue back in 2012 (I was complaining about the joke, then, too :)). I don’t know that things have improved much since then. While people continue to dissect CAM claims, which is good and necessary, I see very little attention in the pro-science/skeptical community to corporate pseudoscience and the corporate corruption of science generally.
I’m with Salty Current in that I fall into some middle ground (closer to science than conspiracy theorists) of neither rejecting GMO/Pharmaceuticals/Big Agra outright nor embracing them. I am concerned about sustainability over corporate profits and because of that, I don’t come down on the side of corporations very often.
At the same time, I am unmoved (and slightly annoyed) by “woo” claims about how the elimination of one food item is the answer to good health and sustainable living. I work out at a boutique gym that is full of the “diet of the month” types who, without an ounce of critical thought, embrace whatever fad diet is hot now in an attempt to lose weight (let’s not pretend the goal is “health” because that is evidently not the case). Currently, the fad is no wheat (regardless of the scientific and, frankly, historic arguments to be made regarding wheat as a healthy part of your diet) and lots of meat. And, the beauty of bacon notwithstanding, there is no way 7 billion people can eat exclusively (or even, primarily) animal protein-rich diets. It’s simply not sustainable for the planet and that, to me, is a more important question then how thin you can get.
So, where are we? I can’t trust either side to make a coherent, evidence-based argument on the issue.
“Wheat Belly” author claims that wheat nowadays has a protein in it that our ancestor’s wheat did not have – that wheat from the intense breeding of the mid 20th century is mutant and that protein is the cause of all kinds of ills.
That protein – gliadin – shows up in google’s book search in a book from 1830s or 1840s as a “look what we found in wheat” article in a science journal.
So when the basic premise can be blown away by a few seconds googling, it’s not worth reading.
I see where you all are coming from with the fad diet comments, but some people actually do fare better when certain foods are not consumed.
My personal issue relates to grain products and psoraisis. No grains = no skin flareups. Sure, it is anecdotal evidence, but it is also a serious quality of life issue for me.
Poking fun at a few people doesn’t change the fact that we can all benefit from eating unprocessed food.
Re the American College of Cardiology:
It’s all pretty depressing.
Maybe Night Vale was onto something whey they banned wheat and wheat by-products.
Well, there WAS a big change in commercial wheats back in the late 60s and 70s. I remember hearing about the problems when the oil pinch of ’73 made the price of fertilizers soar, undoing much of the advantage the new ‘dwarf’ wheats were supposed to bring.
But if there really was some new nutritional problem, wouldn’t it have shown up earlier? And wouldn’t different wheats in different zones have produced epidemiologically traceable effects?
I somehow managed to read that as “money grubbing”, which also fits.
I agree that most people who go “gluten-free” are actually reducing carbs and processed foods, and that’s where the benefit lies. And I agree that the “wheat is addictive” stuff is buzzword salad on par with Deepak Chopra’s mangling of quantum physics, given credibility by the fact that reducing carbs kind of sucks until your fat metabolism can turn itself back on. And I’m aware that only ~30% of people (varying somewhat by race) have HLA types that respond to gluten, so it’s literally invisible to the average immune system.
But I’m one of those who is mentally ill on gluten, and 100% fine without. (OCD – clinical-grade, diagnosed around age 5, bad enough that it was mistaken for autism at first, and on serious meds that made it bother me less but didn’t make it go away. Now I’m not taking anything stronger than a multivitamin, and it’s straight-up gone…unless I screw up and eat wheat, then it’s back for ~12 hr. A stray bit of malt vinegar is enough, and non-gluten carbs won’t do it.) As a scientist and a skeptic, I’m fully aware of how this sounds…if I believed in karma, I’d say it got me good. But I don’t have a better explanation.
I sincerely hope the new spotlight on gluten encourages a serious look at non-celiac gluten sensitivity, particularly for those of us whose symptoms are mainly CNS-based. There’s a whole lot of anecdata, though I’m aware that following up on it combines the notorious problems of diet studies with the even more notorious problems of psychiatry studies.
Ditto sambarge @12.