Why No Wheat?
Wheat is high in phytates – phytic acids. All grains, nuts, and legumes contain phytates. The phytates is what makes these foods difficult to digest and with the indigestion, comes bloating, gas, and burping Wheat contains a higher proportion of phytates, much more than any other grain. This is especially true of wheat that has been ground into flour and then baked using a fast rising yeast. The addition of rising agents puts the grain through a very rapid hurry-up-process. Adding yeast, baking powder, or other rising agents does not allow the grain to fully, slowly release its own enzymes, which take time to begin to develop a truly natural nutty tasting fermentation. Non-yeasted breads made by this long slow deliberate rising have almost 90% of phytates removed. If one uses a grain such as spelt which is naturally low in phytates, the resulting bread baked by this method will be very low in all acids, especially phytic acid. When consumed, the bread will have an alkaline reaction within the individual’s body chemistry. The method used to convert grains into non-yeasted bread is called by many names. Some call it desem, levain, or sourdough, or stalking the wild yeast. By adding simple pure water to spelt flour, I utilize the abundant occurring yeast that naturally exists within my kitchen.
Phytic acid is a potent acid. As it exits the body through the intestines, the phytic acid molecule grabs much needed minerals from the body, almost stealing the calcium from the bones or the iron from the heme portion of the blood. These minerals cling for they are bound irresistibly to phytates. This is one reason I take great caution in eating wheat products.
As recently as the early 20th century, spelt was the grain of choice, grown abundantly by American farmers throughout the country. In their quest for greater efficiency, Spelt was eventually replaced by modern wheat. Modern wheat could be ground only once. Modern wheat is a “free hulled” grain, the outer husk or hull comes loose when harvested and falls loose in the field, while Spelt retains it’s outer hull during harvesting. Because of its tough hull, Spelt required two grindings: one to get rid of its tough outer husk, and a second to grind the kernel.
This tough outer husk is in part responsible for spelt’s superior texture and flavor. It helps to protects the inner kernel – shielding it from the sun and preventing the flavor and nutrients from leaching out.
On top of the contributions it makes to flavor, fiber, and protein, spelt is unique in that it’s very easy to digest. It’s such an easy grain to knead that bakers have to follow specific instructions when using it to bake bread, so as to avoid a glutinous mess. This easy mixability makes Spelt easy to digest.
Some individuals with wheat allergies are able to consume spelt. Oftentimes people allergic to wheat can manifest this as a sniffling or running nose after eating wheat products. The person can then become irritable, prickly, and bristly or the person can become more and more disturbed. Wheat, especially yeasted wheat products can produce depletion in the body’s minerals thus creating a chemical imbalance from within the very body, which is striving to find nourishment by ingesting the grains in the bread.
Spelt flour is a very ancient grain and as such, it has not gone through much manipulation in its farming methods. Spelt is such an early grain; one might say it is the great great grandmother of modern day wheat. This typically involves the use of pesticides and the removal of the husk during harvesting.
Spelt retains its outer husk right up until it is ready for milling, which ensures that maximum nutrients are retained and ensures ongoing freshness. Perhaps more importantly, the husk protects the spelt kernel from insects and pollutants and hence normally requires no chemical or pesticide treatment. When compared to wheat flour spelt contains more B1 and B2 vitamins, more iron, manganese, copper and zinc and has high water solubility thus ensuring these nutrients are easily absorbed by the body. Spelt contains special carbohydrates, which are an important factor in blood clotting and stimulating the body’s immune system. It is also a superb fiber resource and has large amounts of B-complex vitamins. Spelt is also rich in amino acids (protein content is 10-25% more than wheat) and is high in essential fatty acids that cannot be synthesized by the body. The total fat content of spelt is less than 2% and spelt is also high in complex carbohydrates and fiber. This grain was originally grown in Europe more than 2000 years ago. Spelt is known by many names: dinkle in Germany, farro in Italy, l’epeutre in France. It remains much more a part of European culture than it is in the USA. The mystic Hildegard von Bingen who lived around 1025, used spelt to heal and nurture the sick.
ORIGINS OF SPELT
The origin of spelt is controversial. While general agreement exists on the origin, extent, and utilization of wild and cultivated einkorn and emmer, archaeobotanists and cereal geneticists have proposed two primary hypothesis for the origin of spelt. One hypothesis suggests a single site of origin in the geographic region of present day Iran. The second suggests two independent sites of origin, the Iranian region and a southeastern European region. Suggested dates for the Iranian origin range from the mid-late Neolithic (Stone Age) 6,000-5,000 BC (Zohary and Hopf 1993). The majority of evidence indicates that the origin of spelt must have occurred when either wild or cultivated emmer (AABB) dispersed to regions where T. tauschii (Ae. squarrosa) (DD) was an indigenous wild grass species.
The data suggests possible validity to the claim that spelt may be easier for humans to digest than wheat. Recent studies have reported variations in protein, lysine, vitamins, crude fat, minerals (Abdel-Aal et al. 1995; Ranhotra et al. 1995, 1996a).
Some translations for: Spelt
Netherlands (Dutch)
grove tarwesoort, gespeld
Français (French)
épeautre, orthographié
Deutsch (German)
n. – Dinkel
Italiano (Italian)
farro, pronunciato
Português (Portuguese)
n. – espelta (f)
Español (Spanish)
n. – espelta, escandaSvenska (Swedish)
n. – spelt (tyskt vete)
This genetic engineering of wheat has resulted in a crop that is no longer classifiable as a plant, but is now considered a genetically modified organism (GMO).
Wheat has been and is being engineered to:
Produce greater yields
Improve quality
Be disease and insect resistant
Require less nitrogen to grow
Require less pesticides and herbicides
Increase the glutenin content
Be resistant to drought
Be tolerant of heat
Reduce wheat’s allergenicity
Increase the nutritional value
Be resistant to aluminium contamination of the soil
Enhance wheat’s lignans which may have anti-cancer properties and
Boost the human immune system using human genes!
Concerns about genetically engineered transgenic wheat include:
The introduction of DNA changes in humans that no one can predict.
The creation of super-weeds that will be resistant to herbicides as disease-resistance is transferred between plant species.
The creation of super-bugs as antibiotic resistance is transferred to microorganisms.
Contamination of conventional or organic crops, as wheat is pollinated by the wind.
In 1999 scientists in Thailand claimed to have found transgenic wheat in a grain shipment from the United States, even though at the time it had not been approved for sale and had only ever been grown in test plots.
The main claim is that such crops will require less pesticide, but so far this has proven unfounded and since the companies that provide the pesticides are the ones creating the transgenic crops, a true conflict of interest.
Transgenic crops become the intellectual property of the company that created them and farmers using such crops have to agree to stringent conditions including being unable to collect the seeds to replant. Monsanto has engineered crops specifically to require the use of their fertilisers and this means that farmers in developing countries in particular can be held to ransom by large multinational corporations.
Transgenic wheat produced by Monsanto is currently being grown in Argentina and the United States and has passed in-house environmental risk assessments and US government regulatory agencies have approved its use. Reception in the developed world has been cool and farmers have been concerned about the saleability of transgenic crops.
This has led Monsanto to appear to have set its sights upon penetrating the developing world markets – starting with India.
