For the longest time I have had conflicting emotions and opinions towards wheat. Is wheat the evil everyone makes it out to be? Should we eliminate it from our food system? Some find reducing wheat in their diet can help.
After counseling many patients and through my own research I have learned that wheat is a lot more complicated. Many people see resolution in symptoms such as headache, joint discomfort, brain fog to name a few after taking it out of their daily foods. While others try and notice no difference at all. The reason is not everyone responds the same way to wheat. We all can experience different reactions when consuming this grain but why now are we seeing these issues? Didn’t our ancestors eat grains? Why were autoimmune disease not prevalent than? Did we not know about them? Were they going undiagnosed? Or is there another piece of the puzzle we are missing?
When looking at wheat it is important to realize that the way it was produced is now drastically changed. Not only is it not produced in your backyard in most cases but we are also using many different types of pesticides in our food supply. Of course these have their uses to ensure that crops don’t succumb to certain disease or insects but are they causing more havoc on our bodies? In my opinion this is true.
If this is the case then why are more people not affected by wheat or for that matter other fruits and vegetables that pesticides or herbicides may be used? Just like the idea that not everyone develops a disease this holds true here. They do not affect everyone. Some will notice a mark difference when eliminating wheat and may even feel further better if they eliminated more items from their diet like apples that are sprayed with pesticides. Some again will notice nothing at all. In the end it is all individualized. The next time you want to know if taking these items out will work it may be more complicated than you think.