By Judy Davie
**”Why does everyone tell you to cut out wheat these days?”
— Naomi**
If you look at the diets our prehistoric ancestors ate it gives us a clue as to what we are naturally evolved to eat. Our very active and lean ancestors ate mostly plant foods the women could gather such as wild beans, root vegetables, nuts, seeds and berries, and animal foods the men could hunt such as meat and fish.
After man invented the wheel and the plough just a few thousand years ago, we learnt to cultivate crops and it was only then that grains like wheat became a widely available common food.
The wheat grown back in those days is far removed from what it looks like today, the most notable difference being how the wheat is processed. Today most wheat-based foods are highly processed with most of the nutrients removed during processing.
Another major difference in wheat today is the amount of gluten it contains. Gluten is the protein found in wheat (and other grains such as oats, barley and rye). It’s gluten that gives dough its elasticity and makes it easy to bake with. Most wheat grown today has been developed specifically to yield a high concentration of gluten. Bakers love it, our digestive tracts typically don’t. Gluten is difficult to digest and many people today suffer from gluten intolerance or allergy. While an allergy is a very serious condition affecting the immune system, an intolerance, even a mild undetected one, can have an effect on a number of bodily functions causing conditions such as abdominal bloating, wind, digestive problems, and general fatigue.
The relation between weight gain and wheat may be a result of eating too many products made from wheat, or a digestive problem as a result of eating wheat (or a combination of the two). Regardless of the reason, the fact is eating too many processed wheat products will lead to weight gain.
When bread, crackers, biscuits, cakes, pastry, and pasta make up a large proportion of your daily diet, you run the risk of weight gain.
Think about it. If you eat toast in the morning, a couple of biscuits during morning tea, a sandwich at lunch, more biscuits or a sweet pastry in the afternoon and pasta at night, that’s an awful lot of processed wheat. If it’s affecting your digestive tract it will slow the metabolism and consequently lead to weight gain. And if you’re not exercising enough, any excess energy consumed from eating so many carbohydrates with convert to fat.
Think about how much wheat you do eat and consider how to reduce your consumption.
Instead of toast at breakfast have a low GI grain cereal such as All Bran or muesli.
Instead of biscuits at morning tea have fruit
Enjoy a sandwich for lunch but make it with grain bread or flat mountain bread.
Have nuts and dried fruit instead of a sweet slice in the afternoon
Enjoy pasta once in a while but most evenings enjoy carbohydrates such as sweet potato, sweet corn, small new potatoes, brown rice or “ancient” grains such as quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). Quinoa is available from health food stores.
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