1% of the global population suffers from celiac disease – often referred to as a gluten allergy. In 1965, 4% of the US population had a chronic disease. Today 46% of US children have been diagnosed with a chronic disease.

For the first time in America’s history, children’s life expectancy is a generation shorter than that of their parents!

Why? The secret might lie in how wheat has changed since it was first consumed around thirty-five-hundred BC.

The original wheat was Einkorn wheat. It had the simplest genetic code of all wheat, containing only 14 chromosomes. Soon Einkorn combined with an unrelated grass called Goat-grass. Goat-grass added its genetic code to Einkorn resulting in the more complex Emmer wheat that has 28 chromosomes.

When humans mate, Dad’s 46 chromosomes mix with Mum’s 46 chromosomes giving their children a total of 46 chromosomes too. But some plants like wheat get the total sum of their parents’ chromosomes.

Sometime before Christ, Emmer wheat with its 28 chromosomes, crossed with another grass called Triticum Tauschii, yielding the first 42 chromosome wheat called Triticum Aestivum. Triticum Aestivum is genetically the closest to today’s wheat!

Today Einkorn, Emmer and Triticum Aestivum have been replaced by thousands of human-bred offspring of Triticum Aestivum. The Triticum wheat of today is the product of breeding to generate high yields along with drought and heat resistance. In fact, wheat has been modified so much that modern wheat cannot survive in the wild without support from nitrate fertilizers and pest control.

When large quantities of nitrate fertilizer are applied to wheat fields, the seed head at the top of the plant grows to enormous proportions. The top-heavy seed head buckles the stalk killing the plant.

Around 1960, Norman Borlaug developed an exceptionally high-yielding wheat called dwarf wheat. It is shorter and stockier, allowing the wheat to resist buckling under the large seed head.

Dr Borlaug’s dwarf wheat solved many of the world’s hunger problems. For example, in China it increased the wheat crop production eightfold between 1961 and 1999! Today 99% of all wheat is dwarf wheat and dwarf wheat also won Dr Borlaug a Nobel prize!

When wheats are combined to create new wheat variants, 95% of the proteins in the offspring are the same as those in the parents but 5% are unique and found in neither parent! Especially Gluten proteins undergo considerable change when wheats are combined. In one experiment, 14 brand new gluten proteins were identified in the offspring that were not present in either of the wheat parents!

That’s why, when compared to century old wheat types, modern dwarf wheat contains more gluten proteins – the cause of celiac disease and gluten allergies!

Today scientists can insert and remove single wheat genes to create wheat that is disease resistant, pesticide resistant and survive in different temperatures!

Furthermore, new wheats can be genetically tailored to be compatible with specific fertilisers and pesticides. This has become huge business for chemical producers like Cargill and Monsanto. Both sell patented seeds along with their associated fertilisers and pesticides. One of these fertilizers is called glyphosate and sold under the name Roundup.

Glyphosate tolerant crops are often called Roundup Ready. They are genetically bred to allow farmers to freely spray the weed killer Roundup without harming the crop.

Monsanto originally patented Glyphosate as an antibiotic. In the same way that antibiotics kill our healthy gut bacteria, Glyphosate has killed most of the healthy bacteria in the top layers of US soil turning it into infertile dust that can no longer grow crops naturally. All that can be grown are genetically modified Roundup Ready crops so long as they are sprayed with plenty of Glyphosate!

Worryingly, test animals fed Roundup Ready soybeans show alterations in liver, pancreatic, intestinal and testicular tissue compared to animals fed conventional soybeans! Furthermore, in the US, today the life expectancy is up to 20 years shorter in agricultural areas due to their increased exposure to Glyphosate!

When you think of all the differences between men and women that originate from just one of our 46 chromosomes being different, it is questionable if the modern 42 chromosome dwarf wheat, ancient 28 chromosome Emmer wheat and even older 14 chromosome Einkorn should all be called Wheat!

The insights in this blog post are from the excellent Wheat Belly book by cardiologist William Davis and the https://farmersfootprint.us website by Dr Zach Bush that seeks to raise funds to regenerate 5 million acres of US farmland by 2025.