But I think his most important point is that the wheat we get now is not the
wheat of our ancestors, in fact, not even the wheat of 50 years ago.

Doug Freyburger wrote:
|
| Being wheat intolerant myself I am biased against eating wheat. That
| said I think the current wheat scare is mostly a veiled push for low
| carbing in general. Blaming wheat gets people to eat less carbs and
| most people do better with less carbs.
|
| The number of people who are wheat intolerant or gluten intolerant is
| only a few percent of the population. Enough that it's vastly more
| than the ones who know they have the issue. A percentage that is far
| too small to tell people blindly to avoid wheat.
|
| My view is the current push against wheat gets a lot of people to
| lower their carb intake. That helps a very large minority of the
| population. Among them is a small percentage who benefit from
| actually removing wheat rather than just from reducing carbs.
|
| It's not a bad approach but it misses the point that what is happening
| in most cases is lower total carb intake and lower glycemic load.
| Pick any high glycemic load food that's a sizable percentage of the
| typical diet. Convince people to not have that. The result is good
| because the typical diet is so high in carbs it's a problem.
| Convincing people to drop sodas would generally have the same result.
|
| Simple minded, effective, beneificial, but based on an idea that
| points in the wrong direction.
|
| One really good lesson - Glycemic load matters. Talk of "simple
| versus complex carbs" has little to do with actually measuring
| glycemic load. Very carby foods aren't beneficial in a culture that
| has already pushed many of us to the point our bodies treat very
| carby foods as problems.