Edward Bauman, M.Ed., Ph.D. & Jodi Friedlander, M.S., N.C.

When we question the health benefits of bread, even the whole-grain variety, we are raising

concerns about the entire fabric of our food supply. Bread has been the staff of life for eons. A piece of fresh bread straight out of the oven, perhaps smeared with organic butter, is a very special treat.

Unfortunately, for an increasing number of people, eating bread of any kind on a regular basis – along with flour products such as pastries and pasta, and condiments containing wheat starch – contributes to a wide variety of uncomfortable symptoms and sometimes to debilitating disease.

Most of us have intense emotional attachments to bread, cookies, and pasta, which are usually

made from wheat flour. We reach for these foods when we are feeling happy or sad, lonely or tired, in health and in sickness. Eating bread is both filling on the physical plane and fulfilling on an emotional level. The Eating for Health™ approach encourages people to depend largely on non-gluten grains, such as millet, quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat, and non-GMO corn. These delicious grains do not provoke the negative effects that come from a reaction to the glute found in wheat, rye, oats, and barley.

Gluten By Any Other Name….

So just what is this substance that is plaguing so many? Gluten (Latin for glue) is just one of many proteins found in wheat. Comprised of two protein groups — gliadin and glutenin — gluten gives wheat its strength, malleability, and the elasticity that allows it to rise. The gliadin portion, which is a type of prolamin (a group of simple proteins consisting chiefly of proline and glutamine) and the most studied protein fraction, has been recognized since the 1960s a the cause of the intestinal damage seen in celiac disease.

As to why gluten should cause some of us such difficulty — why the “staff of life” should become the stuff of strife and a toxin to some — the reason appears to be a symphony of factors that began to be played out about 10,000 years ago, when humans began cultivating wild grasses as food crops. Until that time, grasses had been utilized as a food source on a minimal basis. It may be that our digestive tracts have not had enough evolutionary time to develop the digestive enzymes necessary to assimilate what nutritionist Sally Fallon calls one of the most difficult proteins to digest (2001, p. 56). One of the known problems with grains, especially wheat, is that people can be intolerant. Intolerance to wheat does not elicit an immune response. It may be caused by an enzyme deficiency or by undigested food particles that create bacterial fermentation in the colon, with its resulting symptoms (Steinman et al., 2005).

People can also be allergic to grains. Because of the vast quantities of wheat we consume, it is the culprit in most of these reactions. Wheat contains over 100 different proteins, and allergies are mostly related to the albumin or globulin protein fractions rather than gluten (Steinman et al., 2005). These allergies are immune responses and can produce fairly sudden life-threatening reactions, such as anaphylaxis. More frequently, they produce skin (hives, eczema) gastrointestinal (cramps, nausea) or respiratory (asthma, rhinitis) symptoms. Allergies may be present with or without a family history. Wheat allergies are treated with a wheat- and gluten-free diet. As true allergies, they are Immunoglobulin E (IgE) mediated reactions.

Celiac disease has long been considered a disease of malabsorption because the damage done to

the intestinal lining, which contains enzymes essential to digestion, impairs assimilation Deficiencies of iron and folic acid, serum calcium, and the fat-soluble vitamins D and E often occur; Vitamins B12 and K deficiencies sometimes occur (Collin et al., 2002; Helms, 2005). Though the classic symptoms have remained constant since being defined in the1960s, CD currently seems to present with milder symptoms than it used to.

Ed Bauman, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Bauman College Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts. He is a ground-breaking leader in the field of whole foods nutrition, holistic health, and community health promotion. www.baumancollege.org/articles.