Did you know how eliminating wheat from our diets can prevent fat storage, shrink unsightly bulges, and reverse myriad health problems? A renowned cardiologist explains how eliminating wheat from our diets.
Every day, over 200 million Americans consume food products made of wheat. As a result, over 100 million of them experience some form of adverse health effect, ranging from minor rashes and high blood sugar to the unattractive stomach bulges that preventive cardiologist William Davis calls "wheat bellies." According to Davis, that excess fat has nothing to do with gluttony, sloth, or too much butter: It's due to the whole grain wraps we eat for lunch.
After witnessing over 2,000 patients regain their health after giving up wheat, Davis reached the disturbing conclusion that wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic — and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health. In Wheat Belly, Davis exposes the harmful effects of what is actually a product of genetic tinkering and agribusiness being sold to the American public as "wheat" — and provides readers with a user-friendly, step-by-step plan to navigate a new, wheat-free lifestyle.
Informed by cutting-edge science and nutrition, along with case studies from men and women who have experienced life-changing transformations in their health after waving goodbye to wheat, Wheat Belly is an illuminating look at what is truly making Americans sick and an action plan to clear our plates of this seemingly benign ingredient.
Review:
Wheat Belly is an easy to read and easily comprehensible, fact based look at the dangers of the "new" wheat in our health today. It is true that our forbears were able to eat, digest and live happily on wheat and wheat products for thousands of years. It is also true that over the past 5 or 6 decades the wheat seed and the soil have been greatly altered by human kind in the name of "science". We have allowed our food to be genetically compromised without any thought of consequence to our health whatsoever. We have bought into the RDA, FDA and ADA recommendations of "Whole Grain Goodness" and "Whole Grain Fiber" for our health rather than Grass Fed Beef, Farm raised eggs, Organic Products such Organic Vegetables and Organic Fruits in our diet.
This extraordinary book will explain how the bread in the Old Testament, the bread scattered throughout human history, even the bread your grandma made for the family; isn't what we are eating today as "bread." Not only is the wheat a distant genetic relative, but industrial food processes have put it in EVERYTHING. We are not eating the backbone of the agricultural revolution. We are eating its Frankenstein's monster. With history and self-experimentation and case histories and lots of well explained science, Dr. Davis lays out his experience, and his contention: that every single human will experience health improvement by giving up modern wheat. In a fascinating chapter, he even explains why we find it so difficult to "live without bread."
Dr. Davis suggests that today's wheat is not the same wheat that we ate 50 years ago. He cites an interesting study where scientists analyzed blood collected between 1948 and 1952 for routine physical examinations of healthy military recruits. The scientists tested the vintage blood for IgA antibodies. After making sure that IgA antibodies were stable, they tested the blood for evidence of celiac disease. Comparing the preserved blood samples to blood drawn from similar contemporary subjects, investigators found that celiac disease is four times more prevalent in today's subjects than it was in those of a half-century ago. Similar studies found similar results. What has changed? Human DNA has probably not changed that much; we are separated from those men by a maximum of four generations. Wheat, however, may have changed substantially. Wheat and grasses have a very flexible polyploid genetic make-up. Grasses change quickly, and corn has even been shown to have a jumping gene. Wheat may have changed on its own over the last few centuries, but in the last few decades has been even more fundamentally altered by far more radical means, including radiation and chemical mutagenesis - all to increase production values and profits. This new wheat would not be recognizable to our ancestors, Davis asserts. And this new wheat might just be making us fat and sick.
In the final chapter of the book, Dr. Davis offers a number of wheat free menus as a means of getting started on the transition to a wheat free life. He also lists a number of foods that Americans consume on a daily basis that contain whole wheat, although it may not be evident. This list include beverages, breakfast cereals, cheese products, energy, protein, and meal replacement bars. The Appendix contains a plethora of wheat free recipes, ranging from appetizers to main courses, to desserts. Wheat Belly, by Dr. William Davis, M.D. can be considered a well researched and authoritative source of information on wheat related diseases and health issues. Dr. Davis includes a list of over 15 pages of references, indexed by chapter. Davis does a commendable job of correlating the historical evolution of our wheat supply and a corresponding increase in wheat consumption with ever increasing incidences of diabetes, obesity, and a host of other health related issues.
