Getting Granular About Gluten
Illustration © D. Yael Bernhard
My daughter’s best friend during her preteen years was a girl who was adopted from India. Small, dark, and thin as a marionette, Akanksha had thick black hair, bright eyes, a sweet disposition and a keen sense of humor. She slept at our house often, sometimes for a week while her parents were away working trade shows for their business. The giggles that emerged from Sage’s room warmed my heart. The videos the girls invented on their smartphones were hysterically funny.
Akanksha has Celiac disease, presenting me with the challenge of providing completely gluten-free meals during her frequent visits. The world was divided in those days into two neat categories: the lucky 99% of the population who could eat bread happily, and the unlucky 1% who had a rare disorder that made them sick if they ate even a tiny amount of wheat. This way of thinking applied to other unfortunate diseases as well: either you were diabetic and couldn’t eat sugar – or you weren’t, and could. Either you were you were born with a slow metabolism and couldn’t lose weight no matter what you did, or your genetic make-up made it easy to stay slim with hardly any effort. Either you could frolic among the poison ivy without consequence, or you were an unlucky allergic type who suffered for weeks or even months from the slightest brush of a dreaded leaf. We all fell on the unlucky side of certain dichotomies, and took this to be a given, as if we play no role in shaping our future health.
Extreme sensitivity to gluten was considered abnormal – and nearly a curse in our society, given our obsession with bread, symbolic of life itself since Biblical times. The cultivation of grains was the cornerstone of early agriculture, enabling the formation of fixed settlements and the rise of city-states – along with property ownership, specialized trades, complex social hierarchies, and feudal economies. Bread is delicious, beautiful, and fragrant, made in endless forms and varieties. Newborns are compared to “freshly baked bread,” while bread baskets are metaphors for abundance and generosity. As one of my mentors put it, to reject bread is to reject Mother Earth herself – for though bread rose in popularity along with patriarchal civilization, our older matriarchal ancestors foraged and ate wild emmer wheat.
Poor Akanksha! At first I felt sorry for her, set apart as she was by a lifelong limitation. I wanted her to feel at home at my table, and bought gluten-free pancake mix and pasta. The pancakes, thickened with potato starch and tapioca, came out weird. My daughter jabbed at it with a butter knife, and both girls made fun of the rubbery disks, which would have became frisbees had I not forbidden it.
After that I focused more on alternatives to wheat, barley, and rye rather than substitutes. This made more sense, yielded better results, and saved money, as it didn’t require buying mass-manufactured gluten-free products, many of which are loaded with junk. Instead of pizza, I made quiche, which enabled me to make a pie crust of ground nuts and quinoa flour rather than a pizza crust of wheat flour. Though it didn’t have tomato sauce, both girls loved cheese, and the eggs in the quiche provided more protein. Gluten-free pasta was made only from rice back then, sticky and unappealing; instead I used steamed zucchini spiralized into ribbons or sliced in flat strips. I began to see an advantage in gluten-free foods: they were less starchy and fattening. The protein in wheat didn’t seem worth the amount of carbs that came with it, and the fiber offered even by stoneground wheat flour was no match for good green roughage or whole cooked grains. Bread became a neutral but non-nutritious food in my mind, and I found myself avoiding it even when Akanksha wasn’t around, seeking alternatives whenever possible.
The wheel of time turned, and the two girls grew apart. Yet the trajectory of my diet had been forever changed by Akanksha, and as I learned more and more about the nature of gluten – and the false dichotomy of gluten tolerance and intolerance – I was grateful. Gluten and I also grew apart as more nuanced information about its effect on human health came to light. Gluten itself is composed of two proteins, glutenen and gliadin, which together form the bonds that enable bread to hold its shape as it rises. Found in wheat, rye, barley, and very similar to the protein in oats, these long-chain proteins do not break down into the short chain amino acids that our intestines are designed to absorb. Instead, they may pass through the intestinal walls undigested, weakening the tight junctions that keep unwanted particles from entering the bloodstream – a condition known as “leaky gut.” In people with Celiac, a cascade of autoimmune reactions follows, causing inflammation and triggering lymphocytes, T-cells, histamines, cytokines or other immune cells to attack the intractable proteins as invaders. Long term inflammation, if gluten continues to be eaten, results in intestinal damage and reduced ability to absorb nutrients, including minerals that are necessary for regulating blood pressure. Leaky gut may therefore lead to hypertension. Whether causal or correlative, gluten is implicated in a wide range of symptoms, from stomach cramps to chronic rashes, epilepsy to arthritis, multiple sclerosis to migraines.1 The more I research, the more the list grows.
Yet even without Celiac, people with “Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity” (NCGS), may suffer from gluten as well, and eventually even form antibodies against it. That’s right: you could have antibodies to the bread you eat in your bloodstream. Since the proteins in gluten closely resemble those of the thyroid, these antibodies may also attack the thyroid itself, resulting in autoimmune Hashimoto’s disease, which currently afflicts 20% of American women and 10% of men.2 When gluten is removed from the diet, symptoms may gradually abate. A minimum of three months is needed to clear gluten antibodies from the bloodstream. For such individuals, even trace amounts of wheat, barley, rye, or oats, including barley malt, beer, and oat beverages may re-trigger an immune response and generate more antibodies.
To make matters worse, proprionic acid – a by-product of harmful bacteria that is associated with autism – is used as a preservative in all non-organic wheat flour; as well as potassium bromate, which is banned in Europe and Canada but used here in many bread products – and linked to cancer.3 Is it worth spending a little extra money on organic bread?
We can get even more granular about mass-manufactured wheat, and consider its effect on the environment. In ancient times, what was called a “wheat field” was about the size of a parking space, or kitchen garden. Today, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture the cultivation of wheat takes up over 46 million acres, or roughly 5% of the continental United States land mass.4 The negative impact on the environment from fertilizers, weedkillers, soil degradation and habitat destruction is significant.
The good news is that gluten and bread are not one and the same. Sourdough bread, made from fermented grain, contains far less gluten, as Lactobacillus bacteria and wild yeast consume some of the protein in the fermentation process, reducing gluten by up to 47%. Bread made from sprouted wheat is also purported to be lower in gluten5(though some sources say only the carbohydrates and not the protein is diminished by the sprouting process). Stick to sourdough, and you may avoid the whole gluten problem altogether.
Similarly, not all strains of wheat are the same. Wheat is one of the most popular and versatile foods on earth, with more than 25,000 different strains cultivated worldwide. Ancient species such as emmer or einkorn wheat are lower in gluten than contemporary cultivars. European wheat is lower in gluten than the popular “dwarf wheat” grown in America for its short stature that can hold a heavy load of grain, thus yielding higher profits. Dwarf wheat also causes a greater rise in blood sugar, contributing to diabetes. To add insult to injury, genetically modified American wheat is also exposed to Round-up, or glyphosate, the toxic weedkiller that can destroy an ecosystem and cause cancer in people. Look for “GMO free” symbols before you buy any product made from wheat.
As these sobering facts fermented in my mind, I came to understand my relationship with gluten as a point along a spectrum. That point can change. Habitually consuming it decade after decade may eventually lead to gluten sensitivity (reaction to) or intolerance (inability to digest). As with bee stings, too many repetitions of exposure may lead to an allergy over time. In other words, no one is immune to this development, as gluten by its very nature is stressful and damaging to our intestinal walls. Gluten contains zonulin, a molecule that deregulates gut permeability, contributing to leaky gut. The downstream effects of this play a role in a whole basket full of chronic conditions: chronic fatigue syndrome; fibromyalgia; irritable bowel syndrome; neuropsychiatric disorders such as Alzheimers disease and autism; asthma; Crohn’s disease; and even the formation of arterial plaque.
For their science project, Sage and Akanksha once did an experiment to determine which kind of flour had more gluten: whole wheat or spelt. The spelt flour came out higher, showing more sticky mass after being “washed” in warm water. Later I learned they had not done this experiment properly. Still, the presentation of photographs mounted on colored paper made a nice display in the school gymnasium, along with cardboard mouse labyrinths and electrified lemons.
Akanksha will soon become an early childhood educator – a career that suits her small stature and gentle nature. The world has changed as she has grown up, and people are waking up to the consequences of eating the sticky substance that derives its name from the Latin word for “glue.” Who can afford a leaky gut or an autoimmune reaction? Both Celiac disease and NCGS are increasing rapidly in our society, signaling the need to understand and address the long-term effects of gluten.
As for my relationship with gluten, we’re not enemies, but we’re definitely not buddies anymore. Feeling the need to improve my gut health, I gave up both bread and flour sixteen months ago. I really don’t miss it. Packaged bread in particular looks about as appealing as a dry sponge. Once every few months I do eat a piece of organic sourdough – because as chance would have it, my daughter works in a bakery that makes the best avocado toast this side of the Mississippi.
Can we learn to accept the new normal of gluten sensitivity, and cultivate better strains of wheat in smaller fields, without the use of chemicals? Beneficial arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may do more to promote healthy grain growth than any artificial fertilizer.6 Can we learn to ferment our wheat before we bake it? The benefits of sourdough bread are well worth the effort.7 You can even find gluten-free sourdough starter on Amazon, though there are better sources. As always, homemade is the healthiest option. Once upon a time, it was the only way.
To your good health –
Yael Bernhard
Certified Integrative Health & Nutrition Coach
Yael Bernhard is a writer, illustrator, book designer and fine art painter with a lifelong passion for nutrition and herbal medicine. She was certified by Duke University as an Integrative Health Coach in 2021 and by Cornell University in Nutrition & Healthy Living in 2022. For information about private health coaching or nutrition programs for schools, please respond directly to this newsletter, or email dyaelbernhard@protonmail.com. Her art newsletter, “Image of the Week,” may be found here. Visit her online gallery of illustration, fine art, and children’s books here.
Information in this newsletter is provided for educational – and inspirational – purposes only.
https://www.acs.org/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2011-2012/gluten.html
https://drhyman.com/blog/2018/04/20/what-not-to-eat-part-2/
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/acrg0621.pdf
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/sprouted-grain-bread#TOC_TITLE_HDR_6
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.15570
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0740002009001634