The stories became far too frequent to ignore. Emails from folks with allergic or digestive issues to wheat in the United States experienced no symptoms whatsoever when they tried eating pasta on vacation in Italy.
Confused parents wondering why wheat consumption sometimes triggered autoimmune reactions in their children but not at other times.
In my own home, I’ve long pondered why my husband can eat the wheat I prepare at home, but he experiences negative digestive effects eating even a single roll in a restaurant.
There is clearly something going on with wheat that is not well known by the general public. It goes far and beyond organic versus nonorganic, gluten or hybridization because even conventional wheat triggers no symptoms for some who eat wheat in other parts of the world.
What indeed is going on with wheat?
For quite some time, I secretly harbored the notion that wheat in the United States must, in fact, be genetically modified. GMO wheat secretly invading the North American food supply seemed the only thing that made sense and could account for the varied experiences I was hearing about.
I reasoned that it couldn’t be the gluten or wheat hybridization. Gluten and wheat hybrids have been consumed for thousands of years. It just didn’t make sense that this could be the reason for so many people suddenly having problems with wheat and gluten in general in the past 5-10 years.
Finally, the answer came over dinner a couple of months ago with a friend who was well versed in the wheat production process. I started researching the issue for myself, and was, quite frankly, horrified at what I discovered.
The good news is that the reason wheat has become so toxic in the United States is not that it is secretly GMO as I had feared (thank goodness!).
The bad news is that the problem lies with the manner in which wheat is grown and harvested by conventional wheat farmers.
You’re going to want to sit down for this one. I’ve had some folks burst into tears in horror when I passed along this information before.
Common wheat harvest protocol in the United States is to drench the wheat fields with Roundup several days before the combine harvesters work through the fields as the practice allows for an earlier, easier and bigger harvest.
Pre-harvest application of the herbicide Roundup or other herbicides containing the deadly active ingredient glyphosate to wheat and barley as a desiccant was suggested as early as 1980. It has since become routine over the past 15 years and is used as a drying agent 7-10 days before harvest within the conventional farming community.
According to Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT who has studied the issue in-depth and who I recently saw present on the subject at a nutritional conference in Indianapolis, desiccating non-organic wheat crops with glyphosate just before harvest came into vogue late in the 1990s with the result that most of the non-organic wheat in the United States is now contaminated with it. Seneff explains that when you expose wheat to a toxic chemical like glyphosate, it actually releases more seeds resulting in a slightly greater yield: “It ‘goes to seed’ as it dies. At its last gasp, it releases the seed” says Dr. Seneff.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, as of 2012, 99% of durum wheat, 97% of spring wheat, and 61% of winter wheat have been treated with herbicides. This is an increase from 88% for durum wheat, 91% for spring wheat and 47% for winter wheat since 1998. Note that bulgur is commonly made from durum.
Here’s what wheat farmer Keith Lewis has to say about the practice:
I have been a wheat farmer for 50 yrs and one wheat production practice that is very common is applying the herbicide Roundup (glyposate) just prior to harvest. Roundup is licensed for preharvest weed control. Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup claims that application to plants at over 30% kernel moisture result in roundup uptake by the plant into the kernels. Farmers like this practice because Roundup kills the wheat plant allowing an earlier harvest.
A wheat field often ripens unevenly, thus applying Roundup preharvest evens up the greener parts of the field with the more mature. The result is on the less mature areas Roundup is translocated into the kernels and eventually harvested as such.
This practice is not licensed. Farmers mistakenly call it “desiccation.” Consumers eating products made from wheat flour are undoubtedly consuming minute amounts of Roundup. An interesting aside, malt barley which is made into beer is not acceptable in the marketplace if it has been sprayed with preharvest Roundup. Lentils and peas are not accepted in the market place if it was sprayed with preharvest roundup….. but wheat is ok.. This farming practice greatly concerns me and it should further concern consumers of wheat products.
Here’s what wheat farmer Seth Woodland of Woodland and Wheat in Idaho had to say about the practice of using herbicides for wheat dry down:
That practice is bad . I have fellow farmers around me that do it and it is sad. Lucky for you not all of us farm that way. Being the farmer and also the president of a business, we are proud to say that we do not use round up on our wheat ever!
This practice is not just widespread in the United States either. The Food Standards Agency in the United Kingdom reports that the use of Roundup as a wheat desiccant results in glyphosate residues regularly showing up in bread samples. Other European countries are waking up to the danger, however. In the Netherlands, the use of Roundup is completely banned with France likely soon to follow.
Using Roundup on wheat crops throughout the entire growing season and even as a desiccant just prior to harvest may save the farmer money and increase profits, but it is devastating to the health of the consumer who ultimately consumes the glyphosate residue laden wheat kernels.
The chart below of skyrocketing applications of glyphosate to US wheat crops since 1990 and the incidence of celiac disease is from a December 2013 study published in the Journal Interdisciplinary Toxicology examining glyphosate pathways to autoimmune disease. Remember that wheat is not currently GMO or “Roundup Ready” meaning it is not resistant to its withering effects like GMO corn or GMO soy, so the application of glyphosate to wheat would actually kill it.
While the herbicide industry maintains that glyphosate is minimally toxic to humans, research published in the Journal Entropy strongly argues otherwise by shedding light on exactly how glyphosate disrupts mammalian physiology.
Authored by Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff of MIT, the paper investigates glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, an overlooked component of lethal toxicity to mammals.
The currently accepted view is that ghyphosate is not harmful to humans or any mammals. This flawed view is so pervasive in the conventional farming community that Roundup salesmen have been known to foolishly drink it during presentations!
However, just because Roundup doesn’t kill you immediately doesn’t make it nontoxic. In fact, the active ingredient in Roundup lethally disrupts the all important shikimate pathway found in beneficial gut microbes which is responsible for the synthesis of critical amino acids.
Friendly gut bacteria, also called probiotics, play a critical role in human health. Gut bacteria aid digestion, prevent permeability of the gastrointestinal tract (which discourages the development of autoimmune disease), synthesize vitamins and provide the foundation for robust immunity. In essence:
Roundup significantly disrupts the functioning of beneficial bacteria in the gut and contributes to permeability of the intestinal wall and consequent expression of autoimmune disease symptoms.
In synergy with disruption of the biosynthesis of important amino acids via the shikimate pathway, glyphosate inhibits the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes produced by the gut microbiome. CYP enzymes are critical to human biology because they detoxify the multitude of foreign chemical compounds, xenobiotics, that we are exposed to in our modern environment today.
As a result, humans exposed to glyphosate through the use of Roundup in their community or through the ingestion of its residues on industrialized food products become even more vulnerable to the damaging effects of other chemicals and environmental toxins they encounter!
What’s worse is that the negative impact of glyphosate exposure is slow and insidious over months and years as inflammation gradually gains a foothold in the cellular systems of the body.
The consequences of this systemic inflammation are most of the diseases and conditions associated with the Western lifestyle:
- Gastrointestinal disorders
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Heart Disease
- Depression
- Autism
- Infertility
- Cancer
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Alzheimer’s disease
- And the list goes on and on and on …
In a nutshell, Dr. Seneff’s study of Roundup’s ghastly glyphosate, which much of the wheat crop in the United States is doused with annually, uncovers the manner in which this lethal toxin harms the human body by decimating beneficial gut microbes with the tragic end result of disease, degeneration, and widespread suffering.
Got the picture yet?
Even if you think you have no trouble digesting wheat, it is still very wise to avoid conventional wheat as much as possible in your diet!
You Must Avoid Toxic Wheat No Matter What
The bottom line is that avoidance of conventional wheat in the United States is absolutely imperative even if you don’t currently have a gluten allergy or wheat sensitivity. This includes bypassing food products made with it such as the popular meat substitute seitan also called vital wheat gluten. The increase in the amount of glyphosate applied to wheat closely correlates with the rise of celiac disease and gluten intolerance. Dr. Seneff points out that the increases in these diseases are not just genetic in nature, but also have an environmental cause as not all patient symptoms are alleviated by eliminating gluten from the diet.
The effects of deadly glyphosate on your biology are so insidious that lack of symptoms today means literally nothing.
If you don’t have problems with wheat now, you will in the future if you keep eating conventionally produced, toxic wheat!
How to Eat Wheat Safely
Obviously, if you’ve already developed a sensitivity or allergy to wheat, you must avoid it. Period.
But, if you aren’t celiac or gluten sensitive and would like to consume this ancestral food safely, you can do what we do in our home. We source organic, naturally low in gluten, unhybridized Einkorn wheat for breadmaking, pancakes, cookies, etc. Please note that einkorn is not to be confused with the more general term farro, which includes emmer and spelt, which are both hybridized. You can learn more about the scientific research on the “good” gluten in einkorn in this article.
When we eat out or are purchasing food from the store, conventional wheat products are rejected without exception. This despite the fact that we have no gluten allergies whatsoever in our home – yet.
I am firmly convinced that if we did nothing, our entire family at some point would develop sensitivity to wheat or autoimmune disease in some form due to the toxic manner in which it is processed and the glyphosate residues that are contained in conventional wheat products.
What Are You Going to Do About Toxic Wheat?
How did you react to the news that US wheat farmers are using Roundup, not just to kill weeds, but to dry out the wheat plants to allow for an earlier, easier and bigger harvest and that such a practice causes absorption of toxic glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides, right into the wheat kernels themselves?
Did you feel outraged and violated as I did? How will you implement a conventional wheat-avoidance strategy going forward even if you haven’t yet developed a problem with gluten or wheat sensitivity?
What about other crops where Roundup is used as a pre-harvest desiccant such as barley, sugar cane, rice, seeds, dried beans and peas, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, and sugar beets? Will you only be buying these crops in organic form from now on to avoid this modern, man-made scourge?
UPDATE: The Soil Association in July 2015 called for an immediate ban on the use of glyphosate for wheat ripening and desiccation purposes. The nonprofit reports that glyphosate residues are widely found in nonorganic wheat samples and the use of the herbicide on wheat crops has increased 400% in the past two decades.
Dr. Robin Mesnage of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Kings College in London, revealed new data analysis showing Roundup, the most common brand of Glyphosate based herbicides, is 1,000 times more toxic than genotoxic glyphosate alone due to the inclusion of other toxic chemicals in its mix.
Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director said; “If Glyphosate ends up in bread it’s impossible for people to avoid it unless they are eating organic. On the other hand, farmers could easily choose not to use Glyphosate as a spray on wheat crops – just before they are harvested. This is why the Soil Association is calling for the immediate ending of the use of Glyphosate sprays on wheat destined for use in bread.”
References
Glyphosate now commonly found in human urine
Study: Glyphosate, Celiac and Gluten Intolerance
The Glyphosate, Celiac Disease Connection
Pre-harvest Application of Glyphosate to Wheat
Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases
Yield and quality of wheat seeds as a function of desiccation stages and herbicides
Wheat farmer weighs in on the use of Roundup as a wheat desiccant
More Information
Roundup: Quick Death for Weeds, Slow and Painful Death for You
Hybrid Wheat is Not the Same as GMO Wheat
The Dutch Ban Roundup, France and Brazil to Follow
How to Mix and Use Gluten Free Flour
Can Celiacs Eat Sourdough Bread?
The Dirty Little Secret About Gluten-Free
I read the article – was shocked but not surprised – and then I read the comments. I wonder if the people who are so sure this is NOT happening live and/or work on family farms rather than on the large corporate owned food production farms? I suspect the practices of these different kinds of farms are very different. Having a 100 acres of wheat to harvest and having a thousand acres probably asks for different approaches to harvesting. We live gluten free and I am considering sprouting einkorn wheat to see if it would make a difference. We don’t see to have digestive issues with gluten; rather my daughter (adult) suffers from achy joints and skin break-outs when she eats gluten. We’ve only been gluten free for 2 years but she complained about achy joints all her life – never occurred to us that it had anything to do with wheat until we read Wheat Belly.
Plenty of farmers spray wheat and other cereal crops with Roundup pre-harvest. This is a perfectly safe practice and any lingering toxicity is insignificant to the health of the consumer. The purpose is to get the crop off before the cold weather kills it.The practice helps keep the price of cereal grains low and affordable, especially for poorer people who cannot afford organic products.
If someone wants to go all organic, good on them. I prefer to consume products without bug guts or weed infestation and with more protein, and at a good price.
And I prefer to get my information from reputable scientific journals and government health agencies rather than from what some blogger overheard at the dinner table and looked up online.
Don’t live in fear, people. Most producers in this world — farmers, corporations, etc. — are not psychopaths, despite what’s alleged in articles like these.
Sarah, I shared your article last night on FB and have had almost 20 shares. I have also had a lot of questions about the stats of preharvest roundup being applied, including some farmers from my area who say they have never used it in this way. I did share the round up document which cites the benefits of using roundup for preharvest, but I am still uncertain about the validity of the numbers of farmers actually spraying for preharvest. I am not sure how to determine that from the article either. Any help would be appreciated. Regardless of the numbers, I am glad to know that this is becoming a common occurance and want to spread the word so we can perhaps turn the tide on this practice.
My husband works in the wheat industry export and we have many friends that are wheat farmers. Not a single one of them has access to Gmo seeds and they are very conscientious about their growing practices. We have 150 acres of wheat locally not far from us and they absolutely do not spray in the manner that you mentioned above.
There was a time when reporters were required to go directly to the source and immerse themselves completely into the culture of what they were reporting on. 30 years ago, a writer would have spent a summer on a wheat farm, interviewed the farmers, visited the fields in person, visited the companies that were handling the exports and more. Now we have bloggers who are just repeating snippets of what they read or hear here and there at a dinner party without having any background or experience in the subject they are reporting on. It is very unfair to our farmers here in the US who are working very hard to provide high quality products. Have you ever visited and walked among a wheat field and talked to the farmers here in both the U.S. and Europe to give a fair and accurate comparison? As someone who has a lot of loyal followers, your readers need a better more thorough reporter.
One thing to keep in mind about Europe is that their growing practice is not that much different than ours. What IS different is this: they have a much wider access to variety of wheat seeds than the farmers here in the US do. Farmers in the US have access to two primary seeds: hard red and soft white. A European farmer has access to over 150 different varieties. Does this make hard red and soft white evil? Absolutely not, but there is a possibility with Europe offering a broader variety as well as more ancient strands of wheat, you will see less gluten issues. One other component is the amount of wheat everyone is eating. If one had to raise and harvest their own wheat, they would not eat more than two times a week. Now, everyone has wheat at every meal and every processed snack food item has wheat.
In addition, wheat is processed very differently here. In Europe, you see very few ingredients in a loaf of bread. Often less than three or four. Here in the U.S., bread has almost 20 ingredients and lot of sugar to boot. If a person consumes bread in Europe, chances are that their body recognizes it much more easily. Eat bread, cakes, cookies or pasta here and it has to filter and recognize ingredients that don’t belong in our bodies.
Infact, the real culprit behind wheat trasfprmation is Norman Boralug tecnics which gives life to a new venom called dwarf wheat, causing an havoc on human population.
The only problem with that is the crops in the US are not even regional anymore. All the wheat harvested will mixed together after harvest from all the sources, so even if a few farms are ‘clean’ at harvest the wheat they produce will be mixed in with contaminated wheat at the silos. It is a game of Russian roulette – and Russia just banned GMOs
YES!!!!!!!
Shano,
No, all wheat is not mixed together! There are 6 or 7 classes of wheat grow in the U.S . Each with different end uses. They cannot be mixed! Thousands of different varieties , each bred to grow well in a geographic location and with certain traits for flour quality and milling. If ” wheat harvested will mixed together after harvest from all the sources,” that grain tank would have to be the size of the state of Texas! USDA reported 2014 US wheat crop at 1,999,050,000 bushels, bushel = 60 lbs or 1.25 cubic feet. You do the math. And a great deal of wheat is exported. All of the 45,000 bushels I grew this year will be.
My husband is a farmer. We have been married 42 years.. I have never heard of this practice either, but he said he knew farmers that did use this practice. It makes me want to throw up! How do we know which wheat we are eating.
Excellent, informative comment. Thank you.
Thank you. Being a young farmer I appreciate the effort of trying to get the real truth out there. I am very afraid of the future of ag in the united state. But thank you for defending the honest truth. Thank you.
I farm in Saskatchewan, Canada and almost every acre of crop grown in this province is dessicated with roundup before harvest to ripen it faster and evenly. Roundup is used on every crop grown and that includes wheat, barley, flax, canola, peas, oats, soybeans, etc.
Michelle, You are incorrect about the number of varieties in Europe vs the US. You could just as easily say Europe has only 2 types of wheat, feed wheat and bread wheat. The US has at least 6 different classes of wheat, hard red and soft white being but two of them. There are also winter and spring versions of hard red, and there is soft red winter, Durum, and hard white wheat. Each of these classes has hundreds of varieties available to farmers.
There are also different eating habits in Europe vs the US. In many European towns, bread is bought daily from a local bakery. In the US, most bread is bought from supermarkets where it is expected to have a longer shelf life than 1 day. Some of those extra ingredients are used to preserve freshness. All of those extra ingredients have been found safe by the FDA.
Why do we only have two wheat seed choices here in the US? Thanks.
Rosanna, We have thousands varieties of wheat seed . There are six different classes or types of wheat. Each with a different end use, some for bread, Durum for pasta, Soft white for crackers and flat breads. Hundreds of varieties in each class, many developed for a certain milling quality, or climate or region where it is grown. Check out this sight. http://www.uswheat.org/wheatClasses
i am with michelle on this one it is just a bash on the american farmer they to eat from the same stores as everyone else and i can tell you they are fined if a load of wheat goes in and round up is found on it and they will be shut down so fast it would make your head spin so stop bashing them
I’ve been a farmer for over 30 years, both in Canada and in the UK, and I can tell you that farmers have been spraying pre-harvest glyphosate on their grain crops since the early 80’s. It’s become more and more the norm, the aim being to kill all green growth in the field and facilitate harvesting. The desiccation of the (usually wheat) crop is viewed as an added bonus. Special desiccant chemicals such as Reglone (diquat – related to paraquat!!!!) are usually used to dry the crop down if there aren’t too many weeds.The reason it’s not used on malting barley is that it kills the seed, rendering it useless for the malting process. I can’t believe that the farmers you know are denying knowledge of this practise – it’s extremely widespread. Here is an article from a prairie farmers’ newspaper from 5 years ago which demonstrates how common the practice has become :http://www.manitobacooperator.ca/2009/12/24/reglone-versus-glyphosate/
Well, why US food is banned in 30 countries??
I’m not saying that you and your friends are doing the right thing, but we can count these type of farmers maybe with one hand. The rest is just about what they can get $$$$$ people sell their souls just for that.
which foods? what countries???
How do you know the writer didn’t do research? According to your standards did you spend weeks with the author while this article was being prepared? I doubt it.
As it is common knowledge Monsanto along with the rest of big agra pays people to do just as you are doing, it is more likely you are on Monsanto’s payroll undermining anything shedding light to their evil greed.
Sorry to inform you, but the American wheat farmer raises six different classes of wheat and within those classes, are hundreds of different varieties. Hard red and Soft white is an oversimplification of the differences that are present.
By the way, Italy consumes nearly all of its wheat and imports much of its wheat from North Dakota. It’s called Durum wheat.
Your facts are not correct. There are no glyphosate-tolerant wheat varieties on the market in the United States. Meaning if the wheat was sprayed with this it would die. Fields are sometimes used to practice something called burn down where a crop may be grown, sprayed, and then burned to give the soil a clean slate. Your statistics about Round up have to be extremely out of context and I’m guessing are in relation to a burn down field instead of one being harvested for consumption. I grew up and still am around a farm that produces over 500+ acres of wheat and that is not at all how it’s harvested nor is that how it’s harvested in thousands of other acres around the state. Round up has no need to be sprayed before harvest and farmers don’t put anything on wheat months before harvest as it slows down the drying process in turn delaying harvest. It saddens me that people feel that farmers in the United States are only out for the bottom dollar and don’t care about the health and well being of others. It’s not always about the bottom line and having been around farming since I was born have seen the good that farmers do. Are there some practices in some places that are probably not the best, yes, but to clump that as farmers as a whole is unfair and wrong. Most people have no clue how their food is actually harvested and grown and researching that would open a lot of people’s eyes.
Yes … killing it prior to harvest is the idea. Please read the article. You’re coming at this with pro-GMO eyes.
I continue to wonder about how wheat is grown and harvested today versus say in 1950. Certainly I didn’t always have leaky gut and today I can’t go anywhere near wheat/gluten without getting pretty sick. I feel like I ate glass, my head hurts and I feel like throwing up. And this problem is epidemic which is why there are so many gluten free products now. Course few realize those are full of GMO corn which is also a contributor to leaky gut because of Round Up.
What I do know is that something has changed in the way we grow food in this country and it’s destroying our guts and Monsanto is behind it.
Wheat has a fantastic way of drying down on its own once it matures. Upon maturity the crop produces its own ethylene that spreads and helps speed the ripening process. Think of your bananas, one one starts to turn just a little brown if you don’t remove it from the others you will very shortly have all brown bananas. This is also the reason to store fruit and vegetables in the fridge (it slows the production of ethylene so you can keep the product longer).
The margins for producing wheat are also very small, if a farmer doesn’t have to spend the extra money for not only the product(roundup) but also the cost of application, which during the pre harvest time would be done by an aerial applicator. Both of these expenses are not necessary and therefore not done under normal conditions.
I am an agronomist that covers more than 200,000 acres of wheat annually and I can say that 0% of my fields get sprayed with roundup pre harvest.
If you doubt the practice just go to Monsanto’s website and look it up. I did about 6 months ago and was disgusted.
Hmmm…go to Monsanto’s website and look it up. Since when did Monsanto farm wheat? Just because something might appear on a chemical company’s website doesn’t mean it is a common practice. I’m a wheat farmer, and until now I have never even heard of this practice. Monsanto doesn’t make the day to day decisions on any farm that I am aware of.
Your information on glyphosate is incorrect as to the toxicity. Glyphosate has a very low toxicity rating. The LD 50 ( the lethal dose per kilogram on weight for 50% of test animals) is over 5000 mcg/kg. This places it in the very low toxicity catagory.
I am unsure of how to leave a comment and not just a reply.
Anyhow, while dessicants can and are used. The reality is I have never seen this practice in wheat in Michigan or Indiana or the midwest, which goes to the point that while this is done, it is unclear in your article of how many acres actually undergo this practice. You also don’t mention what rate glyphosate is applied per acre. This usually encourages people to think that the use of herbicides are to “drench the wheat fields with Roundup”. Actual recommended rates are no greater than .75 lb of glyphosate per acre!. Roundup would be 22 oz/acre. Semantics perhaps but taking two pop cans worth of fluid and spreading that over an entire acre seems to be less than drenching.
Finally I would wonder what the actual amount of actual glyphosate ends up in the end products consumers use? Wheat is a highly processed product, and for the very little that might make it on the grain… remember spraying glyphosate will only be done once the wheat grain has an abscission layer and is mature and separate from the plant; would likely be destroyed. As a farmer, certified crop advisor, and a lover of bread I must respectfully disagree with the thesis of this article.
Ti, I spent the last 14 years of my life among Farmers and though I admire your attempt to defend Farmers the truth is Farmers could care less about what they plant as long as it pays their bills and affords them to plant the next year. I tried to educate those that I knew on Monsanto and the reply was, “We don’t want to hear it!” It pays our bills and payments on land rents and our machinery and helps me buy a new tractor or truck every year. Farmers still spray the crops as much as they did before and now we have superbugs, killing bee’s and Monarchs, not to mention the wild life that feeds on the crops. Farmers are forced to sign Contracts with Monsanto. One that forces them to buy their seeds instead of being able to Save the Seeds from year to year like they had done for thousands of years before Monsanto Claimed all Seeds as their own. Farmers looks at Monsanto and gang and believe their is No Way They Can Fight them so they settle. The High Cost of Farming from seed to harvest has caused many to stop farming and thus the Big Corporations come in and swoop up land and farms. Truth of the matter..Farmers hands are tied…but the spraying continues and we are discovering these poisons in our bodies and in our children and newborns. Instead of Defending the Farmers we must Educate them on what they are feeding the world they so proudly brag about! Instead of our Government giving Monsanto everything they want we must demand serious Scientific Studies that do not include their own Scientist to determine if the food we eat is safe for human and animal consumption. There has been a great crime committed against humanity albeit it is a good way to help depopulate. Our Government Agencies no longer protect the interest and welfare of humans and animals and instead support the Big Corporations. This is a flaw in our own government. Farmers are known to work hard but I found they work hard for about 3 to 5 months a year and then live off the profits for the rest of the year. At least the larger farmers. The smaller farmers usually have a Job on top of farming because they cannot survive on what they produce. Those that raise and claim their beef or pork is organic feed them Monsanto crops thus their meat is not truly organic. Until the Farmers understand they are poisoning the world with Monsanto products and unite to combat this evil we will continue to EAT contaminated GMO foods that are now called, Frankenfoods! The truth is out there. We just have to care enough to seek it out.
Thank you, KACHINA, for being one of the FEW on this BLOG that knows what’s REALLY going on. We need to listen to this and help the farmers get on board with the truth, before it’s too late.
Yes. And also the head of the fda was a Monsanto executive before
Your statement would be credible if you give names. If no, as you did, it sounds to me like another biased comment. Thanks.
Kachina, if you take the time to think about your arguments, you have provided a rebuttal against yourself. You say we will do anything to pay our bills and buy new tractors and trucks every year. By applying glyphosate before harvest, that would cost us money to purchase the chemical, cost us money to apply the chemical, and then we would lose money due to a decreased yield from applying the chemical before harvest. That doesn’t fit in with your argument that we do anything to pay the bills. As for buying new equipment every year, unless you have corporate backing (which is less than 2% of the farms in America) that rarely happens. We run 5 tractors that are anywhere from 5 to 60 years old, 6 trucks anywhere from 18 to 61 years old, and 2 combines that are 5 and 15 years old. It just doesn’t work like you think it does.
>Farmers could care less about what they plant as long as it pays their bills and affords them to plant the next year. –
So it makes perfect sense to spend thousands of dollars on a chemical just before harvest to get a small increase in the yield of the wheat (multiplied by the pittance farmers get per pound of wheat). If in fact all the farmers care about is money, they wouldn’t do this.
I take offense to this comment. I am a farmer. I care about what I produce and those I produce it for. This is why we have chemical applicator licenses (I don’t personally have one, but pay someone to spray our fields when needed,) and have beef quality assurance training for the beef we produce. I would never put something on food I produce that I wouldn’t ingest myself. We don’t use this particular method and MOST in the United States don’t either.
Farmer’s have been spraying 2-4D on their wheat fields for over 50 years, a chemical more toxic than Roundup. Why blame Roundup when the problem would still persist if it was no longer used on wheat?
That is exactly what he says: They spray the wheat a few days prior to harvest and as it dies it releases more seed. Read the article!
Angie, the number of seeds produced by the wheat plant is determined months BEFORE the crop is harvest, depending on growing conditions. Roundup sprayed on wheat kills it!
I know, I have done it! Please read my comment, I have 4 decades of wheat growing experience.
actually, the author did not at anytime suggest that glyphosphate tolerant wheat was at issue, in fact, the opposite. the author stated the round up was used to “kill” the wheat. before you go off on your high horse maybe you read a little more carefully….
That is what the articles said. They spray the wheat with glyphosate and it dies.
Did you read the article? The whole point was that Roundup was used off label to KILL the wheat making it easier to harvest.
There is good intent with people concerning themselves with the agricultural process. We need farmers to be more expressive so the consumer can make an intelligent informed decision as to the food they wish to ingest. We need to do less finger pointing and more reading and listening to the true facts. As a doctor concerned about our food and lack of nutrients, I welcome your comments and the comments of your colleagues. Every profession has the good, bad, and ugly. Please keep a dialogue up and get your fellow farmers involved so the consumer has better information when making nutritional choices. Thank you for your post.
No symptoms eating pasta in Italy? I don’t understand that – why then does Italy have a huge problem with gluten intolerance?
8 years ago when we first took our son who was GFCF to Italy, I mentioned my worry about finding food for him to eat while there and my friend who is a doctor in Italy told me not to worry, they have a bigger problem with gluten than we do and I would have no problem finding Gluten free stuff and sure enough she was right. Even in the tiniest store in a small village had gluten free stuff. Easier to find than in Germany where we live and the States where we are from!
But it is true that the our reaction to wheat is much worse in the States than in Germany even tho we buy all organic food. I can eat regular bread here in Germany but can’t tolerate it in the States even organic. So there is something different for us in the german vs american bread but clearly there is something that is causing Italians to have problems with their own pasta.
Love your research into this question. It’s very intriguing.
The wheat products you consume in Italy are not made from 100% Italian wheat. Millers seek specific traits in the flours they use and blend from wheat all over the world including Canada and the United States. The “Amercian bread makes me sick” statements make no sense for this reason.
I’m in Italy and I can tell you all wheat is a real venom here, pasta more than others. the new pasta wheat have been made by Norman Borlaug hybridization in an atomic center near Rome called “grano creso” and since the 80 coeliac skyrocket. In my small hamlet there wasn’t a single coeliac sufferer, now there are more of 80. People who ate wheat for 30/40 years have suddenly became coeliacs with this new wheat.
Gluten intolerance still exists but not all wheat-related sensitivities related to gluten,at least that is what this article suggest.
I wonder what the ingredients or processes are the same? That would be a great research article!
Having grown up on a wheat-raising farm myself, and in a very conservative family, I believe you have your facts completely wrong and you are spreading misinformation.
This is the link to Roundup, preharvest information and the crops it is used on. No one is making anything up. This is common practice on many farms and encouraged by Monsanto and their selling agents.
http://roundup.ca/_uploads/documents/MON-Preharvest%20Staging%20Guide.pdf
When did you grow up on a wheat-raising farm? The article is talking about the last 5-10 years being the most intense in this issue.
which evil empire do you work for?
I knew it had to be something like this! It fits my family’s and my own pattern of sensitivity to some products, wheat included.
Good for you figuring this out. In 1985 we moved from MI (wheat coming from up north?) to AZ (wheat from OK?) and all of a sudden I had intestinal trouble. I thought it was lactose intolerance but hindsight and all this news about changes in wheat farming tells me now that it was the wheat. I ate more fruits and vegetables and was OK until 2005-ish when the GMO beet sugar that was sneaked into our food system caused me to be intolerant to many foods. All of these people who think they are gluten intolerant are really unable to process the new protein that the hybrid wheat made for itself called gliadin which is similar to gluten.
I’m not sure if you are familiar with Jayer Si’s research on wheat, but it goes way beyond toxic wheat or substituting with organic. In a nutshell, his research shows that we as humans are not meant to eat wheat at all. This is a tough pill to swallow since it’s so ingrained (no pun intended) in our society. Here’s a great two-part article about his findings: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/page/dark-side-wheat-new-perspectives-celiac-disease-wheat-intolerance-sayer-ji. It was a huge wake up call for me when I read this.
Yes, I am familiar with Sayer’s work. Very intriguing, but I disagree. Humans have been eating wheat for thousands of years. I don’t believe it is as bad as it is portrayed and I continue to eat it … organic only. Of course, when you douse wheat with poison to get an easier and earlier harvest, that is another matter entirely!
You need to tell us which strain of wheat (there are three different genetic types) that you are eating. Any farmer can buy any kind of GMO seed or a hybridized wheat (original genetic modification in the mid century before they knew what they were doing) and grow these seeds with organic methods and call the product “organic”. Kamut (registered trademark) Khorisan wheat is an ancient wheat developed for commercial use by Dr Bob Quinn. This wheat must be grown organically with a field used for this wheat in one year out of three. These farmers must adhere to these rules. Over half of the crop is sold to Italy.
From http://www.kamut.com:
“All wheat belongs to the genus Triticum. From that classification wheat can be divided into three groups based on their number of chromosomes. Diploid wheat (14 chromosomes) is the earliest grouping. Cultivated varieties in this group are rare and very unusual. The only example that was known to be cultivated is einkorn. Einkorn was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians and has been found in 4000 year old tombs of the Pharaohs.
“Tetraploid wheat (28 chromosomes) is more common. This includes ancient varieties such as emmer and khorasan Triticum turgidum ssp.turanicum (sold as KAMUT® brand wheat) as well as modern varieties such as durum. Durum is most commonly used to make pasta. The most common wheat is hexaploid wheat (42 chromosomes) and includes spelt, modern bread wheat and soft wheat used for cookies and cakes.
“Wild tetraploid wheat was thought to have occurred mostly in the Near East where it was first gathered by man. Varieties in early agriculture were not pure lines, but consisted of a mixture of closely related grain lines called land race varieties. This is in contrast to the varieties of single lines that occur today with modern agriculture. The diversity of these land races gave protection against attacks of disease or insects. If one strain was susceptible to an attack, other strains could be resistant and the whole crop would not be lost. The khorasan wheat which is grown today and sold under the KAMUT® brand name is a heritage grain and of a land race containing this same diversity and advantage of ancient land races.”
but then — why only the crazy gluten intolerance in the last 5 to 10 years? i understand what you say — we weren’t meant to eat wheat — but we did as far back as when Jesus walked the earth and broke bread and ate it without breaking into hives — and only in the last 5 to 10 years has it gotten to be such a problem. so it can’t be just that we shouldn’t eat wheat. something is different!!!!!
agreed. I used to buy wheat “berries” and grind my own flour by hand & then make my own baked goods by hand. I did not add the presrvatives, etc that you see listed on store-bought labels. I prefrred soft white winter wheat for pizza dough & biscuits but hard red wheat for cookies & pancakes. The last few years before I went gluten -free, soft wheat was hard to find in my area. (dunno if it is that way in other areas)….anyway yes, something is up within the last few years.
That link is SO interesting!!
I have search throughout the USDA sight and not been able to find any information on herbicide use. Which column did you find it in?
See document attached. This information is from Roundup site and it is encouraged by Monsanto and their selling agents on many crops including wheat.
http://roundup.ca/_uploads/documents/MON-Preharvest%20Staging%20Guide.pdf