Over the past couple of years, I had the unpleasant experience of having bloodwork done to confirm that I am gluten intolerant, only to have it come back and say, “Nope, you’re just crazy.” The same thing happened to my good friend Melissa Melton, who was terribly ill before she cut wheat out of her life. It’s happened to scores of other people, who pass the test for the anti-gliadin antibodies but still know that their health issues directly correlate with what they eat.
Now we may know why. The tests were right. I’m not gluten intolerant. I’m poison intolerant.
I read a mind-blowing article last night that put it all together for me. (Please go read the entire piece by Sarah, the Healthy Home Economist.) “Standard 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 withered, dead wheat plants are less taxing on the farm equipment and allows for an earlier, easier and bigger harvest.”
Pre-harvest application of the herbicide Roundup and 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 1990′s 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.”
According to the US Department of Agriculture, as of 2012, 99% of durum wheat, 97% of spring wheat, and 61% of winter wheat has been doused with Roundup as part of the harvesting process. This is an increase from 88% for durum wheat, 91% for spring wheat and 47% for winter wheat since 1998. (source)
How horrifying is it that they douse this stuff for human consumption with the most toxic, prevalent herbicide around, an herbicide which has been linked to all sorts of problems, just days before the harvest? That stuff doesn’t get removed – it gets milled in with the wheat and lurks in your bags of flour, your loaves of bread, and your desserts.
This could also explain why some people who have terrible gluten symptoms are able to eat products made from organic Einkorn wheat. It may not be that it’s heirloom Einkorn – it could just be that it hasn’t been doused in glyphosate.
