America Flour vs. "Gluten Tolerance"

[Jacob Petersheim]

For many people the problem may not be gluten after all. Instead it may be North American flour and its additives such as bleaching agents and preservatives. Maybe MAHA should get on top of this.

I'm not sure how practical it is to seek out a local mill producing straight wheat flour. Dealing with it yourself seems like a pain. Sounds like a good product to sell in a farmer's market though.

I did find this place: https://stonycroftfarms.com/

About 70 miles from me, but they also accept phone orders.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Dr William Davis wrote about this in his book, Wheat Belly. He said that originally wheat was around 5 ‘ tall, and has now been hybrid to grow about 18” tall. I remember having some wheat growing in my back yard when I was a kid, and munching the wheat berries when they got ripe. I think that wheat was about waist high to me back then, so it was probably 2-3 feet tall.
Also, the pesticides we use on grain are a lot of the reason that people can’t handle it. Grain in many of the European countries does not have all of that, and has not been GMO modified, and it does not affect people in the same way as our grain grown in the United States does.

You can buy whole wheat grains in bulk and grind your own flour, but it might still be grain that had pesticides used on it, so I think a person would have to find a place that grew wheat without any of that. Or , buy grain that is sourced from overseas, like the people in the video did. I think that Bob’s Red Mill uses stone ground grains, non-GMO and they are glyphosate-free, according to the website.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

Cindy was almost a Chef before she was forced to retire from working, and she always used Italian Semolina Flour for her baking. It costs a little more than American Flour, but it was well worth it. She used to buy it at Costco as they had the lowest price in Eureka.

 

[Don Alaska]

We did extensive research into flours when my wife discovered her dietary issues. In addition to glyphosate (which isn't listed as an ingredient) the principal difference in flours that I found was bromine, which is in most American flours and is prohibited as far as I know in European flours. We also experimented with teff from Ethiopia and barley and rye flours. All of them bothered my wife to some extent. Rice and rice flour is by far the worst for her. While some flours cause fewer problems for her, all of them except teff cause some. That is why I always encourage people with digestive issues to try an Elimination Diet to determine what the issues are.

Gluten was not her issue, but something in virtually all grains cause my wife issues, so she tries to avoid all grains. When we eat at other people's homes or in restaurants, she takes papaya tablets immediately after eating. She has discovered that papaya helps with the symptoms of accidental ingestion of grains.

 

[Mary Stetler]

I used to grow my own wheat and wish I still did sometimes. The first harvest ended up full of barley beetles--tiny little bugs that come from tiny white maggots. I used to see them in generic biscuit mix too, if kept long enough. To stop them I added food grade diatomaceous earth and shook things up.
This was before glyphosphate was a thing and I sure didn't use it.