While many experts still believe there’s a place for whole wheat in a healthy diet, physicians like Mark Hyman, William Davis, and Frank Lipman caution against what they call “Frankenwheat.” What is Frankenwheat? Frankenwheat is a term used to describe the modern wheat Americans eat today. While our ancestors mostly consumed einkorn wheat, decades of cross-breeding and hybridization (to create high-yield crops) have created a shorter, stockier “dwarf wheat” that now makes up almost all of the wheat we consume. According to Dr. Hyman, a leader in Functional Medicine and a four-time New York Times bestselling author of such books as The Blood Sugar Solution, this new wheat is a triple threat: It contains twice the number of chromosomes. This means it codes for a much larger variety of gluten proteins, or “super gluten,” as Dr. Hyman likes to say. It contains high levels of a “super starch” amylopectin A, which excels at making both Cinabons and bellies swell. And it’s full of wheat polypeptides called gluteomorphins, which trigger an opiate-like response in the brain, so guess what? You’ll want more Frankenwheat. Find out what eating this sketchy wheat means for your health with Well+GoodNYC’s Is Frankenwheat Haunting Your Diet?
