5 Ways Wheat is Killing You
Good evening, I’m Dr. Emil Tompkins and I’m glad to see you at this workshop today, the 5 areas wheat is killing you and what you’re going to do about it. There are a couple of things I want to explain about why were doing this workshop today. One, as a chiropractor I do a lot of talking about getting our body to be asa healthy as possible and looking at physical stress, chemical stress and emotional stress. The way we eat can help to cause or relieve some of that chemical stress. 2 I am a parent of a child that must live gluten free or she could die. She just celebrated her 8th birthday last week so we have been cooking gluten free for years. So I wanted you to have some background from me.
Q – Lets take a moment and go into your notes and write down 2 foods that are “your weakness” or foods that you would never want to live without.
We will talk about them more later, but first, lets talk about my daughter. My lovely hannah is 8 years old, I mentioned she just celebrated her 8th birthday and our lives with her are always an adventure, in fact, one day we were out on an adeventure and while camping, we noticed the fish bait, any fisherman out there? The fish bait was missing and we didn’t know what happened to it so the first thing we did was ask the kids and they pointed to each other and triesd to blame the other one and eventually Hannah, my daughter allergic to so many things, wheat being one of them, said. If I tell you what happened to the fish bait, will I be in trouble? We said no and the got closer and closer to us and said. “I ate the fish bait!” and this is really terrible because she is allergic to wheat and we don’t know what’s in this stiff because, fish bait isn’t food. there are no ingredients and this could be a potentially dangerous situation, but besides a stomachache, she did ok.
Because of Hannah’s wheat response, we have to be extra careful about the things she eats. Now, your story may not be as drastic as my daughters, but wheat causes a problem for everyone, one way or another and we’re going to talk about that now.
Where is wheat found?
Just so we can be clear on the foods we’re talking about. Let’s ask the question. What foods actually have wheat in them. Sometimes when we’re thinking of wheat, we think of wheat bread, or things made of whole wheat flour but wheat has much larger areas of effect. So lets look at the list.
So what’s the problem with wheat. Wheat, singlehandedly causes a myriad of health problems that if we were clear about them, we would probably never eat it. Problems from blood sugar issues, to inflammation in the body, to allergic reactions, to digestive ailments, to mental and emotional effects, to serious weight gain.
In the 60s is was apparent that we were gaining weight and having lots of bouts with heart disease. and they researched the foods that people were eating and realized that people were eating lots of white bread and processed white flour foods. So as they were looking at that they noticed that people who ate less white flour foods and more whole grains, had less instance of heart disease. So then the thought was “eat more healthy whole grains” That sounds okay. They problem was that people were still having problems, just less of them but then when you recomend that people eat no lots and lots of “healthy whole grains”, we’re now overloading people with something that’s bad but less bad.
Now were convinced that whole grains are healthy, we eat lots of them and we don’t understand why we’re gaining weight, why were in pain all the time and why we want to eat every 2 hours. I’m going to try to explain that today. Much of this information comes from my own personal research on how wheat affects my day, and 3 books. Why we get fat. by: Gary Taubes, Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis, and Grain Brain David Perlmutter.
Why do I have a problem with wheat
1.Not original wheat:
a.Amber waves of grain. The song is describing wheat flowing in the wind. Eincorn wheat is the wheat that is closest to the original wheat. it was cinsidered sacred to ancient peoples. But todays bread is so much different than the than the original version. Wheat has now exploded to over 25000 varieties. all of them due to human intervention. Eincorn wheat has gluten, but it was what was found on the earth thousands of years ago, not what we had now.
b.eincorn then emmer and other wheats changed slowly over time you would see 4 foot tall amber waves of grain. during the 19th and 20th centuries, wheat changed very little.
c.That all ended in the late 20th century, what now passes for wheat has changed. And its all due to human intervention. It was harvested, cut and stitched back together so that it’s unrecognizeable compared to the original food, but its still called by the same name.
d.to deliver increased yeild, decreased production costs, but no questions are posed as far as will this effect our health.
e.Wheat changed.
f.A bread biscuit, muffin is nothing like what it was 5000, 1000, or even 50 years ago.
g.eincorn has the simplest genetic wheat it has 14 chromasomes. 28 chromasomes wheat
h.This wheat had thin stalks, a small head (the part you can eat.) And I guess as scientists were trying to figure out how to get increased yield from food so that you can feed more people per acre of land. They created over time playing around with gene expression. Adding genes and subtracting genes, they came up with a dwarf wheat Triticum something, that’s not so important. But what was important was a couple of things. It had a shorter thicker stalk. Which made it more resistent
to environmental effects. It had a MUCH larger seed head, which made it able to yield more wheat (the food part). This played a role in relieving world hunger. It was pretty genius. The creator of this won the nobel peace prize. This was no small achievement. However, the difference between us and monkeys is about .1 percent of our genes. And the difference between the original wheat and the current wheat that were used to eating is more like 10% of those genes. This is like a monkey on steroids and we’re eating it and claiming it is healthy for us. These changes cause a number of effects. Those effects we’ll talk about soon, but I just wanted to make it clear that the wheat we’re eating now, is not the same as was naturally created and developed. And we’ll find out what it does to us next.
2.Blood sugar effects: Our blood sugar is a really interesting thing. our body s fairly sensitive. For us to stay relatively healthy, balancing its’ energy stores as normally as possible is of paramount importance. When we eat, if what we eat, food is converted to energy (glycogen) This increases our blood sugar and the body processes that sugar with insulin secretion which binds and uses the sugar. where some is used for energy, and the remaining is stored in our body for future use. What is really interesting is that when we eat things that are high in sugar, our blood sugar really increases. where our body then uses a little and the rest us saved as fat for future use. Unfortunately, the rest that stays behind as fat never is used as fuel, because we are constantly eating things with sugar in it. That’s how this affects our weight. But the other problem is when our bodies take in sugar filled foods, wheat, then our blood sugar stays high, high amounts of insulin is needed to keep the blood sugar normalized and the longer our body goes through this the less sensitive our body becomes to insulin. too much insulin or too high of blood sugar, begins to cause other areas of the body to be damaged. This process left unchecked causes diabetes, heart problems. The high blood sugar over time causes diabetes which leads to damage to blood vessels, neuropathy and eventually a shortened lifespan.
3.Addictive: There are lots of foods that can affect the mind but there aren’t many of them that have such a wide range of effects. For example, alcohol creates euphoria and altered judgement. When we think of our kids we know very clearly what a “sugar rush” is. But wheat has a wide variety of effects and many of them are prtty aweful.
Lets talk about a word called exorphins. I’m sure you’ve heard of endorphins. They are chemicals found in the body that make you feel good. Endorphins are found inside the body. Exorphins are found outside the body.
When wheat is broken down in the body, the peptides that wheat breaks down into have been labeled by the National institutes of health as Exorphins. When you eat them, it will make you feel good. But then have an addictive effect. This is imporetant because they have found that people with severe mental problems (schitzophrenia) have worsened paranoia, auditory hallucinations, and social problems when eating wheat. Less so when wheat is removed.
Now what’s good is that, as far as I know, we’re not suffering with schizophrenia, however for the rest of us wheat still has some addictive effects. Look at you list at the foods that you wouldn’t want to live without. How many of you had something that contained wheat?
Many of us do. If not, it’s because I’m preaching to the choir, people who have already made the decision to drop the wheat or as least not let it control their lives. If that is the case, congratulations. If you’re like most people that struggle with this on a daily basis. Trust me when I tell you that i’m right there with you.
I spend my day trying to be healthy, I get up at 4:30 in the morning and exercise for about an hour and a half to 2 hours. I monitor how I eat most of the time, but I had this urge almost daily for a while that I needed to go into a gas station and buy chocolate cupcakes and a soda. And for a while this was daily. I was addicted. I would tell myself reasons why it was ok. that I exercise and I’m keeping myself healthy, but instead. I would eat something that was killing me and wonder why I was slowly gaining weight on 2 hours a day of exercise instead of losing it.
Along with the addictive effects. Here are a few other things that happen with wheat consumption.
Cerebellar ataxia: This is something that happens in people with or without celiac disease that will experience incontenance and stumbling balance issues. Immune destruction of nervous system tissue is happening because of the wheat exposure.
Gluten encephalopathy. Dementia from wheat, that can last 2 years. It unfortunately isn’t diagnosed until autopsy. I don’t like anything that people can’t find until autopsy. I’ll choose to simply leave it alone.
Seizures: Most seizures due to wheat consumption happen in the temporal lobe. They create repetitive and involuntary behaviors like smacking of the lips and swallowing. Ir it can involve some vivid emotional effects.
These are just a few of the scary effects of wheat on our brain. If we are the lucky ones. The only effect on our brain we’re experiencing is the addictive component. Either way, another reason to think twice about what we’re taking in .
4.Inflammation: People have various inflammatory responses to wheat. Lets look back at my daughter hannah for a moment. We were foster parents and she was brought to us. Actually, we met at Boston Market when she was about 10 days old. She was born addicted to Methamphetamine and cocaine and she was experiencing some serious health problems. she was in and out of ICU for the first year of her life and there are some really amazing God stories that I could tell you today, but I’d keep you here too long, but to shorten the story a little bit. After lots of testing and eventual surgery on her stomach, we found out that our daughter had serious reflux. She would spit up her formula and it would go back into her lungs. Where I believe the
wheat that was part of her formula, triggered a reaction in her body since it didn’t belong in her lngs. And the body developed an immune response to the wheat. As a child, whenever hannah had wheat, she would have difficulty breathing and we would have to deal with significant asthma problems for 2 weeks after eliminating the offending agent.
What’s interesting is that hannah didn’t fail any allergy tests. She was not “allergic” to wheat, but after a few yaers of testing we found that her body had a T1 cellular immune response to wheat. This immune response would attack her lungs and give her these symptoms. and we’d have weeks of problems.
This is one example of inflammatory processes caused by wheat. But the most common is found in people with Celiac disease.
Coeliac disease (spelled celiac disease in North America) is an illness which makes people ill if they eat gluten. one of the proteins found in wheat. If someone with coeliac disease eats something with gluten (for example, wheat), cells inside the body attack the lining of the intestine. This means that they cannot digest (eat) food properly, making them unable to have enough energy, vitamins, or minerals. Children may be unable to grow taller or gain weight properly. People with coeliac disease often lose weight. They are also frequently tired.
People with coeliac disease often have diarrhoea (watery stools) or steatorrhea (fat in their stools). It often means that they get flatulence. Their stomach also hurts.
This digestive inflammation can affect every aspect of your life and the only way to improve this is to stop eating wheat. Simple, stop eating wheat.
Because of the fact that wheat impacts our body’s blood sugar, then it causes increased inflammation in the body. This means, you can have pain anywhere because of wheat consumption. Arthritis pain has been relieved by stopping wheat in our diets. If pain is a regular part of your life. Think about decreasing wheat. Inflammation doesn’t just affect our joints and muscles, it can effect our heart, blood vessels, leading to issues with heard disease and other inflammatory conditions. if you want to relieve the pain, drop the wheat.
5.weight gain: It’s a fact that wheat consumption causes weight gain. we’ve changd our diet to low fat, high carbohydrate (healthy whole grains) and what happens? we get fatter and fatter. This weight gain is going to have a hazzardous effect on our health. If we look at the latest diet books and diet routines. I can just name a few that all involve decreasing carbs.
Atkins diet
south beach diet
paleo diet
ketogenic diets
the zone
Caveman Diet
Protein Power
Sonoma Diet
Sugar busters
These are just a few. These diets realize that because Wheat causes weight gain, one thing that you must do to lose weight is lose the wheat. Just a quick example. I decided to try this out for the last 2 weeks. I started at 6’ 3 22 lbs. in 10 days, I significantly decreased my carbohydrate including wheat and I’ve lost 6 pounds so far.
Now you may think low carb diets mean NO carb diets. That’s not at all the case. The question is where are we getting our carbs? Fruits, vegetables, rice, all have carbohydrates. If we chose to get the vast majority of our carbohydrates from vegetables, especially green leafy ones full of vitamins, you just may notice weight loss almost immediately.
6.My results:
Now I don’t simply trust the things I read when I make decisions regarding where I’m going to recommend diet wise. So I did some research on myself. Just a little background. I am a 38 year old man, height, 6’2, weight 221 lbs. BMI is a little high, but I’m not diabetic, I’m not allergic to wheat in any way. A pretty typical american male.
I monitored my diet and watched the blood sugar changes that happened when I ate certain things. And here are the results.
Lets look at day one, this is a day where I was committed to eating well. No sugar involved except one table spoon of table sugar in my evening tea.
Here’s where my blood sugar ranged. Fasting blood glucose 78-85
1 hour After meals 97-106
2 hours after meals 93 – 96
1 hour After meals with wheat 115-128
2 hour after meals with wheat 109-112
Note how I never got out of that normal range of blood sugar, however, one sandwich took me quickly to the edge or normal blood sugar. and the blood sugar stayed high for an extended period of time.
An event called glucotoxicity begins, where an almost immeasurable amount of insulin receptors gets damaged happens after blood sugar reaches and stays at 100 mg/dl that’s not very high. You don’t want your blood sugar up that high, not even almost. I realized that If I’m going to achieve great health. I’ll need to make a tremendous change in what I put into my body. I’m going to do things that keep my blood sugar normalized and at the lower end of normal instead of the higher end of normal.
I’m going to choose eating wheat free. And you can too. And it’s not nearly as difficult as you may think it would be. Without changing your diet and trying all the various gluten free foods out there. You can simply eat the many fresh healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, beans, dairy, nuts, and gluten free grains like quinoa and rice. You can substitute the breads you normally eat with gluten free varieties to allow you to still have pastas, cakes adn breads, but you’ll want to use those sparingly since they will affect your blood sugar, but not have all the negative aspects of the wheat. Is it a change from what you normally do? Yes. is it possible? Absolutely. And if it’s worth it to you to change your health and your life for the better, you’ll make that switch today.
Now it’s your choice. Now that you know that Wheat is not the wheat that God made. You know that Wheat affects our blood sugar, causes inflammation, affects our brain, causes weight gain.
Now you know these things, what do you choose?
For any of you who are interested in our health made easy workshop series, put your email address on the form and we’ll send you messages regarding the latest workshops coming up. For those of you who are already patients in our office. This workshop is going to be available in audio format and you will receive the audio for free as a thank you for being a part of this workshop today.
I think I mentioned this before. I am a chiropractor. My goal is to get your body as healthy as possible. Number 1, by removing any interference to the way the nervous system is functioning with chiropractic care. Then addressing the other components of health that we deal with through workshops like these. weight loss programs that we mentioned last month. I want to offer those of you who would like to experience chiropractic care and opportunity to have a complete exam and x-rays for free. Those who are interested in that can talk with Cathy at the front desk before you leave to schedule that. Now a free exam is not a normal thing for us here so the only time you can receive that is if you schedule here today. So talk with Cathy at the front desk. I want to thank you for being here, I wish you the best of health and have a good night.
