Wheat has been an important food for humans for thousands of years. Along with corn and rice, it’s a global staple that makes up a huge part of the diet for billions of people. So why has wheat fallen out of favour in recent years? This once nutritious food seems to be creating a growing incidence of intolerances, gut dysbiosis and life-threatening allergies. Is it possible to eat wheat in a way that can be well-digested and nutritious?
The Evolution Of Wheat
What used to be a tough, wild grass began to be gathered and cultivated by humans over 10,000 years ago in the ‘fertile crescent’ – the area now known as the Middle East and Turkey. Varieties of wheat, such as einkorn and emmer, have been shaped by human cultivation over thousands of years to become the high-starch, easy-to-thresh, short-statured plant we now call modern wheat Triticum aestivum.