What's going on with wheat?

[restingintheshade]

I'm wondering about why so many people claim to feel better without it now, not just people with allergies.
I know that many unhealthy products contain wheat, such as UPF's and sugary snacks, but I wondered about organic?

Most people seemed to do just fine when I was young eating decent bread. I doubt it was as adulterated then, though, and some of the labels are shocking now with over 30 added ingredients that are unnecessary and weird.

A simple tortilla wrap in Tesco this week contained about 30: glycerol, palm fat, fatty acids, emulsifiers among them. Yet there are organic versions on the market that are very tasty.
There are also many breads that only contain flour, salt and yeast, etc, and aren't too hard to find (Tesco Boule, sourdoughs, Crosta and Mollica and more).

I would love to know when this change happened, since no one seemed to have issues with bread when I was in my 20's (around the millenium). Has the production changed since then, apart from the added upf's?
If it is because the wheat has been changed or modified, why don't people use organic as opposed to just quitting wheat altogether?

I don't seem to have any issues with it, physically, but it isn't a regular part of my diet. Making sense of food trends is a tricky thing!

Yes it's not the same, I could go on about it but I'll try keep it brief 😅.

During the credit crunch, 2009 ish?, everyone complained about the price of bread going over a £. It was a sort of benchmark.

Then suddenly, quite randomly, supermarket own bread suddenly appearing for 50p. Because manufacturers started mixing in cheaper wheat (of which there are 3 grades - organic, standard, animal grade). No one questioned it, taste was the pretty much the same.

But then over the next few weeks you see a rise in the gluten free trend, not talking coeliac, just intolerance for even preference.

Another thing to note is a few people who think they have an issue with wheat can go to Italy and eat locally made bread with no reaction at all.

So does organic wheat bypass this in the UK? Or is it still problematic?

😂

Weirdly, I lost my sense of taste with covid and when it came back, I found mustard unbearable, despite having always loved it before. Apparently it's a common one, along with coffee, to develop a dislike of.

The struggle for a decent vinaigrette is very real!

Haven't recently tried organic myself, but my DH gets on with Warburtons old English bread, when he doesn't with others.

For anyone who may be interested, this is an interesting, scientific summary of the 'issue' with wheat, which they conclude is very much a western problem that doesn't appear to be anywhere near as prevalent in many other parts of the world who consume wheat as a staple frequently.

Ongoing research essential.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4760426/

However, they do go on to acknowledge: "We are grateful to CGIAR and the CGIAR WHEAT programme for financial support to prepare a review"

Mmm....

There are two types of wheat in this instance, hard used for bread making and soft used for cakes, biscuits and pasta. Hard = more gluten, needed for rising. Soft = less gluten, not as suitable for bread.

A) GMOs not allowed in the UK
B) All the same species, varieties chosen for their end use, e.g. bread making, biscuits or feed for animals. Still can only be grown once per year in normal timings, just harvested and stored as it always has been.

Modern wheat varieties have been around for over 100 years. They are all bred using normal crossing methods, e.g. cross a good bread making variety with a high yielder to give a mixed load of offspring plants. No GM techniques used, if they were it would be considerably faster than the 8-10 years it takes to develop a new wheat variety now.

Blue tinge is just the amount of wax that the plant produces on the outside and can be a good thing for drought tolerance. Desiccation with herbicides is also not new and done for lots of crops to help make sure the whole field is ready at the same time otherwise you would end up with a very mixed harvest which would be difficult to sell to the miller.

Organic wheat and non organic wheat can be the same starting variety, which will determine the gluten potential. They will both then be processed in the same way using the Chorleywood process. The only difference between them is the pesticides that are applied when the plants are growing.

Right, but the OP is asking a specific question rather than looking for personal experiences. Why do you think these reactions to wheat are more common now?

CGIAR are the good people here, an important research organization helping to develop crop varieties for some of the more challenging climates.

have to be honest, with wild IBS, I gave up all wheat products for months and no change. I didn't get the miracle sure so often touted online.

I went back to eating some wheat products and am entirely the same. In fact, less bloated

Just for the record.