Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William
Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world's
most popular grain.
Go here to watch a video a 5 minute video
Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your
grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in
the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many
new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in
this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people
with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about
everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin
protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in
your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume
440 more calories per day, 365 days per year."
Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it
formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically
feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a
movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping
substantial weight.
"If three people lost eight pounds, big deal," he said. "But we're
seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds.
Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having
dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable
bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day."
To
avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food,"
such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "(It's) the
stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he
said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90
percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it's not barley... or flax.
It's going to be wheat.
"It's really a wheat issue."
Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more
balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on "CTM" they're
just offering a poor alternative.
"All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched
products with something less bad, whole grains, and there's an apparent
health benefit - 'Let's eat a whole bunch of less bad things.' So I
take...unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes,
you should smoke the Salems. That's the logic of nutrition, it's a
deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say,
'Let's eliminate all grains,' what happens then?
"That's when you see, not improvements in health, that's when you see transformations in health."
Watch Davis' full interview in the video above.