Wheat Belly (Revised and Expanded Edition)

by William Davis

  While fermented foods cannot replace the power of a high-potency probiotic during the early transition to healthy bowel flora in the first few weeks after grain elimination, they are crucial for maintaining healthy flora and long-term bowel health.

  Fermenting foods is a virtually no-cost process, beyond the cost of the food itself. Let’s begin with yogurt and kefir.

  YOGURT AND KEFIR

  If you include dairy in your dietary regime, making your own yogurt and kefir allows you to use full-fat milk, half-and-half, or cream to start. Remember: We do not restrict fat in the Wheat Belly program. Fat is satiating and the healthiest component of dairy and we avoid low- or non-fat products. Manufacturers have given in to silly advice to reduce fat and, as a result, it has become difficult to find full-fat versions on store shelves. Get around this by making your own and you will be pleasantly surprised at how thick and rich homemade yogurt can be. You can also control the duration of fermentation to maximally reduce lactose, break down casein proteins, and increase the number of probiotic microbes.

  In our way of making yogurt for maximal health benefits, we also incorporate a prebiotic fiber, such as inulin or raw potato starch, that increases probiotic bacterial counts. Don’t worry: There should be little to no sugar/starch remaining in the end product. This method also yields a richer, thicker end product. You will likely never buy store-bought yogurt after you’ve tasted the homemade version.

  People with some form of dairy intolerance have the option of starting with coconut milk products (canned or homemade only, not carton), as well as almond or other nut milks. If you haven’t tasted yogurt or kefir made with coconut milk, you are in for a great surprise, as it has an effervescent flavor that is totally unique. Goat’s and sheep’s milk are other alternatives. If using coconut milk, emulsify the fats by using a stick or other blender before adding them to your mixture; this helps keep the fat from separating.

  Some people who are intolerant to cow’s milk are able to tolerate fermented dairy products like yogurt and kefir. This is due to the reduced content of lactose converted to lactic acid when fermentation is allowed to proceed for 36 hours, and the altered (“denatured”) structure of the milk protein, casein, induced by the reduction in pH by the lactic acid that results from bacterial fermentation.

  When you make your own yogurt or kefir, you control the ingredients to add flavor and the amount of sweetness. You are unlikely to add, for instance, high-fructose corn syrup, sugar syrup, agave, food coloring, colored sprinkles, or animal crackers. You are more likely to add fresh or frozen organic blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, goji berries, walnuts, pecans, and pistachios, or chia, pumpkin, or sunflower seeds.

  You can start with kefir or yogurt from the grocery store containing live cultures or a starter culture purchased from sources such as Cultures for Health (culturesforhealth.com). If using an already-fermented product like yogurt, simply add 1 to 2 tablespoons of prepared yogurt to, say, a ½ quart of milk, half-and-half, cream, or coconut milk to get started. You can also start with a capsule of commercial probiotic; just choose one that does not contain Saccharomyces or other fungi, as they will ferment to alcohol.

  You will need some means of maintaining the mixture at 100 to 110°F. You can use a yogurt maker, Instant Pot, sous vide machine, or rice cooker. I use my oven: Turn on to any temperature for 60 to 90 seconds, then turn off; repeat every 4 hours. Be careful not to allow the container to heat, as it will kill the starter culture and you’ll have to start over.

  Once started, you can continue to propagate your yogurt/kefir culture just by adding 1 tablespoon of your finished yogurt/kefir to the next batch. This transfers the fermenting organisms to the new uncultured batch to begin the process again. This further reduces your costs.

  Because lactic acid fermentation requires sugar, and coconut milk has next to no sugar, it is necessary to add sugar to aid the process. Don’t worry: The sugar is converted to lactic acid, negating any sugar effect if the fermentation process is permitted to proceed to completion.

  2 tablespoons inulin, unmodified potato starch, or other prebiotic fiber

  1 packet kefir or yogurt starter culture, or 1 to 2 tablespoons live culture kefir or yogurt

  16 ounces full-fat milk, half-and-half, cream, or coconut milk

  In a medium to large glass or ceramic bowl, combine the inulin, potato starch, or other prebiotic, starter culture/kefir/yogurt, and 2 tablespoons of the chosen liquid to make a slurry. Mix thoroughly, then add the remaining liquid and stir. Maintain at 100 to 110°F until solid—30 to 36 hours for dairy, 48 hours or slightly longer for coconut milk. Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

  VARIATION

  If you choose coconut milk (canned only), it is more of a challenge than dairy. Start by warming coconut milk in a saucepan to 180°F to melt any solids, stir in 3 to 4 tablespoons gelatin powder, then allow to cool to 100 to 110°F; blend it with a stick blender or standard blender for 30 to 45 seconds to emulsify the oils, as this will keep the oil from separating during fermentation. Add 2 tablespoons prebiotic fiber such as inulin or unmodified potato starch, 1 tablespoon sugar, then your source of fermenting organisms (i.e., culture starter), prepared live culture yogurt, or probiotic (emptied from the capsule) and stir. Fermentation may also need to be extended to 48 hours or slightly longer to yield a thick, rich end result.

  FERMENTING VEGETABLES

  Fermenting vegetables is another way to create foods rich in probiotic bacteria. Interestingly, many of the bacteria that ferment foods are among the healthiest strains for human bowel flora, such as Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus brevis, and Bifidobacteria species.

  Fermentation preserves food by producing lactate (responsible for the characteristic tartness) while inhibiting growth of unsafe bacteria. Unlike yogurt and kefirs, vegetable fermentation occurs in an anaerobic environment (i.e., an environment without oxygen). Successful fermentation therefore requires keeping oxygen away from fermenting vegetables. Don’t confuse fermentation with pickling (i.e., soaking in vinegar and brine that does not involve lactate production). Most commercial pickles and sauerkrauts are pickled, not fermented, and provide no probiotic microbes.

  Consuming fermented vegetables regularly inoculates your bowels with healthy bacterial strains, just as humans have done it for hundreds of thousands of years.

  You will need a jar or ceramic vessel and a means of keeping veggies submerged beneath the surface. I use an old olive jar with a heavy drinking glass that fits into the mouth of the jar, while others use a small plate weighted down with a stone. You can buy a kit, but it’s really simple to assemble your own.

  The basic ingredients required are:

  Vegetables—raw onions, peppers, asparagus, cucumbers, radishes, garlic, carrots, cabbage, green beans; preferably chopped into bite-sized pieces. Combine vegetables for unique flavors (e.g., carrots and onions, green beans and garlic).

  Herbs and spices—peppercorns, dill, garlic cloves, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, caraway seeds, rosemary. Many people also use grape or berry leaves to increase crispiness.

  Sea salt or other salt—but not iodized salt (as iodine kills the microbes).

  Water—filtered water, spring water, or distilled water should be used (i.e., without chlorine or fluoride).

  Fermenting vegetables is, like baking or pottery making, an entire world to explore. There are online resources that you can pursue, as well as many excellent books such as Sandor Katz’s The Art of Fermentation.

  BASIC FERMENTATION

  Fill a jar/vessel with water, then add salt until lightly to moderately salty to taste, typically 1 tablespoon per quart of water.

  Add the vegetables; when the vegetables are pushed down, at least 1 inch of water should remain at the top. Add your choice of herbs or spices (e.g., peppercorns, dill, coria
nder). Stir to mix the salt and to release any trapped air bubbles.

  Cover the vegetables with a plate or other clean object, then cover the jar/vessel to keep pests out. The system should not be airtight, only loosely covered, as the process of fermentation produces gases that need to be released.

  Set aside for at least 2 days. The time required varies with the vegetable and temperature, but it can go on for weeks. Once you obtain the flavor/degree of fermentation desired, refrigerate. Optionally, after fermentation has occurred, add ½ cup vinegar per quart of fermented mixture to enhance flavor.

  Should any white or other colored growth appear on the top, skim it off; this is mold. It does not harm the process, however, and your fermented foods will remain safe for consumption for at least 4 weeks.

  For all the readers who have had the courage to try on this new and unconventional lifestyle, only to be surprised by its power.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THE PATH I took to wheat-free enlightenment was anything but a straight line. It was, in truth, a zigzagging, up-and-down struggle to come to terms with what has got to be one of the biggest nutritional blunders conducted on an international scale. A number of people were instrumental in helping me understand these issues and deliver this crucial message to a larger audience.

  I owe my agent and friend, Rick Broadhead, a debt of gratitude for hearing me out on what I knew from the start sounded like a kooky idea. Within the first few moments, Rick was behind this project 100 percent. He catapulted my proposal from speculation to full-fledged, full-steam-ahead plan. Rick was more than a dedicated agent; he also offered advice on how to craft the message and how to most effectively deliver it, not to mention unwavering moral support.

  Pam Krauss, my original editor at Rodale, kept me on my toes, transforming my rambling prose into its current form. I’m sure Pam spent many long nights poring over my musings, pulling out her hair, brewing up yet another pot of late-night coffee while wielding her green-inked pen on my rough draft.

  There is a list of people who deserve thanks for providing unique insights. Elisheva Rogosa of the Heritage Grain Conservancy (www.growseed.org) not only helped me understand the role of ancient wheat in this ten-thousand-year-long trek, but also provided the actual einkorn grain that allowed me to experience firsthand what it meant to consume the direct ancestor of grain consumed by Natufian hunter-gatherers. Dr. Allan Fritz, professor of wheat breeding at Kansas State University, and USDA agricultural statistician and lead wheat analyst, Gary Vocke, PhD, both assisted in providing data on their perspectives on the modern wheat phenomenon.

  Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center of Columbia University in New York City, through both his groundbreaking clinical studies as well as his personal communications, provided the groundwork that helped me understand how celiac disease fits into the larger issue of wheat intolerance. The Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Joseph Murray not only provided enormously clever clinical studies that have helped make a damning case against the modern version of agribusiness-generated wheat, but also offered a helping hand to assist in my understanding of issues that, I believe, will prove the ultimate undoing of this Frankengrain that has infiltrated every aspect of American culture.

  Two groups of people, too many to name but nonetheless near and dear to my heart, are my former patients and the followers of my online health programs and social media, especially the Wheat Belly Blog and the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox. These are the real-life people who have taught me many lessons along the way that helped mold and refine these ideas. These are the people whose experiences demonstrated, over and over again, what wonderful health effects develop with the removal of wheat, illustrating the astounding power of these simple insights.

  My friend and chief IT guru, Chris Kliesmet, saw me through this effort, allowing me to bounce ideas off him for his nobody-else-thinks-like-this brand of thinking. Lisa Freedman, attorney-turned-author, also contributed her sharp eye for grammatical detail and helped me craft some of this book’s revisions, especially keeping me politically in check in my Mr. and Mrs. Wheat Belly chapter.

  Since the original Wheat Belly was released, I’ve managed to author something like seven hundred recipes consistent with this lifestyle. Conceiving, testing, and re-testing is laborious, and I enlisted the help of my newest assistant and friend in the Wheat Belly project, Jennifer Baynes, who was instrumental in teaching me how to use some new and unique ingredients and methods. Thanks, Jen.

  But, more than anyone or anything else, I am grateful that we live in an age when an idea that yields genuine results—not just makes wild claims, but really works—can gain traction when we are inundated with so much competing information. Thanks for noticing.

  REFERENCES

  CHAPTER 2

  1. Cohen MN, Crane-Kramer GMM, eds. Editors’ summation. In Ancient Health: Skeletal Indicators of Agricultural and Economic Intensification, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007; 320–43.

  2. Cordain L. Cereal grains: humanity’s double-edged sword. In Simopoulos AP, ed. Evolutionary Aspects of Nutrition and Health, Basel, Switzerland: Karger, 1999; 19–73.

  3. Tito RY, Knights D, Metcalf J et al., Insights from characterizing extinct human gut microbiomes. PLoS One 2012; 7(12):e51146.

  4. Adler CJ, Dobney K, Weyrich LS et al. Sequencing ancient calcified dental plaque shows changes in oral microbiota with dietary shifts of the Neolithic and industrial revolutions. Nature Genetics 2013 Apr; 45(4):450–5.

  5. Roberts C, Manchester K. Dental disease. In The Archaeology of Disease, New York: Cornell University Press, 2005; 63–83.

  6. Rollo F, Ubaldi M, Ermini L, Marota I. Ötzi’s last meals: DNA analysis of the intestinal content of the Neolithic glacier mummy from the Alps. Proc Nat Acad Sci 2002 Oct 1; 99(20):12594–9.

  7. Shewry PR. Wheat. J Exp Botany 2009; 60(6):1537–53.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Song X, Ni Z, Yao Y et al. Identification of differentially expressed proteins between hybrid and parents in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) seedling leaves. Theor Appl Genet 2009 Jan; 118(2):213–25.

  11. Gao X, Liu SW, Sun Q, Xia GM. High frequency of HMW-GS sequence variation through somatic hybridization between Agropyron elongatum and common wheat. Planta 2010 Jan; 23(2):245–50.

  12. Van den Broeck HC, de Jong HC, Salentijn EM et al. Presence of celiac disease epitopes in modern and old hexaploid wheat varieties: wheat breeding may have contributed to increased prevalence of celiac disease. Theor Appl Genet 2010 Nov; 121(8):1527–39.

  13. Lafiandra D, Riccardi G, Shewry PR. Improving cereal grain carbohydrates for diet and health. J Cereal Sci 2014 May; 59(3):312–26.

  14. Shewry. J Exp Botany 2009; 60(6):1537–53.

  15. Halasz A, Horvath-Szanics E, Nagy-Gasztonhyi M et al. Changes in total- and alpha-amylase activities and wheat germ agglutinin content in wide-range herbicide resistant wheat lines. Cereal Res Comm 2007; 35(3):1405–13.

  16. Magaña-Gómez JA, Calderón de la Barca AM. Risk assessment of genetically modified crops for nutrition and health. Nutr Rev 2009; 67(1):1–16.

  17. Dubcovsky J, Dvorak J. Genome plasticity a key factor in the success of polyploidy wheat under domestication. Science 2007 Jun 29; 316:1862–6.

  CHAPTER 3

  1. Raeker RÖ, Gaines CS, Finney PL, Donelson T. Granule size distribution and chemical composition of starches from 12 soft wheat cultivars. Cereal Chem 1998 75(5):721–8.

  2. Avivi L. High grain protein content in wild tetraploid wheat, Triticum dicoccoides. In Fifth International Wheat Genetics Symposium, New Delhi, India 1978, Feb 23–28; 372–80.

  3. Cummings JH, Englyst HN. Gastrointestinal effects of food carbohydrate. Am J Clin Nutr 1995; 61:938S–45S.

  4. Foster-Powell K, Holt SHA, Brand-Miller JC. International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2002. Am J Clin Nutr 2002
Jul; 76(1):5–56.

  5. Jenkins DJH, Wolever TM, Taylor RH et al. Glycemic index of foods: a physiological basis for carbohydrate exchange. Am J Clin Nutr 1981 Mar; 34(3):362–6.

  6. Juntunen KS, Niskanen LK, Liukkonen KH et al. Postprandial glucose, insulin, and incretin responses to grain products in healthy subjects. Am J Clin Nutr 2002 Feb; 75(2):254–62.

  7. Järvi AE, Karlström BE, Granfeldt YE et al. The influence of food structure on postprandial metabolism in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Am J Clin Nutr 1995 Apr; 61(4):837–42.

  8. Juntunen et al. Am J Clin Nutr 2002 Feb; 75(2):254–62.

  9. Järvi et al. Am J Clin Nutr 1995 Apr; 61(4):837–42.

  10. Yoshimoto Y, Tashiro J, Takenouchi T, Takeda Y. Molecular structure and some physiochemical properties of high-amylose barley starches. Cereal Chemistry 2000; 77:279–85.

  11. Murray JA, Watson T, Clearman B, Mitros F. Effect of a gluten-free diet on gastrointestinal symptoms in celiac disease. Am J Clin Nutr 2004 Apr; 79(4):669–73.

  12. Cheng J, Brar PS, Lee AR, Green PH. Body mass index in celiac disease: beneficial effect of a gluten-free diet. J Clin Gastroenterol 2010 Apr; 44(4):267–71.

  13. Shewry PR, Jones HD. Transgenic wheat: Where do we stand after the first 12 years? Ann App Biol 2005; 147:1–14.