Emmer, einkorn, and agribusiness

21. May 2010 William Davis (32)
10,000 years ago, Neolithic humans did not obtain wheat products from the bagel shop, grocery store, or Krispy Kreme. They obtained wheat by locating a nearby wild-growing field of wild emmer or einkorn wheat grass, then harvesting it with their stone sickles.

Neolithic humans, such as the Natufians of the Fertile Crescent, carried their freshly-cut wheat home, then ground it by hand using homemade mortar and pestle. As yeast-raised bread was still some 5000 years in the future, emmer and einkorn wheat was not used to bake bread, but was consumed as a porridge in bowls. Einkorn has the simplest genetic code of 14 chromosomes, while emmer has 28 chromosomes.

A third variety of wheat appeared on the scene around 9000 years ago, a natural hybridization between emmer and goat grass, yielding the 42-chromosome Triticum aestivum species. Egyptians learned how to cause wheat to rise around 3000 BC, yielding bread, rather than the unleavened flatbreads of their predecessors.

From the original three basic varieties of wheat available to Neolithic man, over the past 30 years wheat has exploded to over 25,000 varieties. Where did the other 24,997+ strains come from?

In the 1980s, thousands of new wheat strains arose from hybridization experiments, many of them conducted in Mexico. Then, in the late 1980s, genetic engineering quietly got underway in which geneticists inserted or deleted single genes, mostly designed to generate specific characteristics, such as height, yield per acre, drought resistance, but especially resistance to various pesticides and weed killers. The fruits of these efforts were introduced into the market in 1994. Most of the genetically modified foods were thought to be only minor modifications of the unmodified original and thus no safety testing in animals or humans was conducted.

We now have many thousands of wheat strains that are different in important ways from original emmer, einkorn, and Triticum aestivum wheat. Interestingly, it has been suggested that einkorn wheat fails to provoke the same immune response characteristic of celiac disease provoked by modern wheat gluten, suggesting a different amino acid structure in gluten proteins. Another difference: Emmer wheat is up to 40% protein, compared to around 12% protein for modern wheat.

In other words, the wheat of earlier agricultural humans, including the wheat of Biblical times, is NOT the wheat of 2010. Modern wheat is quite a different thing with differing numbers of chromosomes, different genes due to human manipulation, varying gluten protein composition, perhaps other differences.

Somewhere in the shuffle and genetic sleight-of-hand that has occurred over the last 30 years, wheat changed. What might have been the "staff of life" has now become the cause of an incredible array of diseases of "wheat" intolerance.
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Comments (32) -

  • Anonymous

    5/21/2010 8:38:44 AM |

    I guess the scientists can once again manipulate wheat sorts to a form that may benefit us folks who love toast at breakfast.

  • Anne

    5/21/2010 11:24:05 AM |

    "Emmer wheat is 40% protein, compared to around 12% protein for modern wheat."

    Is that supposed to be 12% for emmer wheat and 40% for modern wheat?

    In Italy Emmer wheat is called faro. Is the ancient emmer wheat the same thing as what is grown today or have we "improved" it?

    There are some ancient grains unrelated to wheat that are used by people with celiac disease. Amaranth and teff are two examples. Indian rice grass used by native Americans is sold under the name Montina.

    All grains raise my blood glucose.

  • arnoud

    5/21/2010 11:47:28 AM |

    Very interesting post. Even when buying supposedly 'unprocessed' foods at the grocery store, we need to keep in mind that there may be little 'natural' about some/many of those foods.   The processing may be in the modified genetics...

    Are the original emmer and einkorn still available somewhere?

  • Meredith

    5/21/2010 12:31:50 PM |

    An absolutely fascinating history!  Is it possible to obtain ungenetically modified Einkorn wheat today?

  • Ned Kock

    5/21/2010 2:56:57 PM |

    Fascinating analysis. This may explain why many people whose ancestors consumed wheat in great quantities do not tolerate wheat well. This happens even though it may not take that long for a food-related trait to evolve (as little as 396 years may be enough):

    http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-long-does-it-take-for-food-related.html

  • Kathryn

    5/21/2010 3:55:52 PM |

    I love this info.

    But on occasion i wish you would quote your source.  I belong to a health forum where we use stuff like this, but without an original source i can't do much with it.  

    Not to be critical.  I so appreciate all that you take time to share here.

  • shel

    5/21/2010 10:20:28 PM |

    brilliant. thanks for this.

  • shel

    5/21/2010 10:24:15 PM |

    ...incidentally, can you put a search box on this blog?

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/22/2010 12:46:08 AM |

    Hi, Anne--

    No, the emmer is unusually rich in protein.

    Makes you wonder if there is a lesson in that observation. The protein--gluten--differs in structure, also.

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/22/2010 12:47:13 AM |

    Meredith--

    I am looking!

    It would be an interesting experiment to consume emmer alongside modern wheat and see what happens. Some people claim that einkorn can be consumed by celiacs safely.

  • Anonymous

    5/22/2010 12:59:17 AM |

    Interesting and thought provoking post. As another commenter said, I do really wish you would quote the source of your information.

  • Kurt N.

    5/22/2010 2:06:28 AM |

    Do you have a reference for the protein content of emmer?  I've heard it was pretty high, but 40% seems off the scale.

  • Anne

    5/22/2010 3:50:13 AM |

    Oops, the high percentage I was thinking of was the percentage of the protein that is gluten.

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/22/2010 12:57:41 PM |

    Source for emmer wheat protein composition:

    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.

    Dr. Shewry of the UK is a great resource:

    Wheat. J Exp Botany 2009; 60(6):1537-53.

  • billye

    5/22/2010 5:05:31 PM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    More confusing information for the evolutionary life style advocate to deal with.  This is my simple clarifying statement.  Since wheat in any form, regardless of chromosome content, is not a health supporting evolutionary food, due to the fact that we did not evolved to eat it, should we not avoid it like the plague?  After all, it along with high fructose, and high starch vegetables and fruits are the main cause of most if not all of the diseases of the metabolic syndrome.

    Billy E
    Nephropal.com

  • Anonymous

    5/22/2010 9:35:37 PM |

    Source for organically grown emmer:  http://www.bluebirdgrainfarms.com/

  • Santiago

    5/23/2010 12:40:46 AM |

    Something similar most happen with the corn we eat here (Colombia), as it causes very little blood sugar raise no where close to what you describe when you talk about corn bread

  • Stan Ness

    5/23/2010 8:05:20 AM |

    Great post on einkorn and emmer you have provided here. Thanks for sharing.  I've been following the research on einkorn for some time now.  More and more, I see that einkorn has many health benefits that our modern wheat lacks.  You are right on when you call it a "genetic slight-of-hand".  Well said!  I found some research about antioxidants in einkorn grain and thought you may also find it interesting.  There's a lot too this stuff!

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/23/2010 2:10:40 PM |

    Thanks for the lead anonymous.

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/23/2010 2:11:16 PM |

    Stan--

    I've perused your Einkorn Blog. Great stuff!

  • billye

    5/23/2010 3:43:47 PM |

    I perused Bluebird farms.com as a commenter recommended.  Emmer, einkorn etc, a grain by any other name is still a grain.  One of Bluebird farms offerings says it all. "we offer a variety of gift baskets and boxes filled with fresh milled whole grains and local artisanal honey and syrup."  This is great for those of you that wish to raise your blood sugar and prompt diabetes type 2 along with any number of metabolic syndrome diseases, including Celiac disease.

    Billy E
    Nephropal.com

  • Miki

    5/23/2010 5:26:38 PM |

    It does seems the diploid and tetraploid varieties of wheat are less potent as far as gluten poisoning is concerned: "Mapping of gluten T-cell epitopes in the bread wheat ancestors: implications for celiac disease." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15685550?dopt=AbstractPlus&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn). A quote from the conclusions: "we found that the fragments identical or equivalent to the immunodominant 33mer fragment are encoded by alpha-gliadin genes on the wheat chromosome 6D and thus absent from gluten of diploid einkorn (AA) and even certain cultivars of the tetraploid (AABB) pasta wheat".

  • Anonymous

    5/24/2010 1:35:10 AM |

    I have some kind of sensitivity to wheat. After reading this post I've been looking arround and found in wikipedia some info saying Durum wheat doesn't cause alergui reaction either.
    Maybe this is why I have so strong reactions to beer, bread and pizza, but I seem to be able to eat pasta with out any problems.
    Maybe this explains a bit of the italian heart health thing, probably most of the wheat they eat is of a healthier kind.

  • Cherry

    5/24/2010 8:20:21 AM |

    Love your blog, not only for your thorough much needed nutritional correlates to CAD, but also your gutsy willingness to expose the truth around big pharma, and greed influencing the practice of medicine.  
    Here in France, Einhorn( Triticum monococcum) has been cultivated since the 9 th millennium BC in a small area of Haute Provence. It is called petit epeautre and it is truly delicious!  It has very little gluten.
    There is much regulation in the cultivation in order to protect the genetic purity of this ancient grain.  Like wines it has a AOC (appelation d'origine controlee)  Petitepeautre.com has wonderful information also in english. Each September there is a petit epeautre festival.  It is one grain I allow myself to enjoy occasionally.

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/24/2010 10:39:46 PM |

    Great find, Miki!

    Thanks for the lead.

  • Dr. William Davis

    5/24/2010 10:53:49 PM |

    Hi, Cherry--

    Thank you for pointing me towards the French source.

    While I knew that there was some einkorn or emmer grown in Italy, some in the Middle East, and very little in the U.S., I had difficulty locating it in France.

    It would be interesting to compare the various sources.

  • Anonymous

    7/21/2010 7:29:47 AM |

    As someone (a celiac) who is EXTREMELY interested in introducing ancient and potentially benign wheat ancestors into my diet, I am very curious as to how someone like myself might be expected to react to emmer.  (And by the way, I'm pending reception of some einkorn I've already ordered to see if I can tolerate it.)

    In any case, success stories will be warmly welcomed.  Failure stories not so much, but I would appreciate you please tell them, nevertheless.  The pain is necessary, and it is for all of us to share for our common edification.

  • David Isaak

    8/1/2010 11:16:22 PM |

    Well, I expect a whole host of bricks to come hurtling my way when I say this, but I'm  a low-carber...and one of the things I eat quite frequently is seitan. That's essentially pure wheat gluten (which has long been a staple in Asian cuisines).

    I avoid most grains (other than flaxseed), but I don't avoid grain proteins. I sometimes wonder if all the wheat problems people report are really from the gluten proteins. Funny those problems weren't reported in China over all those centuries...

  • Fredo

    8/3/2010 9:41:19 AM |

    i`m not sure if this was posted here before, but i guess it fits good into the context:

    http://www.einkorn.com/toxicity-of-einkorn-gluten/

  • Principal Quattrano

    10/3/2010 4:58:07 AM |

    I used to eat a lot of seitan myself, before I had to give up wheat.

    I have heard a great many suggestions as to what celiacs can or ought to be able to eat, but very little evidence that such things are truly safe for one who reacts to gluten. A lot of common knowledge is based on nothing but oft-repeated rumors.

    Before giving up gluten, I purchased some farro in an Italian grocery. It was regular wheat. Emmer was not available. Perhaps it is in Italy.

  • Anonymous

    12/22/2010 4:58:51 AM |

    Dr Davis,
    I would like to know your thoughts on Ezekiel bread.  I thought it was better since it's a pure protein and sprouted.  

    I would really appreciate your feedback.

    thanks,
    tina

  • Henry North London 2.0

    2/25/2011 12:12:39 AM |

    I've just come across Kamut flour

    http://www.kamut.com/en/origin.html

    This is a tetraploid wheat high in selenium.  Ive bought a couple of lbs of flour to try it out.

    Im hoping that this will restore bread to my diet as I find modern pappy breads made by the CBP really awful,on my digestion and this wheat has higher protein.

    Its much like emmer in that its tetraploid and has been called everything from King Tut wheat to Noahs Flood wheat.

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Vitamin D: New Miracle Drug

Vitamin D: New Miracle Drug

6. December 2006 William Davis (0)
At the meetings of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research, Dr. Bruce Troen of the University of Miami detailed his views on the extraordinary benefits of vitamin D replacement. He also talked about the enormous problem of unrecognized vitamin deficiency.

“There’s a huge epidemic of hypovitaminosis D, and the real key here is not just that it’ll benefit you from a bone and neuromuscular standpoint, but if you correct hypovitaminosis D and the corresponding secondary hyperparathyroidism, then you’re going to decrease prostate cancer, colon cancer—actually “up to 17 different cancers, breast cancer included.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Troen did not talk much about the heart benefits of vitamin D, likely since the data is scant, nearly non-existent. However, if the Track Your Plaque experience means anything, I predict that vitamin D replacement will become among the most powerful tools you can use to gain control over coronary plaque.

Read the text of a report from the Internal Medicine World Report to read more of Dr. Troen's comments.


http://www.imwr.com/article.php?s=IMWR/2006/11&p=40
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Letter to New York Times

Letter to New York Times

3. July 2008 William Davis (9)
All right. I sent a Letter to the Editor to the New York Times. No word from them; it's no longer news.

So here is what I tried to convey.

While the authors overall did a credible job of talking to my colleagues and laying out the issues, they made the crucial and boneheaded mistake of confusing CT heart scans with CT coronary angiograms. Sadly, many people who may have been considering having a simple screening heart scan may be scared away by the confused authors, Alexn Berenson and Reed Abelson.

They do correctly point out that, while CT coronary angiograms are fascinating examples of technology and a way of visualizing coronary arteries, this test all too often is being subverted into the "let's make money from high-tech testing" medical model. It's also a test that frequently leads to the "real" test, heart catheterization, since the "time bomb" you have in your arteries might "need" a stent.

CT coronary angiograms are also virtually useless for purposes of tracking disease, since they are not longitudinally (along the length of the artery) quantitative, nor should anyone be exposed to this much radiation repeatedly.

A simple heart scan, on the hand, provides a longitudinal summation of coronary plaque volume. Radiation exposure is sufficiently low that repeated scanning can be performed for purposes of tracking . . .yes, track your plaque.

Poorly-informed reporters can do a lot of damage. As always, you and I must dig a little deeper for the truth.




Dear Editor,

Re: Weighing the Costs of a CT Scan’s Look Inside the Heart

The Times featured an article on June 29th that discussed rapidly expanding use of CT scans for the heart:
Weighing the Costs of a CT Scan’s Look Inside the Heart.

The authors, Alex Berenson and Reed Abelson, stated that CT heart scans “expose patients to large doses of radiation, equivalent to at least several hundred X-rays, creating a small but real cancer risk.”

I’d like to offer a clarification.

Though the authors discuss both CT heart scans and CT coronary angiograms, they confuse the two and use the terms interchangeably.

A heart scan is a simple screening test for coronary atherosclerotic plaque. It detects the presence of calcium in the heart’s arteries, provided as a “score.” (Because calcium occupies 20% of total plaque volume, knowing the amount of calcium tells you how much total coronary plaque is present by applying this simple proportion.) Just having a high score should not prompt heart procedures, since people undergoing simple screening heart scans are without symptoms. However, a stress test may yield some useful information.

On present-day CT devices, heart scans expose a patient to 0.4 mSv of radiation on an electron-beam, or EBT, device, and on up to 1.2 mSv on a 64-slice multi-detector, or MDCT, device, compared to 0.1 mSv during a standard chest x-ray. CT heart scans are therefore performed with about the same quantity of radiation as a mammogram done to screen women for breast cancer, or about the equivalent of four chest x-rays on an EBT scanner, up to 12 chest-xrays on a MDCT scanner.

CT coronary angiograms, while performed on the same devices as heart scans, require x-ray dye to fill the contours of the coronary arteries. It also requires up to several hundred times more radiation. While new engineering innovations are being introduced that promise to reduce this exposure, the current devices being used today do indeed require a radiation dose equivalent to 100 to 400 chest x-rays (usually in the range of 10-15 mSv), a value that equals or exceeds that obtained during a conventional heart catheterization.

While heart scans are most useful to detect and quantify plaque that can help determine the intensity of a heart disease prevention program, CT coronary angiograms are generally used as prelude to hospital procedures like catheterizations, stents and bypass surgery. That’s because they are performed to look for (or rule out) “severe” blockages.
CT heart scans and CT coronary angiography are therefore two different tests that yield two different kinds of information, and yield two entirely different levels of radiation exposure.

This confusion from a major and respected media outlet like the New York Times is unfortunate, because it could persuade millions of people who otherwise could benefit from simple heart scans to avoid them because of misleading information on radiation exposure of a different test.

Thank you.

William Davis, MD
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Comments (9) -

  • mike V

    7/3/2008 1:23:00 PM |

    Dr Davis:
    I wonder if you had seen this?
    "Coronary artery calcium screening predicts mortality in the elderly"
    June 23, 2008 | Michael O'Riordan

    http://www.theheart.org/article/877625.do

    MikeV

  • Jake

    7/3/2008 2:41:00 PM |

    The medical reporters and editors of the the New York Times are breathtakingly incompetent.
    They are so bad, it seems that they are deliberately sabotaging their reader's health. Fortunately for America, readers are deserting the paper in droves and the paper is near bankruptcy.

  • Peter

    7/3/2008 3:34:00 PM |

    The Times doesn't like to print letters that are that long.

  • Stephan

    7/3/2008 4:53:00 PM |

    Thanks, I was hoping you'd comment on that.  Didn't you post a study a while back showing a nice correlation between Ca score and heart disease risk?

  • Anonymous

    7/3/2008 9:55:00 PM |

    I Emailed the reporters, and got this answer from one of them:

    "If you take a look at the story, including the accompanying graphic, you'll see the piece clearly distinguishes between the two types of scans and focuses on the use of the ct angiogram."

  • Anonymous

    7/3/2008 10:33:00 PM |

    MikeV's URL was truncated. See: www.theheart.org/article/877625.do

    While looking for the above article, I found this: "Estrogen hampers Lp(a) use for risk prediction" June 30, 2008,
    www.theheart.org/article/879103.do
    Taking estrogen seems to obliterate the predictive effect of Lp(a).

    Lynn

  • Anonymous

    7/4/2008 10:52:00 PM |

    Dr. Davis,

    You should get in contact with Tara Parker Pope at the Times, who does their Health blog.

    She is younger and less hide-bound than the others there.  You have a much better shot with her.

  • Jeanne Shepard

    7/6/2008 10:28:00 PM |

    There was a article today in Parade Magazine (Sunday paper) about the danger of too many tests because of exposure to radiation. They state that CT scans have the equivalent of 100 conventional X-rays of radiation. This would scare me away.
    I'm 52 and would like a baseline, though my triglycerides are only 37. But am not sure I would feel good about it now.

  • Anonymous

    7/7/2008 5:01:00 PM |

    How about this article on Cholestorol screening for kids as young as 8, so they can be prescribed statins early: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/health/07cholesterol.html?ex=1216094400&en=4cb38625b310cc97&ei=5070&emc=eta-1

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