part0007

You would have to live deep underground to not have heard about the amazing transformations people are having after eliminating wheat, and not just the Sensitive folk. It is shameful that it has taken so long to come to light how detrimental wheat is for the body and mind.

You may ask, why now? People have been eating wheat for years, haven’t they? Yes, but wheat is not what it used to be. It has been genetically altered, to make it more resilient to weather and bugs. These changes have seemingly made it destructive to our health. Since the mid-eighties we have been eating a hybridized version of the toxic crop. Which also coincides with the rise in obesity, depression and diabetes.

Although wholegrain modern wheat is hailed as a health food, it acts like a narcotic and has been scientifically proven to have a drug-like effect on the brain. This is because when wheat was genetically altered, its protein structure was changed. Now, when digested, wheat breaks down into many small proteins that can cross the blood-brain barrier. These tiny proteins attach themselves to the opiate receptors in the brain. This has the effect of a narcotic but without the ‘pleasurable’ high.

It has also been scientifically proven that wheat encourages overeating and triggers or worsens mental illness. For those who are Sensitive, wheat may heighten their addictive personality, their emotional state and impacts their brain chemistry.

Wheat has the ability to alter our perception and natural instincts. Not only affecting how much we eat, but what we eat. It switches off our dietary intuition, designed to protect us from choosing foods and substances damaging to our health. If you include it in your diet, then wheat is controlling you more than you could ever know, and not just in your nutritional choices. It may play a part in other addictive behaviors and is linked to controlling moods; which is bad news for those who are Sensitive. Until you take it out of your diet completely, then and only then will you see how it ruled your mind, moods and weight.

Being ‘highly reactive’, Sensitive people react more to drug-like foods, such as wheat. Most drugs and alcohol have a low energy and bring the Sensitive person down, fast. Wheat is not classed as a drug but it very much acts like one, therefore carries the same signature. You may not eat bread, but you could still consume lots of wheat. It is hidden in many foods for the reason it keeps us controlled and needing to devour more .

When I explain to others the remarkable changes that happened in my life, just by eliminating wheat, I see their eyes glaze over. I can feel them go within themselves. Some even get argumentative or angry about the subject. I understand they do not want to hear the benefits of wheat elimination because they do not want to give it up. They do not comprehend that being like a drug, they are addicted to wheat, and it is actually their addiction creating the resistance. If told eliminating apples would turn their life around, most wouldn’t think twice about ditching them… because apples aren’t addictive.

You may have so far believed that your moods and wellbeing have been affected by being unhappy in your home life, stressed in your work, by spending too much time around negative people, or by picking up painful emotions from others, and yes, many problems are caused by the above. But Sensitive traits are also worsened by certain foods.

I found lots of my ‘emotional stuff’ was caused or worsened by wheat proteins. I only discovered this once they were out of my system. When I eliminated wheat, my thoughts gained clarity and the dark cloud that often lingered over me, lifted. I appreciate not everyone will have the same life-changes I did, or the thousands of others who also eliminated wheat, but by its elimination you will very likely see your life as a Sensitive turn around! Life simply gets better.

Giving up wheat was the catalyst for a total transformation for me. By its removal, I could also see how other foods were affecting my health. Within a year of elimination, I had completely changed my diet and stopped drinking alcohol. I am now happier and more confident than I have ever been in my entire adult life. And you can be too.

Humans are ready to evolve and raise their vibration. Evolving means uniting the mind, body and spirit. We can only do this by removing anything of a low vibration. This requires eliminating that which affects the smooth running of our brain and body. Only then do we see amazing changes in our life!

I totally understand why the majority do not want to give up wheat. Most don’t realize just how addicted they are to the grain or that they are not ‘choosing’ to consume wheat at every meal, an addiction is. Anything addictive puts up a fight to stay in the system. Our emotional attachments to certain foods are often stronger than our taste preference.

‘Our decisions towards food choices are often not based on scientific findings but mostly on emotions and food attachments which are hard for people to break!’

Dr Joel Fuhrman M.D.

When you remove wheat from your diet, you can then understand just how much it controlled your moods, appetite and mind. It also allows you to see other changes that need to be made. It’s as if it unblocks the intuition. Your body may take a while to heal from a lifetime’s consumption of wheat. But the good news is your mind heals very quickly and your Sensitive traits are easier to recognize and get back in control of. Eliminating wheat also allows us to get back in touch with our true hunger. We then eat when we are hungry as opposed to eating from false hunger or addiction.

If you do it, make sure you eliminate wheat 100%. Reducing your intake by 75% or even 80% will not see the changes you want. You may feel better for a while, but the addiction remains, meaning your consumption will creep back up until you are eating the same amount you were, if not more. This reinforces the addiction. The mind then does anything to stop you from giving up wheat again.

Eliminate wheat 100% for just four weeks and see for yourself the amazing changes. By changing your diet and tuning into your body’s needs, it allows your true Self to emerge. Foods that act like drugs cause all humans damage. To the Sensitive, who already have many imbalances, drug-like foods are utterly destructive.

If you are under the impression that you do not eat much wheat, you may be surprised to hear, wheat is hidden everywhere. The majority of processed foods have wheat hidden within them, and not just in the unhealthy stuff. Crisps and snacks, frozen chips and vegetables, stock cubes, sauces and condiments, cheeses, soups, vegetarian products and nearly all ready meals (diet or not) contain wheat. Unless you are a stickler for reading labels, chances are you would not be aware of it. The good news is, there are many products out there that don’t include the toxic grain.

You may now be pondering why wheat would be included in many of our foods if it was so bad for our health. If you consider there was once a time when smoking was considered healthy and prescribed by doctors, it may help you understand. Not everyone is aware of the danger wheat poses to the human body, although this is quickly changing. Wheat keeps us addicted, hungry and needing to consume more. Meaning, we keep buying wheat-containing products. As well as being a staple in the Western diet, wheat crops are a multi-billion-pound food industry. So, it should come as no surprise that the truth of how problematic wheat is, to health and wellbeing, is suppressed.

Here, we will look at how wheat has evolved into the toxic grain it is today. Why it affects our mood and behavior and how it makes us overeat, overweight, and why it is best to be avoided by those who are Sensitive:

The first cultivation of wheat can be traced back to Southeast Turkey in 9000 BCE. It has been a staple in the Western diet for thousands of years. Globally, it is the third most produced grain after maize and rice. The world trade for wheat is greater than all other cereals combined.

Between the 1940s and 1960s there was a Green Revolution in which the world’s agricultural production was vastly increased by the breeding and development of high yielding cereal grains such as maize, rice and wheat. It was intended and credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.

The changes to wheat began as far back as 1935 when genes for semi-dwarf wheat (Norin 10) were first bred by the Japanese Wheat Breeders. Dwarfing the wheat genes enabled greater seed production, and as it grew to just two-foot-tall instead of the usual four-foot, it was less prone to wind damage. This was then further developed by Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the Green Revolution.

By the 1970s, this semi-dwarf wheat was already being successfully farmed in Mexico, India and Pakistan. By 1985 much of the Western world was producing semi-dwarf wheat and by 1997, 81% of the developing world had introduced this crop. Interestingly, around the time this semi-dwarf wheat was introduced also coincides with the rise in obesity and diabetes epidemics.

Although the genetic crossbreeding of wheat was done to give greater yield, and thus end world famine, it also changed components of the wheat protein (lectins) known as gliadin. All it took was altering a few elements of the amino acids to change modern wheat into the appetite booster, health destructor and brain destroyer it is today.

Gliadin is a lectin and a part of wheatgerm and gluten. Lectins are proteins found within plants and animals that do the job of what antibodies do inside the human body: fight off foreign invaders like bacteria. Within plants, lectins ward off mold, fungi and other predators.

Stomach acid has little effect on lectins, they are virtually indigestible. When we eat food containing wheat, the lectins move undigested into the intestine. Our intestinal tract acts like a filter. It knows how to extract nourishment and remove waste from the food that passes through. Lectins disturb the intestines’ natural ability to act as a filter which allows toxins into the body that cause damage and disease. These toxins, which have leaked into the body, wreak havoc on our physical systems and show up in many ways, such as: inflammation of the gut, bowel disease, arthritis, dermatitis, acid reflux, asthma, eczema, inflammation of the organs, imbalance in the endocrine system (glands which release hormones) and weight-gain/loss. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Gluten is primarily found in wheat, rye and barley. So, those with gluten intolerance would need to avoid all of those. However, you do not have to be gluten sensitive to suffer the same debilitating ailments linked to it. All you have to do is consume wheat.

Not only is gliadin bad news for the body, it also wreaks havoc on the mind and has an opiate-like effect on the brain which makes it addictive… this is the reason many do not want to give up wheat!

Wheat consumption is strongly linked to the plague of depression that has swept the planet. Depression is everywhere. Those who are Sensitive are often vulnerable to the condition and most have experienced it at some point.

In the 1950s it was estimated that no more than a 100 people out of a million had the need for antidepressants. That figure now stands at 1 in 10. More than 40 million people worldwide are on antidepressants.

Dr Christine Zioudrou, at the National Institute for Health, recognized a disturbing pattern between wheat consumption and mental health. She saw it had been observed, globally, by those treating people with Schizophrenia, that when their patients were exposed to foods made from wheat, they had hallucinations and heard voices. When wheat was taken out of their diets, the hallucinations stopped.

Dr Zioudrou questioned what it was in wheat that created Schizophrenics to react the way they did. In her bid to find out, she took wheat proteins and put them through the process of digestion. She discovered that when wheat was broken down, during the digestive process, it did so into many small proteins. These small proteins, called exoporphins, had the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier (a normally impermeable sheath that covers the brain) and bind themselves to the opiate receptors. This created negative behavioral changes and had the same effect of narcotics but without the high.

Tests were initially done on mice and then on a group of human volunteers. During the tests, the volunteers were injected with the drug Naloxone (an opiate blocking drug given to high heroin addicts to automatically reverse the effects) and were instructed to eat wheat-foods. When they ate wheat, after having the drug administered, they consumed about 700 calories. When the same experiment was done without the injection of Naloxone, they found the volunteers consumed at least 400 calories more! Proving the gliadin in wheat not only changes our personality and behavior, it also increases our appetite...

The Glycemic Index (GI) is a measure of how quickly the body metabolizes different carbohydrates. The higher the GI of a food, the more rapidly it is broken down and the faster it will spike blood sugar and insulin levels.

Wheat is 70% complex carbohydrate. Complex carbohydrates are supposed to slowly break down into simple sugars when digested, which in turn leads to a slow release of sustainable energy. However, this is not the case with bread. Through glycemic testing, it was found that wholegrain bread is rapidly broken down into sugars after consumption. In fact, this breakdown starts whilst the bread is still in the mouth. This rapid breakdown leads to a huge surging sugar rush into the bloodstream.

High blood sugar is incredibly toxic to the cells of the body. If blood sugar levels rise too high and stay there, you will die. Therefore, to protect itself, the body has to find somewhere to safely put the sugar. The pancreas (producer of the hormone insulin) noting that the blood sugar is high, elevates the insulin levels.

There are insulin receptors on the liver, muscles and fat cells. The first-place insulin is deposited is in the liver and muscles for short-term energy use. When these stores are full, the insulin receptors take the excess sugar out of the bloodstream and, with nowhere else to safely put it, transports the sugar to the fat cells, which turns to body fat and thus weight-gain!

If you do a lot of exercise or are naturally busy and energetic throughout the day, you may burn off much of the excess sugar stored from eating wheat and other refined carbs. However, the older you get, the harder this becomes and because the pancreas is constantly overworked, the excess blood sugar gets turned into dangerous visceral fat.

Look around at how many people over the age of thirty- five (and getting younger) have developed a bulge surrounding their midriff. (Especially obvious in those who are Sensitive.) Even the slimmest people can have a potbelly. For most, they are unaware that the protruding stomach, that will not shift even after diets and endless sit-ups, has been born from having repetitive blood sugar spikes following a lifelong consumption of wheat and sugar (combined with the stress that goes with it).

Sensitive people are vulnerable to having visceral fat (inner-fat) because their bodies often produce too much cortisol and adrenaline from having heightened emotions. Visceral fat is body fat that is stored within the abdominal cavity hidden, often between the organs, and is considered to be much worse than external body fat. So, we are at risk of having inner and outer body fat.

How and why does this happen? When cortisol and adrenaline are released into the body it stimulates the production of glucose (sugar). When it is not used, the body protects itself by turning the glucose into fat (fat is stored energy). For example: When gripped by negative emotions, as Sensitive people often are, the body is tricked into believing there is danger. It releases cortisol and adrenaline to turn into glucose for a quick rush of energy (to run away from this danger). But this energy is not needed. There is no dangerous threat, just strong emotions that have been triggered by a stressful event. The body has been put on high alert for no reason. The glucose (triggered by cortisol/adrenaline) is not used and instead is turned into fat, either internally or externally, which often ends up on the belly (Meditation and yoga help greatly with these stress responses. See chapters 7 and 8. )

As you can see, Sensitive people already produce too much glucose from having heightened emotions, the last thing we need is to have even more glucose dumped into the bloodstream by eating wheat (or sugar).

Diabetes is a disease where the pancreas ceases to work properly and stops producing insulin effectively. However, you do not have to have diabetes for your pancreas to breakdown. By consuming lots of wheat, the pancreas malfunctions to such a degree that the bloodstream has permanently elevated levels of insulin. When you have high levels of insulin, it promotes fat storage and prevents already stored fat from being broken down.

Obesity and diabetes are often blamed on the amount of refined sugar in the diet, which I am not disputing as being a huge problem, but as previously noted, wholegrain bread is worse than refined sugar for increasing insulin levels.

Just like refined sugar, wheat creates a dependence and addiction and like any other addictive substance, damages the body and the mind. To recover from any addiction and the harm it has caused, the addictive substance has to be removed completely. An alcoholic may be able to cut down his consumption of alcohol units, for a while, but it always creeps back up. With addictions there is no such thing as cutting down; the cause has to be eliminated. Alcoholics will always be addicted to alcohol as humans will always be addicted to wheat. Total elimination is the only answer.

It is simply the thought of giving up wheat which may fill you with dread, but don’t let that fear stop you. Anything that has an opiate-like effect on the brain becomes addictive and alters perception. A wheat addiction prevents you from making rational choices. It saps your energy and clouds your judgment. Wheat has a strong emotional hold but, unlike refined sugar, the grain is hardly ever questioned or mentioned as one of the “dietary bad-guys” other than in food intolerances.

Wheat has the power to alter your perception and natural instincts; not only affecting how much you eat, but what you eat. Wheat is controlling you more than you could ever realize and not just in your dietary choices. It may play a part in other addictive behaviors and is strongly linked to controlling moods.

This book would not have come about had I not suffered most of my life with heightened Sensitivities, ongoing health issues, yo-yoing weight problems and debilitating chronic fatigue, which at times got so bad that even the smallest amount of movement left me with no energy. If I had not struggled with my Empath traits, had I been effortlessly slim, healthy and energetic, my fascination with health, exercise and diet would not have been born. And had it not been for an inner-suspicion that wheat was doing me no good, I may have passed Dr William Davies’s claims off, that eliminating wheat would lead to weight-loss, as just another diet scam.

If as a Sensitive you are ingesting foods that your body sees as toxic, no amount of protection, holistic work, healthy eating, exercise or meditating will heal you, make you happy or get excess weight off.

There are many who look and feel good most of the time and include wheat in their diet, but those numbers are getting less and less. And just because one does not feel the ill effects of wheat now, does not mean they won’t suffer in the future.

And that means freshly baked-bread, biscuits, cakes, croissants, pastries, pizzas or pasta (there are lots of incredible alternatives that taste just as good). You will not only look and feel great, but you can get back in control of your life, not to mention the weight-loss.

We all want to feel and look great and achieve a state of inner-bliss. And it is possible. Wheat elimination is the first step towards making these great changes happen. The next is sugar removal…