How ironic it would be for the most celebrated food of Western culture -- wheat -- to be at the root of the global epidemic of depression?
Could common complaints of bloating, abdominal tenderness and indigestion following a meal, and even the increasingly prevalent complaint lazily labeled 'irritable bowel syndrome' by conventional medicine, be worsened -- even caused -- by consuming wheat?
The "diseases of affluence," as they are known, include diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis and cancer, and are sometimes referred to as the "Western disease" paradigm. They emerge largely in response to the type of overnourishment that occurs in relatively wealthy societies, and particularly the overconsumption of certain biologically incompatible foods that have become the nutritional centerpiece of agrarian and largely grain-based cultures.
