Grain Truth: The Real Case for and Against Wheat and Gluten

by Stephen Yafa, Dana Hickox (Narrator)

A Pollan-esque look at the truth about meal or menace? No topic in nutrition is more controversial than wheat. While mega-sellers like Grain Brain and Wheat Belly suggest that wheat may be the new asbestos, Stephen Yafa finds that it has been wrongly demonized. His revealing book sets the record straight, breaking down the botany of the wheat plant we've hijacked for our own use, the science of nutrition and digestion, the effects of mass production on our health, and questions about gluten and fiber-all to point us toward a better, richer diet. Wheat may be the most important food in human history, reaching from ancient times to General Mills. Yafa tours commercial factories where the needs of mass production trump the primacy of nutrition, and reports on the artisan grain revolution. From a Woodstock-like Kneading Conference to nutrition labs to a boutique bakery and pasta maker's workshop in Brooklyn, he also finds that there may in fact be a perfect source of wheat-based nutrition. Its name is sourdough. For readers of Salt Sugar Fat and The Omnivore's Dilemma, Grain of Truth smoothly blends science, history, biology, economics, and nutrition to give us back our daily bread.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Health, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published May 12, 2015

Reviews

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I received this book from Goodreads first reads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book to be not only well written but interesting as well. When I entered the giveaway I thought this book would be divided up between two sides: The one side for gluten and the side against gluten. I was presented with much, much more than that in this book. The reader is presented with lots of information on wheat, how it grows and makes it's way into bread and many other products available for widespread consumption. If you don't have a sensitivity or allergy to gluten do you really need to avoid it? Or perhaps just be smarter about what types of bread you eat, how the breads are produced, and what healthier options exits. There are also some recipes at the end of the book for those interesting in baking.
As mentioned before, a lot of research went into writing this book.I was not counting on learning as much as I learned about wheat in this book - but that is not a bad thing. The information was presented in a clear and concise manner.

[Tommie Whitener · Rating 5 out of 5]

With references to respected scientific sources, Mr. Yafa exposes the anti-gluten craze as the scam that it is. More than 90% of the population not only tolerates gluten without adverse effect, but actually finds it beneficial. Also, his discussion of artisan breads in general and sourdough in particular has got me baking again. Great book!

[Jenny GB · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.

After reading this book I really needed to find some bread and eat it. Yafa's descriptions of delicious bread and other wheat products was really getting my taste buds going. I put in for this giveaway because I thought the premise sounded interesting and I thought the book would be a balanced examination of why and why not to eat wheat. I think Yafa mostly succeeded although he has a clear bias towards wheat that he shamelessly promotes throughout the book. I don't mind because his ideas make sense to me. He says that wheat is not really the problem. The problem is the way we process the wheat for our bread (adding chemicals, forcing it to rise too quickly, etc.) and the wheat that we choose to use to make our bread commercially (bleached and less nutritious vs. heirloom varieties that have a lot more taste and character). He argues that if we do it right eating bread can be good for you with tons of vitamins, nutrients, and fiber. A large part of the book is devoted to trying to convince people that consider themselves sensitive to gluten to try varieties like sourdough instead of giving up bread all together.

I think the best compliment I can give after reading this book is that I'm going to look at the way I buy and eat bread differently. I can probably find a healthier store bought variety to purchase (even though I already try to get whole grain bread) or I could try to make it myself. Yafa is successful in making you rethinking how you eat and I like that he is honest about the cost of it all, too. If you think you need to go gluten free (or even if you already have) it would be a good idea to check out this perspective before you make your decision.

[Lee Galloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several books have come out recently on the wheat/gluten issue. This is the one to read if you want to read a book by someone WITHOUT a preconceived agenda. His overview of the history of wheat alone is worth the price of admission. This author does have his biases (loves sourdough bread, but with good reason, as it turns out), however he approaches the topic like a scientist/historian. What I really like, is that he did this research without any preconceived ideas, so he was open to whatever over a hundred experts of all types and all persuasions had to say. His conclusions are, to me, a little vague, but, given the topic, I think that is as it should be. The concept of "gluten sensitivity" is not really completely resolved and that too, is as it should be, because there is not a definitive answer about that yet. If you want a great education on this topic from someone with an unbiased, open mind, this is definitely the book. He does meander occasionally, but it makes it more personal and little more entertaining at times. I definitely recommend this as THE book on wheat and gluten.

[Bee☕ · Rating 4 out of 5]

With all the mixed information about wheat, I welcomed reading a balanced view. But first, I don't recommend reading this while hungry; for those walking past the candy aisle to follow that delicious bakery smell, you may find yourself reading and ready to devour a loaf of bread or five. My proclivities toward bread is the sole reason I do not own a bread machine. I'd weigh 500lbs and not because I was allergic to gluten.

Personally, when someone says something is bad for you, I like to know why, why not, when, how, historic uses, common misconceptions, and effects on fads and pop culture. If in doubt, ask me anything you want to know about chocolate, stollen bread, food dye, spam, and canned cheese....I'm your girl.

I appreciate Stephen Yafa's no-frills, Mary Roach-esque approach: history and science. Yafa illustrates the pros and cons, tackling wheat, gluten, grains, and how we process these before they land on the dinner table. His curious openness and research is refreshing in a society that is suddenly regarding wheat as taboo and given to a hotly debated item on both sides of the grocery aisle.

I highly recommend this for those with gluten or grains intolerance, allergies, adjusting a diet, curious foodie types, or simply to kick butt at Jeopardy. "I'll take Yummy Gluten for $1000, Alex."

I'm now off to make some hot cheesy spinach dip...with fresh sourdough bread. Yum.

Thank you to LIbraryThing Early Reviewers and Avery Publishing for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Angela Boord · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given this book a higher rating if it had been titled as an account of the health and environmental benefits of heritage wheat and sourdough instead of as a balanced treatment of whether or not gluten is really good for you. Most of the book is not involved with the science of whether or not gluten is good or bad or neutral for most people. Claims made by leading gluten-free proponents are bashed -- maybe even fairly, but without the careful reporting of science to back it up, the reader who was looking to find some balance (me) just comes away frustrated. On the other hand, I found the anecdotal evidence for the benefits of long-fermented sourdough and ancient varieties of wheat (such as einkorn) to non-celiac gluten sensitive people (like probably me) to be encouraging.

[Idania · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough and informative read. Definitely makes me feel a little better about eating breads. And I definitely learned what holes lie in current trends and so-called 'studies' about gluten. Extensively cited, and sourced from mostly primary sources of info. Interviews from mill owners, scientists, medical doctors, and bakers. They all give valid considerations of all aspects of the grain we eat and how to use it best.

Bonus: it makes you hungry for some of the great bread bakeries/mills highlighted at many California and New York locations.

[Sean Goh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for content, 2 stars for writing. Terribly dull (I expected more from a journalist), though informative. Perhaps if I was more familiar with wheat (whether on the farm or in flour form) I would appreciate this book better?

___
White flour has been historically prized because of its shelf life - which the absence of lipids greatly prolongs. This made it invaluable for long sea voyages and wagon trains.
However the industrial milling process produces flour of so little nutritional value that vitamins and minerals have to be injected back into it.

Gluten-free food accounts for $15 billion, or 1.5% of all food sales, but 30% of the population claims they're cutting back on wheat and gluten.
"It's the difference between what you say you're going to do and what you do."

The industrial approach to baking prizes speed. Yet fast fermentation, as it speeds up the breakdown of starch sugars that feed the yeast. This translates to the rapid absorption of glucose in our bloodstream, and potentially contributes to obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Proteins in the gluten complex cannot be broken down into smaller, safer peptides unless naturally slow-fermented.

At a big merchant flour mill: They don't carry out pest control for mice and rats, because after they eat all the white flour they want, the rats are found with their little stomaches bloated out, dead of malnutrition.
Until rollers replaced stones in mills, millers everywhere were plagued by insect infestation in the grain. The insects vanished because they aren't stupid. There's nothing in the white for them to feed off.

Because of its abundance and reliability as a source of protein and calories, more than any other food, including rice, wheat has come to us time and again as representing a last defence against mass starvation.

I'm struck again by the schizophrenic nature of wheat in America today. It's killing us, according to William Davis and David Perlmutter. Or nurturing, rewarding and fortifying us, according to folks at this Sunday conference. I doubt that there is another non-narcotic plant anywhere that elicits such extreme contradictory conviction.

As a journalist I've made a habit of popping into the lives of strangers without knocking first, then peppering them with questions they have no need to answer. Most do, for reasons that remain unclear.

If bread is sped through fast fermentation as instant dough, the kernel's nutrients won't be made available to the body. They'll go straight through to the sewer. Technological advances in production have improved efficiency and volume at the expense of nutrition and flavour.

Taking stock of his comments, delivered in an unwavering monotone, I noted that they gain a degree of credibility by the total absence of emotion he attaches to them. Diets in general and gluten in particular tap into a reservoir of impassioned advocacy, and the intensity of the heat often obscures the suspicious origins of the fire.

I define commodity as: Did someone on a trading board in Kansas, Chicago or Minneapolis tell you what it's worth? If the farmer never has any idea what happens to the wheat once it leaves the farm, or gets a say in pricing, It's a commodity, with no identity.

Pasta registers a surprisingly low GI (25-45) because of the physical entrapment of ungelatinised starch granules in semolina dough's sponge-like network of molecules. That apparently slows down the transport rate of carbo sugars through the gut wall.

What to make of all this? It comes down yet again not so much to what is good for you but what is good for you that you will actually look forward to eating.

Wheat especially contains an enzyme that may cause an allergic reaction; it's simply the plant's way of protecting itself from being eaten. Sourdough's disulphide reaction and protein degradation are enough to deactivate the enzyme.
In short, plants do not may it easy for humans to invade and plunder unless the process forwards their propagation.

Sourdough in short, is at the very least prebiotic - a food source that helps beneficial guy bacteria to thrive.

[Andrew Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title misrepresents this book. I doesn't take a whole book to repute the claims of the anti-gluten books, like "Wheat Belly," and Yafa is able to cover this subjected quickly and completely. Yafa then proceeds down the argument that, even though gluten isn't bad, modern wheat products are much less healthy (and tasty) than they were in the past.

From a health perspective, this isn't due to changes in the wheat, but rather changes in the manufacturing and cooking process. Modern mills work at high temperature and destroy many of the nutrients in wheat, and others are removed from the wheat in order to make white flour (as opposed to whole wheat flour). On top of that, the fast rise times used to make bread quickly prevent additional nutrients from becoming available for human digestion.

These modern production and backing techniques also create a bread that is essentially flavorless. And this is the oddest part of the book. At this point, Yafa goes into the foodie movement of artisan breads and ancient grains. To the author, the fact that bread produced the old fashioned way (stone mills, whole wheat or heritage grains, and slow fermentation times) is healthier is trivial to the improvement in flavor. Though Yafa talks about how he lost weight on his pro bread diet and how many people who are sensitive to gluten have no issue eating break produced using traditional methods, more and more of his interviews and discussions begin to deal with the flavor and texture of handmade artisan breads.

And while Yafa sales this benefit of traditional bread well (it got me to buy a bread baking book), it almost feels like he ran out of positive health benefits of bread. For instance, in the beginning of the book, Yafa hints that sourdough bread is safe for people that are gluten sensitive, and has the ability to support gut health. When he gets to an interview with an expert, however, the expert dismisses some of these thoughts (only about 5% of gluten is removed in the process of creating sourdough, for instance), and claims that the scientific research has not been conducted to support some of the other purported health benefits. Yet Yafa continues to harp on the health benefits of sourdough, like how it can be eaten by some people who have celiac disease, or the effects of certain parts of sourdough in mice. Yafa doesn't seem to remember that he criticized the authors of "Wheat Belly" earlier in the book for dismissing actual scientific research, and for overstating research that was conducted on mice.

By the end of the book, Yafa seemed to be trouncing one fad diet (anti-gluten) and promoting another (artisan bread). Despite this, I liked the book. It is very well researched, and got my hyped about trying my own sourdough breads. I just wish that the author was able to carry the unbiased scientific approach throughout the whole book

[Susan (aka Just My Op) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who ya gonna believe? There is so much contradictory information about eating wheat right now, that it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Yafa starts out sounding like a spokesperson for the wheat industry, and someone who has had too much caffeine. I was skeptical.

And I still am, but not as much. He does refute much of the popular Wheat Belly and Grain Brain claims. I was pretty skeptical about those, too.

Celiac disease is very serious stuff but not common. Less serious is gluten sensitivity, and a little more common. And most common of all are the self-diagnosed gluten intolerant who seem to be the same who were hypoglycemic when that was the trend, fats-phobic or carbs-phobic when that is popular. People who jump on any bandwagon that is in the spotlight.

The author does not blame wheat. He blames the way wheat has been modified to make it more of a commodity than a natural product and he blames the way it is processed and stripped of its natural goodness.

The author has a sense of humor which occasionally shined through, and I appreciate that. My eyes did glaze over at some of the recitation of statistics, and there was some repetition in the book. The information on farmers growing the ancient wheat and the variety of wheat and wheat products once you get past the big grain conglomerates was eye-opening. Unfortunately, most of us cannot afford those products easily. The long-fermenting sourdough was interesting, too, but most people are not going to wait days for their dough to be ready to bake. His advice is good, but the solution is not an easy one.

So what is the solution for most of us if we can't buy specialty wheat and make our own bread? I still don't know.

While I think the author is less biased than I thought at the beginning of the book, while he does not support the big boy- and girl-conglomerates, I do wish he right out assured me he is not financially associated with the wheat industry. I need that credibility factor.

There are appendices that offer information about making your own sourdough bread and offer sources for grain and flour, and that is very helpful.

As a nit that amused me, the author should know that the phrase is “pedal to the metal,” not “petal to the metal.”

I'm going to continue to eat wheat. As a vegetarian, I often eat seitan, a product that is essentially all wheat gluten, as well as other wheat products, and they cause me no problems. However, aside form the seitan, most of the wheat I use is whole grain, as flawed as the products themselves may be.

While I don't take the book as gospel, I did find it interesting and informative, certainly food for thought.

I was given an advance reader's copy of this book for review.

[Julieann Wielga · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Grain of Truth by Stephen Yafa is a personal inquiry about nature of the uproar against gluten after 10,000 years of human's wheat dependence.


It turns out wheat is just fascinating. so at the dawn of agriculture humans, Einkorn, a cousin of modern wheat was crossed with two wild grasses. The resultant grain was diploid with 7 chromosomes. Emmer came out of southern turkey, no one knows how, and it is a tetraploid. Italians adopted that and called it Farro. From which came duram. (Yay! for all of those who grew up in Montana.) Spelt came from Farro also and has six, six pairs of chromosomes,just like modern wheat.Wheat today contains from 5 to 11 times the number of genes than humans and 5 times the amount of DNA. So I do not understand what this means, if someone does, please tell me, but it seems to me that there is a lot of possibility there. There are a lot of wheats that have adapted themselves to grow in different places all over the globe. In fact landrace wheats, which you will remember from the Third Plate can adapt within one generation and have different forms in one field.

In comes Norman Borlaugh in 1965 who got the Nobel Prize and saved more human lives than anyone in history. Mankind had gotten the wheat kernal to be big and nutritious, but too heavy. Norman managed to make the stocks shorter and stronger.

So now to the story you know the industrialization of the wheat kernal. Take off its outer coating and its inner germ and roll it on hot rollers and guess what, you have the nutritional equivalent of cardboard. One of my favorite lines in this book is that wheat does not want to be eaten. It is not a berry, who wants to be spread anyway that it can. No wheat does not like to be digested. And we have a very limited number of stomachs. The process of allowing a dough to gently rot, is a process which over time, begins to break down the proteins in the berry, it allows for the first step of digestion. This is not true of our current fast rising yeasts- no predigestion.

So modern bread: no predigestion, no food value, no taste, ( Yes, there are wheat berries that taste quite different.) all carbohydrate, all rapidly enters the blood stream as sugar. All bad.

There is more to come in the book, about Italian verses, American Durum, ok they are the same. But the inspiration is eat whole wheat, different kinds, grind it lovingly between stones, let it ferment into a sour mass and enjoy.

[MaryJo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yafa is a journalist who investigates the claims against eating wheat coming from the current anti-gluten writers. Those who have read The Third Plate or Cooked will be familiar with some of his sources and arguments. The book is narrower in focus, and, for me, a little less engaging than those two books, although I did stick with it to the end. He argues that for many people who are not diagnosed with celiac disease, it is the way that wheat is processed that causes problems, not the grain itself. He is an advocate of whole milling and long fermented sourdough breads. I am with him there. He has some discussion of the advantages of ancient pre-wheats like emmer and and kamut. My favorite take away was his interview with a food giant CEO. He asked why the company did not take on the claims of the anti-wheat fanatics. The CEO told him that he did not understand how capitalism works: their strategy was not to contend the facts of the case but to give the public whatever it wanted, consequently their response was to create dozens of new gluten free products.

[Heather Bridson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, this book is really not what I expected. I expected it to be just about gluten and the gluten-free fad going on right now. That is only a tiny portion of this book. This book would be perfect for a class about wheat, its history and useage, but not for a casual read for those not really caring about the history of wheat. Now, don't get me wrong, it is a well written book. It is well researched and written in an easy to understand way. The author did an amazing job teaching me about Wheat, much more than I ever needed to know.
I do now understand the gluten-free fad, and the whole wheat movement. I was interested in ancient grains and what people used to eat compared to what is in the grocery store. So yes, very well written book, just not what I had expected.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I was not paid for my review in any way, and all opinions are my own.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and seemingly well-researched account of the evidence (and lack thereof) for the anti-gluten movement. Yafa isn't a scientist, but did a good amount of investigative research for this book, and presents logical arguments. It's clearly not totally unbiased, but I have more confidence in his conclusions than I do for many other arguments on the topic.
His thesis boils down to, highly processed white flour is bad, whole grain (especially whole-milled) flour is fine and probably beneficial, long-fermented sourdough is good (though he makes it out to be such a panacea that it almost comes across as a nostrum).
Overall, this book is a reasonably solid source to consider in the wheat & gluten discussion.

Oh, and yes, I'm definitely going to be making a sourdough starter again after reading this...

[Martha]

At some point they must have changed the subtitle on this book. I think my older version more accurately reflects the content. The subtitle of my copy is "Why eating wheat can improve your health" and then has text that states on the cover, "A safe and delicious way to take back your daily bread." The argument of the book is that modern processing is the source of many people's wheat sensitivity and not the gluten itself. The author recommends trying using older strains of wheat or at least organic whole wheat, preferably stone ground instead of rolled. Then it should be slow fermented as sourdough. The book explains the science of how this releases more nutrients and makes it easier to digest. This sounds like something I would like to try because I miss bread, but it sounds like a lot of work! Also, finding and affording the ingredients? Sounds daunting.

[Jennifer Goins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I JUST GOT DONE READING GRAIN OF TRUTH:THE REAL CASE FOR AND AGAINST WHEAT AND GLUTEN.AFTER READING THIS BOOK I LEARN ALOT ABOUT WHEAT AND GLUTEN YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE EATING. I GOT THIS BOOK FROM GOODREADS FRIST READ AND BY THE AUTHOR STEPHEN YAFA. I WOULD HAVE TO GIVE THIS A 5+ STAR RATING THIS IS A BOOK TO READ THERE IS ALOT OF STUFF TO LEARN ABOUT THE GLUTEN AND WHAT IT CAN TO DO YOU, SO IF ANYONE GETS A CHANCE TO READ THIS BOOK I WOULD RECOMEND THIS BOOK FOR EVERYONE TO READ. WOULD LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU TO GOODREADS FRIST READ AND TO THE AUTHOR STEPHEN YAFA.

[Jen Bojkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at the effects of gluten on those with gluten sensitivity. It is important to note- he is not challenging the damage of gluten on those with Celiac's Disease. He does a lot of research and comes to the conclusion that the real problem has to do with how we have come to process wheat in this country and how we have shortened the prep time taking away much of the time needed for natural processes that would make whole wheat products easier to digest. It has made me want to learn more.

[Ganesh Vijayakumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty informative. By that I specifically mean, I got to know something about wheat I didn't know before. And other info that makes me angry like "Whole wheat flour only needs to contain 50% or more of whole wheat!" However, a lot of it is fairly flowery language. Agreed, if it were written as a scientific article, I probably wouldn't read it. But definitely got me curious about sourdough bread!

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally...someone sticking up for wheat!

Speaking of the anti-wheat crowd: "They approach wheat with a blanket indictment, with no interest in or patience for different processing and cultivation methods that make all the difference. It follows that they entirely ignore any research or techniques that might weaken their arguments."

Thanks Yafa! (I'm committed now to learning how to make sour dough bread.)

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you GoodReads.
Thank you Stephen for the research you have put in to this book. I have many friends that live by the gluten free diets and will gladly share your research with them. You gave info on both sides of the issue. I now understand about gluten and grains. I know I will read this book again as there is so much to learn.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and important topic, and I appreciate the author's efforts at proving his case, but by the end of the book his writing style was all over the place. It reminded me very much of a high school student trying to add a lot of fancy adjectives and long descriptions to fulfill the teacher's minimum page-length requirement.

[Michael Tarpinian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have liked. To have read more science about why Wheat Belly, et all are wrong. More info on sprouted and sourdough breads would have been great to read. Likewise, I wanted to know what industrial bread companies can do to fix our bread and baked goods industry. Additionally, I was left asking if there are ways to make healthful pie, cakes, and cookies.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm lost in the world of gluten and gluten and gluten free. But I am also another person who can say that sourdough does not affect me or my daughter the way regular wheat does. I enjoyed reading this book. It's easy to get swayed and since everything is so gluten free now, it's nice to read something from someone who can defend wheat!

[Kelly L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far I really like this author's writing style and it is nice to get a counter balance to the "wheat is poison" message that we are hearing out there. Could it be that it is the way we process the stuff here in the US rather than the plant itself? I'll let you know!

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

It dispelled many food "facts" coming from books such as "Wheat Belly" and "Grain Brain". I can relax and eat bread without worrying about it's effect on my body. What a relief!! The Word of Wisdom is correct again.

[Maynard Handley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meanders all over the place. May be of interest if you’re a foodie and want fifty different angles on your favorite cereal, but of zero interest if you’re looking for a book with discipline and medical focus, like Gary Taubes.

[Brenda Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Not what I expected but that is ok. I won this book in a goodreads giveaway

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

informative and worth a read.

[Louise Kuhlman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read about wheat and why we should still eat it, particularly in whole grain form. Also includes a highly detailed recipe for sourdough whole wheat bread which is delicious!

[Annemarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and easy to read and understand.