Unfortunately, there are good reasons to be careful about indulging too much in those products. For one thing these are calory bombs and not particularly healthy, e.g. consider the amount of saturated fat in pastries. If you are young, fit and thin, you may not worry to much about those disadvantages.

The other reason that those products aren’t great for your health is wheat. This cereal forms the traditional basis for our nutrition for centuries, across the globe. You find it in bread, pasta, semolina (couscous), of course. It is so versatile and cheap that it is also used as a thickener in (bechamel) sauces and soups… You might be surprised to find wheat as an ingredient when looking at the label on any product in the supermarket. Instant soup powder? Wheat’s in it. Milk replacement drink like oat milk? Probably contains wheat. Surprise: it’s also an ingredient in soy sauce! Not to speak about sweet stuff like cookies, of course.  

So what? Where’s the problem I hear you say?

I have three reasons for you to consider reducing your wheat intake. A fourth is gluten. It’s a well-known fact that wheat is gluten rich. And gluten allergy or intolerance is a well-known problem. It is therefore a good idea to go easy on wheat. But I have three other, less obvious reasons:

• Chemicals
• CO2 footprint
• Nutritional value.

Chemicals in Wheat Production

I once heard in a podcast that the chemical glyphosate is used abundantly in the cultivation of wheat. Glyphosate is, among other products, commercialized under the name Roundup by Monsanto (now Bayer). This chemical product is held responsible for thousands of cancer cases among farmers. And also to the extinction of insects in our modern society. Not surprisingly as glyphosate is a pesticide.

So I did a little research. And sure enough glyphosate is used in wheat crops. In more than one way as explained in the article “Glyphosate Use in the European Agricultural Sector and a Framework for Its Further Monitoring”.  The worrisome bit is that glypohsate is used in the “pre-harvest” stage. So shortly before wheat is harvested it is sprayed with glyphosate.

A quote from another interesting article: “Consumers eating products made from wheat flour are undoubtedly consuming minute amounts of Roundup. An interesting aside, malt barley which is made into beer is not acceptable in the marketplace if it has been sprayed with preharvest Roundup. Lentils and peas are not accepted in the market place if it was sprayed with preharvest roundup….. but wheat is OK.”

In other words: when ingesting industrial wheat you probably ingest small amounts of a cancerigen substance.

CO2 Footprint of Wheat

Wheat is produced on a massive scale all over the world. Producers of foodstuff of course look for the cheapest raw material to make their pasta and cookies. During my little research I was surprised to find out that the wheat produced by “conventional farming” in Holland, where bread is hte basis for many breakfasts and lunches, is not suitable for human consumption. This is explained in ”Sustainability assessment of wheat production in the Netherlands”.

The euphemism “Conventional farming” means: intensive, not organic. Read pesticides and other chemicals are used plentily. The report states: “Dutch wheat is suitable as milling wheat to a limited extent; milling companies receive only 20% of national production to produce meal and flour for bread, 55% is used in the production of animal feed, and the rest is destined for the starch and bio-ethanol industry. Therefore, the Netherlands is a net importer of grain; almost 80% is obtained from other countries, mainly Germany and France.”

So, depending on where you live and eat, you probably eat wheat-based products with a heavy CO2 footprint. The flour used has travelled many a kilometers before ending on your plate.

Nutritional Value of Wheat

Last, but not least, consider the nutritional value of “conventional” wheat. Here again I mean: mass-produced, processed white wheat. The bottom-line is that nutritional value of wheat bran or its fiber is poor. Quote from another interesting article: “the modern milling methods used to commercially produce white flour eliminate the portions of the wheat kernel (bran, germ, and shorts) that are richest in proteins, vitamins, fats, and minerals. This results in the grain itself being nutritionally deficient and so far removed from its original form that our bodies basically view it as a foreign substance. It is seen by our bodies as an irritant with little nutritional value.”

In other words: wheat is more than useless for your body.

In Conclusion

Whether or not you have an issue with gluten, please reduce your intake of wheat. Buy pasta based on other cereals such as corn or plants like chickpeas or lentils. Eat bread made from spelt, oat, rye, etc. Avoid ready-made products with wheat in them. If you can find it, used flour produced from organic and whole wheat. Avoid the, from a nutritional value standpoint, useless white wheat flour.

However… do you come across a French bakery and smell enticing fresh croissants or baguette? Treat yourself and enjoy it… just once in a while!

I realized that in my past blog posts I have mostly written about whole, plant-based food. But I missed making a point about the kinds of ingredients you can buy.

1 Junk food – save for last

Starting with the last category: I admit I buy some of that. Processed food from the supermarket I mean. Far less, though, than many years ago when we had young children. Strangely enough, back then we didn’t think much about the quality of the food we served to our family. Sorry about this, kids! We compromised your health because of speed and  convenience. Never late to start doing the right thing, though!

So, if you haven’t already done that, please take a look at the ingredients you put into your body. Simply put; we ingest a lot of junk when we buy processed food. Junk is used to make bad quality foodstuff taste, smell or look better. Junk is used to make food last longer on your shelf or fridge.  Junk is used because mass-produced, refined ingredients result into cheaper end products. Junk is used to transport and package your food. Hence: junk you end up eating.

2 Whole food – that’s OK

The second category, whole foods are foods that have not been processed, refined or had ingredients added to them. All the recipes I share with you are mostly based on whole food. And as mentioned almost all of them are plant-based. But today’s discussion goes beyond promoting a plant-based regimen.

3 REAL food – please choose those!

The definition of The REAL Food Challenge of “Real Food” is: “Broadly, Real Food truly nourishes everyone: producers, consumers, communities, and the earth.”

Another way to put it, REAL stands for: faiR trade, Ecologically sound, humAne, Local. I’m sure we can find a better mnemonic!

A personal example. We recently started to purchase some of our groceries from local farmers. This thanks to a company called Boerschappen, which roughly translates into “Growceries” or “Farmershopping”. They purchase foodstuff, in our case mostly vegetables and fruit, from local farmers and sell that online direct to the consumer.

This way they:

• dramatically shorten the time between harvesting and consuming, resulting in fresh and delicious produce on our plate
• reduce logistics and packaging costs, therefore having a positive impact on the environment
• and they can make sure farmers get more money for their efforts.

There are of course other initiatives for you to choose from. Look around and surely you’ll find suitable solutions. For instance a French company called La Ruche Qui Dit Oui is present in a growing number of European countries, including the Benelux (Boeren en Buren), and Germany (Marktschwärmer.)

To make things simpler here’s a summary as simple as 1-2-3 😊:

Agree? Disagree? What do you think?