Are pesticides to blame for gluten sensitivity?

We’ve been saying for some time: there is something wrong with modern wheat that is making us sick. In fact, there is SO MUCH wrong with modern wheat — the way we grow it, the way we process it, the way we eat it — and the human body is such a complex organism, it’s hard to determine exactly what is going on.

In the last few years, the protein gluten came under intense suspicion, triggering an enormous “gluten-free” diet trend. But wait. Wheat has always had gluten, yet has sustained much of humanity for millennia. How could it be that, practically overnight, so many of us couldn’t eat it anymore?

Well, we might just have found the answer to this puzzle. And surprise, it’s in the arena of industrial farming and pesticides.

Seems we're killing our guts along with the wheat

It looks like the prolific modern weed killer glyphosate (brand name Roundup) may be directly causing the boom in celiac disease and gluten-intolerance.

According to Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the use of glyphosate in wheat can be directly correlated with the rise in celiac disease, and the mechanisms by which it is doing this are clear and well-known: glyphosate severely damages your gut flora, causing a host of chronic diseases through gut dysfunction.

While her explanation delves into scientific complexities, the intuitive logic is simple and compelling. And the story behind it is, as usual, unbelievably frightening.

It seems that, over the last 15 years, it has become common practice to douse the wheat crop in glyphosate just before harvest. This is called “desiccating”. It kills the plant, increasing yields as it “goes to seed”, dries it out and kills everything else in the field, making cleanup easier. Of course, it also means we are dousing our wheat in toxins just before we harvest it for food. All to get a little more yield and make farming a little faster.

It’s unbelievable that ANYONE could think this is a good idea. It’s this kind of thinking that has wrecked our food system, and is wrecking our health.

Just another case where the “miracle of progress” turns out to be a nightmare. We’ve seen this scenario repeat itself so many many times in the last century or so, its hard to believe that as a species we just don’t seem to learn. Perhaps it’s just that we wrap ourselves in denial to justify a few extra dollars. Well as technology accelerates to the speed of light, we had better start learning quickly.

Read the full Dr Mercola article. Watch the interview. Be dismayed. And then harden your resolve to join the movement back to real food.

[As a related aside, Monsanto has been trying for years to put “Roundup-ready” wheat on the market, and is currently settling a lawsuit in Oregon where this experimental “zombie wheat” contaminated farmers’ fields. Read more at www.takepart.com.]