According to a Sufi legend, Eve offered Adam a sheath of wheat in the garden, not an apple. Most people have gluten insensitivities and don’t know it. Celiac is only one form of gluten insensitivity. And our pets are no better then people, in fact they suffer from grains far worse the people.

Most of the people really like to stretch reality in order to justify their precious habits, favourite indulgences and their sacred cows. Our chief editor HRH Mona herself is not immune to this human condition. The other day she was trying to convince me that gluten sensitivity doesn’t exist and it is just a silly fad of super rich and middle class people who have nothing better to do but to obsess about there health. Okay Mona you do make fantastic spelt cakes but can we please stick to the facts, and GOOD science?  Can we try to put our sacred cows to pasture and separate wheat from the chaff?

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found over 40 percent of the best designed, peer-reviewed scientific papers published in the world's top medical journals misrepresented the actual findings of the research. The "spin doctors" writing the papers found a way to show treatments worked, when in fact, they didn't.

What most physicians and consumers don't recognize these days is that science is now for sale; published data often misrepresents the truth, academic medical research has become corrupted by pharmaceutical money and special interests, and government regulators more often protect industry than the public. Increasingly, academic medical researchers are for hire, and research, once a pure activity of inquiry, is now a tool for promoting products. No wonder it is veritable jungle out there. So called scientist keep bombarding us with contradictory data all the time.

I have been aware of this problem for quite some time now and I was very pleased when I discovered a book called Food and Westerner’s disease written by Staffan Lindeberg M.D. Recognizing nutrition science as a highly fractionated, contentious field with rapidly changing viewpoints on both minor and major issues impacting on public health, this author undertook arduous task of presenting pure facts obtained by unbiased scientific research. The thread that unites all these data is evolutionary perspective, and this is why this book is so valuable – for the first time someone has actually put 2 and 2 together and it all makes sense.

To sum it all up – wheat is bad for you – full stop. No matter how much you enjoy your pasta, your cakes and bread – the raw data is there – starring you coldly in the face.

Our bodies and their physiology are the same as they were thousands of years ago when we were still hunter gatherers. During those times humans hardly ate any cereals and our bodies still haven’t evolved enough to be capable of safely processing such foods.

Wheat is actually a grass. Contrary to popular belief; same as  animals, plants also don’t like to be eaten. Unlike animals plants cannot run and hide from their predators. Therefore they had to develop far more insidious defence mechanisms. They resorted to biochemical warfare. Whilst herbivores had millions of years to evolve in order to get the upper hand in this biochemical war and safely graze on plants and grains, our bodies simply didn’t have enough time. 10 000 years may seem like a long time but is really nothing from evolutionary point of view.

Gluten is the main (at least in  the Western world ) agent in this chemical warfare cereals have waged on us.  This is simple and undeniable fact. Unfortunately gluten is not the only agent in this warfare.

Here are some very important points that John B. Symes, D.V.M.  AKA  Dogtor J. presents:

“All of the grains are man-made, man-raised crops that we have cultivated for human consumption starting very early in our agricultural history. People love to point out that man ate wheat and drank milk in Biblical times so these things must be good and healthy. Even well-intentioned, Scripture-oriented books make this statement. But they leave out two very key points: The wheat we consume now is no longer “God’s wheat” and the milk we drink is no longer “God’s milk”. The original wheat was “pure in its generations” (no hybrids) and contained 4-5% gluten. This was changed forever by our Northern Germanic ancestors in the mid 400’s A.D. when they blended two other plants to “God’s wheat”, creating a hybrid and one that contained much more gluten, so much more that they were stricken with “coeliac disease” (gluten intolerance). This is historical fact. It is that new wheat, which we term “common wheat”, that became the ancestor of today’s wheat, which now contains as much as 55% gluten, a far cry from the 5% found in original wheat. Plus, our wheat is no longer pure in its generations, as it has become a mutant blend of multiple plants that man has continued to manipulate, especially in the recent past.

The parallel to the wheat story is “the tale of two milks”. The milk they drank in Biblical days was goat’s milk. Remember: They were tending their flocks by night, not their herds. Cattle (oxen) were relegated to doing work and providing meat. It was not until the middle of the second millennium that man went into the dairy industry utilizing cow’s milk. Goat milk, the universal foster milk, has 0-2% alpha s-1casein, the most troublesome of the cow milk proteins and gluten’s evil twin. Like gluten, this dairy glycoprotein that has been tied to numerous immune-mediated disorders. Cow milk has a whopping 80-86% casein (of which 39% is the alpha s-1 variety)- the protein that Borden uses to make Elmer’s glue. Lactose is not the culprit in milk. It is the various proteins cow milk contains- including alpha s-1 casein, alpha lactalbumin and beta lactalbumin- that do the harm to cells and stimulate the (appropriate) immune responses. I will leave it up to the reader to decide who started the lactose myth. Just understand that goat milk has plenty of lactose and all mammals can be successfully raised on goat milk- provided they have not already developed a serious intolerance to the myriad of proteins in cow’s milk to which there can be cross-reactions with goat’s milk.

Corn is a very interesting story. Did you know that corn is the only grain that is not self-propagating? Wheat, for example, produces seeds that will fall and produce more wheat. Corn must be planted by man in order to grow and if left alone, it would cease to exist. It was cultivated in Mesoamerica in the millennia B.C. and went through many changes during its domestication. In other words, man had his hands in the making of corn right from the start. The interesting thing is that wherever this new grain was introduced, pellagra (niacin deficiency) broke out. Many texts will say that it is because the niacin was “locked” inside the corn making this essential vitamin unavailable for absorption, which appears to be true. But, the common characteristic of the “big 4″- gluten (wheat, barley, rye), casein, soy and corn- is their ability to damage the villi of the small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, and ileum) where our most essential nutrients including niacin are absorbed. So, was the pellagra due to the unavailable niacin in the corn or due to the fact that the corn blocked the absorption of niacin from the remainder of their diet? Just how much of this new corn were they eating? Was there no other source of dietary niacin? The fact is that corn proteins can block the absorption of calcium, iron, iodine, B complex (including niacin), C, and numerous trace minerals (e.g. zinc, boron, magnesium, manganese) in the same fashion that gluten, casein, and soy can in susceptible individuals.

Soy was the Asian’s mistake. After examining the serious effects of soy on human health, I can say that with all confidence. Wheat was the Northern Germanic’s blunder, cow milk consumption was the Anglo-Saxon’s error, corn was the Mesoamerican’s wrongful creation, and soy was the Asian’s serious mistake. They should have never removed soy from the ground, where it was used in crop rotation as a way to fix nitrogen in the soil. I’m certain that one fine day, someone asked why this crop could not be eaten. They quickly learned that it had to be processed to be consumed safely, including soaking and fermentation, the latter being the key. If one were to read the rigorous process that soy must undergo to render it safe to consume, I dare say that the majority would ask “What is the point???”. But even after that process is completed, the finished product contains more potentially harmful proteins and estrogens than all others. It is fully capable of inducing villous atrophy of the small intestine and known to be a powerful factor in the development of thyroid disease and estrogen-related disorders. Soy milk has 16-22, 000 times more phytoestrogens than mother’s milk. The effect on the developing child is both potentially devastating and well-documented. All of the “big 4″ are used to make industrial adhesives, but soy is used to make super glue. Yes, they put your car together with soy-based super glues.”

As you can see the evidence is mounting. The data is out there, so I suggest everyone should make their informed decision. I could write volumes about all this but I really wanted to focus on our pets.

So after we learned all about harmful effect on humans who are considered to be omnivores, why on earth would we want to feed grains to our pets which are considered to be carnivores? If you check the labels of most commercial dry foods you will discover their main ingredient to be wheat, barley, and is some cases corn, rice or soy.

Some people are genuinely shocked when I tell them that dry food is not really good for their cats and dogs. How can it be they ask?   Other people, especially older ones – nod in approval as they remember times when commercial pet food didn’t exist. In les then 20 years time majority of population has been brainwashed that dogs and cats thrive on the kibble that comes out bag. This brings to mind April fools day hoax science show broadcasted on BBC in which they presented the story of spaghetti growing on a tree.  Number of viewers actually called to find out how they can grow their own spaghetti tree.

In fact,  since the dry food business boomed in 1980-ies, we noticed increase in all kind of conditions that were extremely rare, if  not non-existent in veterinary medicine  before the last decades of 20^th century. The life span of domestic dogs and cats has actually shortened over the course of several decades, although I suspect nutrition is not the only factor to blame for this but also inappropriate breeding practices and increase of indiscriminate use of various chemicals and drugs. Yes, some interesting questions keep popping out as DogtorJ duly notices:

“Don’t the pet food makers know better than to make these diets with such harmful ingredients?”  “Are they ignorant or greedy…or something else?” I’ve even been asked by thinking clients “Could these food companies be in cahoots with veterinarians so that the pets stay sick and the vets who are pushing these foods make more money?”  Or another- “Are the pet food makers and the pharmaceutical companies working hand-in-hand to keep each other in business?” Others, including veterinarians, realize that the pet food companies (and pharmaceutical companies) are often responsible for the continuing education of vets and ask how that figures into the grand scheme of things. These are ALL great questions.”

Indeed, these are great questions and I am afraid I cannot spoon feed you the answers. I don’t wont you to take my word without questioning. Instead I urge you to use your own brain cells. Do your own research, network with other pet owners, compare notes. Once you reach your own conclusions they will be far more valuable then anything I might offer.

Dr. Zoran D. Jankovic is holistic veterinarian practicing in Malta. For more information visit www.vetmalta.com