Info On How Gluten Got Its Start?

[VydorScope]

Alot of ppl ahve mention in passing that wheat did not always have gluten in it, when was it added, how and why?

[Claire]

Alot of ppl ahve mention in passing that wheat did not always have gluten in it, when was it added, how and why?

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No 'authority' in this reply - just me talking.

Glutein is an intricate part of wheat and as such I think it was always present in wheat and some other grains as well. Baked goods - breads, cakes etc. were always made at home - by hand. When bread making went commercial it was found that the flours did not work well in the new bread making machines. They needed the flour to have a more adhesive quality - i.e. stickiness.

Since the introduction of commercial baking grains have been modified to benefit the industry. Grains now have a significantly higher gluten content than they did in the past.

I have an article that I found recently and a soon as I dig it out of my files, I will see that you get it. Claire

[Kasey'sMom]

Claire, I would love to have this information as well. I've been doing some web searching as this has sparked my curiosity!!

Here's a link on the history of wheat........

Open Original Shared Link

This article is a little long. However, it gives some insight on how wild wheat grasses have changed, to give cultivated wheat the gluten that we know today.

[Claire]

Claire, I would love to have this information as well. I've been doing some web searching as this has sparked my curiosity!!

Here's a link on the history of wheat........

Open Original Shared Link

This article is a little long. However, it gives some insight on how wild wheat grasses have changed, to give cultivated wheat the gluten that we know today.

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Thanks. Looks like you are beginning to answer your own question.

[ravenwoodglass]

Alot of ppl ahve mention in passing that wheat did not always have gluten in it, when was it added, how and why?

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Get your hands on a copy of Dangerous Grains. Gluten was always present in wheat just not in the amounts that are present today. When man decided to cultivate ancient wheat varieties the cultivation process increased the amount of gluten contained in the wheat they were cultivating. There have been some trials using ancient wheats that are still found growing wild and when they took the wild wheat and made it a crop it soon developed the gluten levels present in modern wheat. Dangerous grains goes into this in better detail and is an excellent book, although you may not want to eat rice after you read it. . I have gotten copies off an internet auction site, don't know if I can mention the name but it starts with a e, for a reasonable price used, (for me) and new for every member of my family. It is real interesting reading and answers the question very throughly.

[Claire]

Get your hands on a copy of Dangerous Grains. Gluten was always present in wheat just not in the amounts that are present today. When man decided to cultivate ancient wheat varieties the cultivation process increased the amount of gluten contained in the wheat they were cultivating.  There have been some trials using ancient wheats that are still found growing wild and when they took the wild wheat and made it a crop it soon developed the gluten levels present in modern wheat.  Dangerous grains goes into this in better detail and is an excellent book, although you may not want to eat rice after you read it. . I have gotten copies off an internet auction site, don't know if I can mention the name but it starts with a e, for a reasonable price used, (for me) and new for every member of my family. It is real interesting reading and answers the question very throughly.

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Yes. I have this book. I have written on the forum about the modifications made in the grains to accomodate commercial break making - i.e. increasing the gluten levels so there is more 'stickiness'. I think there is more to the story though - that ancient grains were not what grains are today certainly but not what they were even a hundred years ago either. I think when Jesus called bread ' the staff of life' it was - but the grains of that time were quite different than now.

Dangerous Grains is a good book and I am sure it has turned many away from gluten. Those guys sure aren't lacking passion for their subject! Claire

[WRowland]

Winging this from memory, but here goes.

The Roman Empire was built on Egyptian wheat, which they called "korn". It was Einkorn, which is the ancestor of modern wheats. (In Latin, this was the earliest form of Triticum, not to be confused with what we call "corn", which is Zea.)

It had two sets of chromosomes like human beings and is described as 2N or diploid. There were also some naturally occurring wheat that had four sets of chromosomes, or 4N or tetraploid. This was the wheat that the Roman Emperor, Eqyptian pharoahs and Christ were eating.

But what is on our table has been selectively bred over time to increase the gluten content for baking or pasta-making. Most are hexaploid, octoploid, double hexaploid, or hexaploid-octoploid hybrids. This means that they have 6, 8, 12, or more sets of chromosomes. Some of this extra DNA is coding for amino acid sequences that human beings cannot break down, including a 33-amino acid sequence named 33-MER. This 33-MER is what is causing the problem for celiac. Our immune systems are attacking this chain as though it were an invader or parasite. But this sequence is also similar to human tissue, and this inflammation can progress into an auto-immune disease. This auto-immune phase is really damaging, and largely incurable. Control is the only treatment, and life-long gluten free diet is the only control.

[bluelotus]

Plant genetics would drive a person crazy - I work on animal population genetics, which is interesting enough...WRowland, if you work on plants, more power to you. I heard that ferns have about 1200 chromosomes.....not sure on the ploidy level, but at least you'd have plenty of microsats to choose from!

But seriously, WRowland makes a good point, it is the ability to be polyploid (above 2n and offspring survive!) that allows plants to evolve/adapt to human desires (selective pressures) so quickly, which is why things were quite different with wheat back when agriculture first started ~1000bce

[Guest BellyTimber]

In parallel to the above, I heard that rice and all other grains also have "gluten" of their own but it is not very akin to the gliadin of wheat, hordein of barley, etc.

Additionally wheat and barley have something called glutenin.

In other words "gluten" is a word with multiple usages.

(Like "corn" in fact - which meant wheat in UK till recently as in the 19th century Corn Laws - also small grains like pepper corns are called corns.)

Also there are alpha gliadins, beta gliadins etc.

The 33-MER mentioned above evidently comes in there somewhere.

Octoploids sound like they have got a lot of tentacles !!!! uuuuggghhhh !!!!