Growing Other Food In Field With Wheat

[Earthling]

I am a college student with gluten intolerance (I think it's celiac, but I haven't been tested), and I recently joined a student-run organic gardening program at my college. Part of the field we are going to grow our crops in has been used to grow wheat in the past. Also, we are considering growing wheat this year, but I have talked to the rest of the group and we have agreed not to grow it if it will be a risk for me. Provided we don't grow wheat this year, will it be safe for me to eat food grown in this field, or will the past wheat crops have already contaminated it? How about if we do grow wheat- how high would the risk of contamination be?

[Marilyn R]

Yes, it will be totally safe for you to eat food grown in the field, whether or not you grow wheat in the same field this year.

I'm a farmer's daughter, not a scientist or physician or nuclear health physicist, but I'm 100 percent confident in my answer.

Any root crop would be fine, grown with or without wheat in the same field. The same would go for corn, pumpkin, melons and winter squash since it has that protective outer husk, as well as all legumes. (You would wash beans, and boil or steam them, right?)

All peppers and tomatos would be fine too.

Berries should be okay too, because you would wash them before consumption.

Sunflowers would be safe. Lettuce, herbs, green onions, spinach and scallions harvested before wheat matured would also be perfectly safe, and may be perfectly safe harvested after the wheat matures.

It would be cool if they'd try growing buckwheat or job's tears vs. the wheat, but I honestly can't think of a thing you can't grow and eat with confidence in a field shared with wheat. I think once the wheat gets milled, it becomes a problem with cc.

For instance, you can be perfectly fine with corn on the cob, but you have a reaction to corn tortillias because the corn was refined to corn flour in a factory that also produces wheat flour, or the tortillias were made at a factory that also produces wheat tortillias and the lines are contaminated. Yet some people on this forum have perfectly wonderful experiences with corn tortillias.

I think it will be a great experience for you, with or without the wheat in the field. Granted, it will be better without the wheat in the field...but it will still all be good if the class votes for including wheat.

Good luck, you're in for an adventure!

[ravenwoodglass]

Growing other items in the field shouldn't be an issue but I would discourage growing wheat with them. There are folks that have had problems living in areas where wheat is growing in fields around them when it is harvested. The dust from the harvesting can be an issue when it is breathed in. If they want to grow a grain type crop Buckwheat is a good suggestion.