World Grain - April 2016 - 6

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Need to deal with
bread attacks

ny hope that a person living adjacent
to major wheat-producing regions
would be immune to and even antagonistic about some of the more egregious
insults cast at modern-day wheat, bread
and other grain-based foods is quickly
dashed by the frequency of awful allegations. Hopes for a change are rebuffed by
listening carefully to casual conversations
or reading the letters that often appear in
local newspapers. Such a letter, headed
"Franken-foods," recently ran in our local
newspaper, and its contents are so grossly
negative about wheat-based foods that it
demands attention through the public arena
as well as spurring wheat interests to understand how this sort of thinking threatens the
well-being of the industry.
With a tenor too often dismissed as blissIXOO\LJQRUDQWWKLVOHWWHUUHÀHFWVDYHUVLRQ
of some of the criticisms recently aimed at
wheat in publications like The New York
Times. Here's the second sentence: "Gluten
LV DQ LQÀDPPDWRU\ DQG JHQHWLFDOO\ PRGL¿HGZKHDWFRQWDLQVPRUHJOXWHQWKDQ
wheat grown decades ago." Indeed, the
WKUXVW LV WR GHFU\ JHQHWLF PRGL¿FDWLRQ RI
wheat, which has never happened and some
believe is quite unlikely in the future. The
person writing the letter acknowledges that
she is not celiac prone, only that the cessation of eating wheat foods brought her
relief to a number of physical disabilities.
Indeed, she says she is not allergic to gluten, "just sensitive to it because of my genetic makeup." She hails being "reborn" by
removing gluten from her diet.
Attacking gluten as the cause of her own
medical travails is not enough for this letter
writer. She pursues her erroneous belief that
wheat has been changed over the years by
WKHDSSOLFDWLRQRIJHQHWLFPRGL¿FDWLRQ6KH
asserts as a bit of far-out reaching that geQHWLFPRGL¿FDWLRQKDVDGGHG¿VKDQGDQLPDO
proteins to some foods where they were not
present before. At no point does she point
out that gluten in wheat, which has never
EHHQ JHQHWLFDOO\ PRGL¿HG SURYLGHV HVVHQtial protein content to hundreds of millions

of people around the world. Instead, she
notes that "Many European nations have
EDQQHG JHQHWLFDOO\ PRGL¿HG RUJDQLVPV´
closing with, "Shouldn't we?"
"Hell, no," is the best and easiest answer
to that question. Were it only enough! This
letter, along with similar diatribes based on
ignorance or a shaky awareness of the facts,
have increasingly plagued wheat and wheat
foods markets, mainly in the developed nations but also in some other less developed
parts of the world.
Wheat growers in the United States have
awakened to the harm that such beliefs can
FDXVH (YHQ ZKLOH ZKHDW ÀRXU FRQVXPStion in the United States has held stable
LQ WRWDO DQG KDV GHFOLQHG D WULÀH RQ D SHU
capita basis, that is not the sort of market
that wheat producers want or wheat foods
merit. Innovations in product quality and in
content have been the answers largely undertaken by the baking industry that is arJXDEO\WKH¿UVWOLQHRIGHIHQVHDJDLQVWVXFK
unsound attacks. It is unimaginable that the
³JOXWHQ IUHH´ ODEHO ZLOO ¿QG LWV ZD\V LQWR
more than a very narrow segment of baking
where production has always sought quality
gluten, varying by protein content to meet
what makes the best appearing and most appealing consumer product.
Standing up to defend the great qualities
of wheat, including its modern manifestations that appear to be a subject of attack,
has to be the prime focus of industry policies and programs - supported by growers,
millers and bakers - regardless of where
they operate. This level of ignorance about
such a basic food threatens not only the wellbeing of the industry itself but the health of
large parts of global population dependent
on wheat for a major part of food intake.
These blows are coming too quickly to be
disregarded by an industry that ought to be
creating the counter-attack necessary to delete these misconceptions not just from media but from peoples' minds.
Morton I. Sosland
Editor-in-chief

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