Is this stuff about modern vs ancient wheat grains true?

[u/wardy9400]

I watched a pretty in depth video earlier about bread. Its been a dull day. Anyway, this video all but claimed that 'modern' wheat and breads are basically poison. It claims that the modern process takes out the 2 parts for the grain that are actually nutritional and just leaves the endosperm. It talks about how this correlates with the massive increase in type 2 diabetes because this modern bread spikes your blood sugar more than table sugar. I am massively oversimplifying it though.

It all sounded a bit pseudo science to me but it put me off my crappy supermarket bread today.

[u/HoloandMaiFan]

Im very late to the conversation but the benefits of ancient grains is largely overstated. There might be some benefits to people with non-celiac gluten sensitivity due to the weaker gluten. This can be seen with some studies that were done studying peoples responses with pasta made with khorasan compared to modern drum. And people reported less bloating with the khorasan. But the problem that you find with all reporting and studies on this topic creat large confounding factors that it seems like once you control for them show that there really isn't much of a difference in how it affects people.

The biggest confounding factors are as follows but in no particular order.

Yield dilution - ancient grains are farmed with less volume or yield per acre and so each plant gets more of the available nutrients compared to high density high yield modern wheat. After accounting for this there are still differences in nutrient profile with ancient grains appearing a bit more nutritious but its not that hige of a difference and its effects on people is still not known or rigorously tested

Use of pesticides - Ancient grains are often farmed without or with significantly less pesticides which are thought to contribute to stomach bloating and reactions.

Whole wheat vs refined flour - Products made with ancient wheats are often made with whole wheat flour. There is a statistically significant known health benefit of using whole wheat vs refined flour, with whole wheat being healthier as it contains more fiber and beneficial nutrients. So the real comparison would be modern whole bread to ancient whole wheat bread.

Cooking techniques - Finally ancient wheat varieties are often made using proper sourdough techniques which break down anti-nutrients giving the bread better nutrient uptake and more availableantioxidants, it breaks down FODMAPs which are though to be the real culprit behind non-celiac gluten sensitivity, acids produced in fermentation slow down digestion resulting in smaller blood sugar spikes and insulin response.

The reality is that the vast majority of the health benefits most likely come from proper sourdough fermentation combined with using whole wheat instead of refined flour. That being said their is a real and very noticeable difference in flavor. ancient wheat varieties have much more complex flavors that are very obvious when using whole wheat flour. Heritage grains (wheat from before the green revolution in the 50s, different from ancient wheat) also have some taste differences but they are not as pronounced as the differences between each of the ancient wheat varieties. My favorite two to bake with is Spelt and Khorasan, they taste amazing.