Do you have that friend that comes back from their European vacation and said, “Wow, I could eat bread in France and pasta in Italy, but it didn’t cause me any trouble. But when I got back home to the US, just a regular slice of bread left me bloated and uncomfortable.” I have a couple of friends like that and I have wondered the same thing. What’s wrong with our bread? What’s wrong with our wheat? Is it simply some kind of non-celiac gluten insensitivity, where it’s a gluten intolerance but isn’t full-blown celiac disease?
What are the real culprits? Is it variations between how the wheat is grown, processed, or turned into food that makes the difference between the USA and Europe? We’ll look at what is known about the differences between the USA and Europe and put this puzzle together. And we’ll look at some very practical solutions as well so you can enjoy bread and wheat in the good old USA.
Wheat Strains and Gluten Levels: A Tale of Two Continents
At the center of the issue is the different kinds of wheat that are grown in each region. In the USA, we predominantly grow hard red winter wheat, which makes up about 60% of the wheat that’s produced.
The hard red winter wheat is bred for high yields and strong baking properties, so it has a high protein content (typically 12-15%). Hard red winter wheat makes some of the best bread around. The gluten in this winter wheat forms a denser structure and it can be tougher for people with sensitive digestive systems to break it down. This could be part of what leads to inflammation, bloating, and fatigue for those that have non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS).
On the other hand, Europe produces more of the softer wheat varieties, somewhat due to the climate that they’re in. They produce more soft white wheat or durum wheat, and the gluten levels in those varieties is more like 8 to 11%. This doesn’t make great high-rising bread, like the loaves that we’re used to in the USA. They’re better for traditional baking methods (baguettes, rustic breads, focaccia, ciabatta, pretzels, or sourdough bread). The gluten network is not as tight and as dense in this kind of wheat, so it’s a bit easier to digest.
In the USA, we focus on industrial efficiency and shelf life, while the European strains seem to prioritize digestibility and taste more. The gluten quote structure isn’t fundamentally different. It comes from the same species, Triticum aestivum, but the amount of gluten and the exact way it’s expressed in the bread can make all the difference for sensitive individuals.
Glyphosate and Pesticide Residues: The Hidden Irritant
Glyphosate residue is one factor that has been discussed a lot. Glyphosate is the compound found in Roundup, and it is used quite aggressively to control weeds in the USA. American farmers can apply it as a pre-harvest desiccant to dry out the crops uniformly.
Chemicals like Roundup aren’t cheap, but if applying glyphosate means the difference between getting a harvest and losing the whole crop, well, the chemicals win out, and it’s allowed in the USA. The glyphosate residue levels limits in the USA are 30 mg/kg (ppm), while in Europe it is only 0.1 mg/kg.
According to the website EatWheat.org, the use of glyphosate pre-harvest (on mature wheat to kill green weeds and dry out the wheat) is very uncommon. Only 3% of the wheat acreage gets this treatment. This practice is said to be used only in the northern states but not in Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma or Nebraska. If these figures are correct, then glyphosate contamination of the wheat supply could not explain all of the bloat and discomfort that arises from eating USA wheat.
Additives and Processing: What Goes Into Your Loaf?
During the baking and mixing process, USA commercial breads and flours are loaded with additives that help with shelf life, uniformity, and texture. Here are three common ones: potassium bromate (a potential carcinogen, to strengthen dough and increase elasticity), azodicarbonamide (a foaming agent), and DATEM (an emulsifier).
These three chemicals are banned in the EU because of health concerns. The breads in the EU often have cleaner labels with just 5 or 10 ingredients. But if you look at the bread labels in the USA, you can find 15 or more ingredients added on to just the basics of wheat flour, water, sweetener (to grow the yeast), yeast, a tad bit of oil, and salt.
Some of the European baking traditions emphasize natural methods like sourdough, which uses a sourdough starter to break down the gluten a bit and especially the FODMAPs (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols). FODMAPs are fermentable carbs that can cause digestive discomfort, especially if a person experiences small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).
In Europe, these longer fermentation breads are more comfortable to eat. In the USA, we tend to use quicker industrial processes that give you a result more efficiently. So some of the fermentable carbs remain in the American style breads, causing digestive problems for sensitive people.
Other Factors: From Hybridization to Lifestyle
Modern wheat breeding programs have helped create higher gluten varieties of wheat with shorter stalks (less straw) that grow better in hot, arid conditions. However, these hardy varieties may also be harder to digest. Ancient grains like Einkorn have been found by some to be easier to digest than the modern wheat varieties.
Here in the USA, we process most of our wheat into snacks and fast foods, which are obviously not good for you. So the cheap vegetable oils and sugars mixed with wheat could also be part of the problem, compared to slow, balanced European meals with traditional breads.
Homemade Organic Whole Wheat Bread and Other Practical Solutions
Using organic or chemical-free wheat has been a way of life for my family for 30 years. We buy the whole wheat, grind it in a mill, and then knead the bread dough in a Bosch mixer, and bake it in our own oven.
So we don’t have any additives or any herbicide residues in it. And as a result, we have very few issues with wheat. It’s just clean, homemade whole grain bread, buns, dinner rolls, tortillas, bagels, peasant bread, crusty rustic bread, and other traditional loaves that my family has learned to make.
If you have a large family, this could be a great option for you, too. Not only does it improve the kind of bread you eat, but it’s cheaper.
If FODMAPs are the underlying issue, you may want to try making sourdough bread. You can make whole wheat sourdough bread, or mix in just a bit of organic unbleached white flour to make a lighter loaf.
If you don’t eat very much bread, as might be your case on the Hallelujah Diet, you could just buy organic whole grain bread from the store that has a very short list of ingredients and use that. In the last couple of years, a couple of great options have shown up on the market. Brands like Dave’s Killer Bread, for example, are widely available. And there are probably local or regional options where you live as well.
Wrapping it Up
You think you might be intolerant of gluten, but that might not be the case at all. You’re just intolerant of industrial bread made in the USA. There are still ways that you can enjoy bread like the Europeans do. Just don’t eat American bread processed in the industrial American way. (And yes, we can do better.) It is more than just a glyphosate issue, but that could play a role in some cases. The additives and preservatives added to our loaves, as well as the kind of varieties of wheat being grown, the kinds of products we turn our wheat into, along with the fermentation style could all play a role in the digestive discomfort you experience when eating bread and wheat products. But it really might not be the gluten. It might be these other factors that really stand between you and enjoying bread. You might want to experiment a little bit more with some traditional whole grain breads or sourdough breads and see if those work for you. You might find out that wheat isn’t your enemy after all.
