Why is a Functional Medicine Doctor Growing Wheat . . . What about Gluten?

With all of the negative attitudes towards gluten, why would someone grow wheat, especially a functional medicine doctor.

Well, before you consider what he is doing is wrong, you will be surprised to hear what he has to say about wheat. After listening to Dr. Arland Hill, you will be asking your farmer why they are not growing wheat.

Functional Medicine and Wheat Gluten – The Untold Story

Shh, don’t tell anyone, but I’m growing wheat. Hi, I’m Dr. Arland Hill, and you may be asking yourself what in the world is a functional medicine doctor doing growing wheat? Doesn’t wheat have gluten in it, and doesn’t every functional medicine doctor say gluten’s bad? Well, yes, but we shouldn’t just throw the baby out with the bath water. There’s more to wheat than just gluten. So let me tell you why I’m growing wheat and why it may be important to other foods that you’re eating.  I’ll show you a real world example of how we’re using wheat to boost the nutrients that are going to be in our vegetables. But there’s other reasons too, so let me put this in context.

Putting Gluten in Its Proper Place

Does this, as you see it right here, have gluten in it? No, it doesn’t. It’s grass. Gluten is actually found in the seed. It makes up about 80% of the seed. This hasn’t seeded out, so we’re still looking at just wheat grass right now. Now, the reason I have it here is because these are what we call our alley crops. You’ll notice on this side over here, you can see a couple of trees, fruit trees, that we have, and they’re in different sections in the orchard here. But in between these rows of trees, we have these alleys and these are where we plant vegetables in the spring, the summer, and the in the fall. But here in the winter, we’re not growing vegetables in this this year, so I wanted to provide more nutrients backs to the ground.

Why You Should “Cover Up” with Wheat

We want to cover the ground up, one, so we don’t have any soil erosion. So we’re building up the soil and not losing the soil when it rains.  Then we also want to make sure that we’re not allowing competition to set in. We don’t want these weeds to come along and start taking over everything that could be in a productive portion of land that’s going to help produce crops. So those are two real important reasons, but there’s one that you should absolutely be interested in because it could have a direct role to play with other foods that you’re eating, and for us, the ones that we’re growing and selling, they’re going to be the vegetables.

Where Did the Extra Nutrients Come From

The reason we like wheat as what’s known as a cover crop for covering up the ground … and this wheat, by the way, also has kale mixed in it. So when we put these seeds out, we also put kale seeds out, and we’ve actually got wheat and kale growing together here. But back to the point about the nutrients is that this what allows more nitrogen, more phosphorus, more potassium to be taken up into that grass, and when it’s in the grass, again, we’re not eating this grass. We may let some of our animals eat this grass, but what we’re going to do with this is to let it grow to a certain point before it gets to a seed head, and then we’re going to cut it down and just let it lay on the ground and provide what’s called tilth.

Wheat Builds Tilth, but What is Tilth?

Tilth basically means that it’s making the ground more suitable for growing other crops, for growing other plants. We’re picking up the nitrogen. We are picking up the phosphorus and the potassium as well as other nutrients along the way. We’re making that more available to the vegetables that we’re going to produce in the next cycle of the crops, and then we’re also making it available to the plants.  Because of that increased texture and increased grass that’s going to be in the ground once we cut it down, it’s going to be suitable for other crops to come behind that.

Fear the Chemicals

So let’s put this in context here. Is gluten bad? Yeah, gluten has problems with it, and by the way, a lot of the problems that are occurring with gluten have a lot to do with the chemicals that are on these crops and when you’re talking about big scale agriculture. Guys, we’re not big scale agriculture. We’re keeping it small. We’re keeping it real out here. We want to grow high quality food, and what you’re seeing here, it’s never going to have any chemicals put on it. We’re not letting the seed heads come out, so we don’t have to worry about the gluten. Plus, we’re getting all the benefits that this crop is going to provide for our next crop.

Sharing the Truth, Not the Typical Talking Points

So, if you’re interested in trying to eat healthy and trying to consume the most nutrient-dense foods out there, share this video with someone. Let them know some of the things that can be done out there apart from the conventional conversation that you hear about things that are necessary, like chemicals that are necessary to put on foods, these synthetic fertilizers that are necessary to put on food. No, they’re not. They’re not necessary to put on food, and this is absolute proof of why it’s not necessary to put it on food.

So share this information with someone. Give them a different perspective, and if you liked it yourself, thumbs up. Comment, let us know what you think about it, if you have some other ideas you want to share. Otherwise, guys, I truly appreciate you listening and look forward to speaking with you in the very near future. Dr. Arland Hill.