Gluten Free too for my wife. And when my daughter and grandson return from Europe. European wheat has less gluten than North American wheat. My daughter has been enjoying glutentastic bread and pizza without getting sick. Apparently European wheat is not the hard red wheat we grow in North America. Another explanation that I have found is that soils weak in sulfur (North American plains) produce more gluten.
Wheat has been extensively hybridized in the US starting before WWI. Crosses with various strains brought by waves of immigrants from around the world have contributed. Finally making incredibly high amounts of gluten commonplace by the 1950s. (Think of the fluffiness of Wonder Bread)
ReplyDeleteI tried purchasing wheat from Italy - supposedly one of the purest of the original European varieties. Didn't help much, or at all.
Somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory I recall something about America giving hard winter wheat (durum) to the Italians after WW2 and there being some adjustment made by the Italians to their pasta recipes. There was even a US Stamp issued honoring Hard Winter Wheat, in he early seventies.
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