“We do not have the enzymes to break it down,” reports Discovery News. “It all depends upon how well our intestinal walls close after we ingest it and how our immune system reacts to it.”(3).
The compounds that make gluten, gliadin and glutenin, are immunogenic anti-nutrients that attack your body as you eat it. This can leave you feeling tired, weak and uncomfortable, even after a balanced meal.
The grain is also known to cause energy-draining chronic inflammation and joint pain.
3. Improved Digestion
Despite present in an overwhelming amount of food products, wheat is notoriously hard to digest.
In fact, many people don’t even know that the everyday digestive symptoms they’re experiencing are caused by a gluten-heavy meal.
“Probably one-third of patients in my allergy clinic complain of digestive symptoms such as bloating, diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach pain after eating bread,” explains Isabel Skypala PhD, specialist allergy dietitian at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust. “Some people find certain foods are simply hard to digest and wheat appears to be one of those,” (4).
Perhaps the most well know conditions that cause gluten-based digestive distress are wheat allergy, wheat sensitivity and Coeliac disease, but many other digestive conditions can cause heightened sensitivity to the grain.
Actually, cutting out wheat and other fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols can also improve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
4. Controlled Appetite
Refine carbohydrates found in white bread don’t actually contain the nutrient-rich wheat bran and germ, making it easy for your body to digest. Instead, it contains the starchy endosperm that quickly gets converted into glucose, causing a rise in your blood sugar levels (3).
And since quick rises in blood sugar lead to quick declines, eating bread makes you more likely to get hungry after a meal and crave more simple carbs.
Its lack of fiber and nutritional value also leaves you feeling physically less full and more prone to snack throughout the day.
Start by going off bread for a week. If you start feeling better, try extending your no-bread diet to a month or get creative and skip bread as much as possible.