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Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by zhte415 on Saturday August 18, 2018 @03:44AM (#17787355)
I like bread. I like wheat noodles.

As a child I was allergic to all dairy products with serious eczema from head to toe, even a drop of dairy would initiate it, entire body covered in scabs, arms in wet bandage inner-wrapping, dry outer bangage should I get exposed to even a little milk product. Yet I do not want all dairy products to be banned, they bring valuable nutrition to diverse groups of people, I was just unlucky, but very lucky to be born in a country with a health service that cares.

Wheat is a wonderful food, extremely nutritious, that has been the cornerstone of the development of multiple civilisations.

Why eradicate it? Just avoid it.

Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by code_duck on Saturday August 18, 2018 @06:41AM (#17787883)
Wheat is not wonderfully nutritious. It provides nothing special and is even somewhat problematic.

If the global food industry was capable of keeping wheat out of their food, that would be fantastic. Unlike dairy, almost all dry foods are contaminated with gluten unless you go to lengths to obtain food that is not.

Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by CydeWeys on Saturday August 18, 2018 @08:43AM (#17788205)
You're speaking from the perspective of someone who always has enough to eat, so you have the privilege of optimizing for nutrient ratios. Billions of other people aren't so lucky, and they just need more calories period. Wheat is great that, along with rice, soybeans, and other staple crops that are better in the growing/volume sense than in the nutritional sense. Not all of humanity can afford boutique heirloom artisanal hand-grown crops that are $10 per pound.

If we're going to optimize for anything, it's for feeding as many people as possible -- there are far fewer celiac sufferers than there are people who go without enough food. Optimizing the food chain to protect you would result in many more people dying from starvation, because you'd be eliminating an efficient, widely grown crop that feeds many. Wheat is the second most important crop in the world, behind only rice.

Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by code_duck on Saturday August 18, 2018 @08:59AM (#17788252)
Actually, I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who is dying from starvation despite being surrounded by available food.

There is nothing special about wheat. All of the resources spent on growing wheat could be expended on many other crops which would provide equal or greater nutritional benefit. The reason wheat is a globally important crop is simply because people have made it that way for arbitrary reasons, like raising European cattle in North America.

Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by dcbadacd on Saturday August 18, 2018 @08:41AM (#17788201)
I'd like to hear about a food that isn't in some way problematic, can you list any?
Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by code_duck on Saturday August 18, 2018 @09:02AM (#17788262)
The problems I am referring to are celiac and non-celiac gluten sensitivity. There are at least a dozen other grains that provide the benefits of wheat without those disadvantages, and that is to what I am referring. Rice, corn, sorghum, buckwheat, millet, teff, quinoa, lentils, and and so on.
Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by dcbadacd on Sunday August 19, 2018 @08:30AM (#17794028)
So the "even somewhat problematic" part of wheat is problematic to only 1% of the entire population and that's an argument to kill off all wheat, yeah, no, try again.