Wheat

 ‘To everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food,’ and thus it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good (Genesis 1:30-31).

 Commentators state that the word herb is not limited to plants like sage, rosemary and thyme. The phrase every green herb includes leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, and grains. All foods that God created for man are good, not just flavorful greens. He didn’t intend for us to become sick as a result of eating food.  And there’s no evidence that the diseases people suffered in ancient Israel were food-related. (See past posts on the diseases of first century Palestine, posted on 11/05/12 and 11/07/12.)

A Problem with Wheat Today

Wheat was one of the grains God said shall make the young men thrive (Zech. 9:17). Almost all biblical references to grain, bread, wheat and flour are positive. Bread made from wheat was a staple in Israel. Fine flour, raised bread and unleavened bread played important roles in Israel’s worship and holyday observances. Jesus referred to Himself as the living bread that came down from heaven—the bread of life (John 6:35, 51). On two occasions, He fed thousands of followers with a few loaves of bread (Matt.16:8-10). Jesus compared the outcome of His death to the fruit borne of a single grain of wheat that dies (John 12:24).

But wheat in the 21^st century has been linked to health problems.[1] A number of doctors and nutritionists believe that wheat shouldn’t play such a starring role in the today’s diet. They question what’s happened to wheat in the last fifty years and how it’s different from wheat grown 3,000 years ago. They speculate that commercial milling may affect human digestion of wheat.

Ruth in Boaz’s Field (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Step Back in Time

Considering these questions in a biblical setting takes us to the book of Ruth, a romance set in the grain fields of ancient Israel.  As the narrator tells the story of a young widow and her devoted benefactor, readers get a sense of how grain was grown and harvested during the time of the Judges.

Ruth supported herself and her mother-in-law by gleaning in the field of Boaz, her relative. Six times in reference to his property, the narrator used the word “field” (singular), and once the phrase, “part of the field belonging to Boaz” (Ruth 2). A wealthy man like Boaz may have owned only one field or parts of a field. Boaz called his reapers “my young women” and “my young men,” suggesting that his grain business was small enough to manage with workers he knew.  He supervised the fieldwork, ate meals with the workers and joined in the harvest activities. Reaping and gathering were done by hand with the assistance of ox carts to carry bundles to the threshing floor.[2] Ruth carried her own grain to the threshing area and beat out the kernels with a rod. For an owner’s larger harvest, oxen pulled heavy sledges or a millstone over the stalks to separate the seed heads. Using pitchforks and baskets, workers winnowed the seed from the chaff. If Ruth were dropped into a Kansas wheat field today, she wouldn’t recognize uniform stalks bred for mechanical harvesting. It would amaze Boaz to watch high-tech harvesters mowing, threshing, winnowing, and separating grain in one continuous operation.

Left: Hulled wheat (einkorn), with spikelets. Right: Free-threshing wheat (common wheat). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The wheat grown 3-4000 years ago was domesticated wild grass, probably emmer or einkorn wheat. Both emmer and einkorn have different genetic structures than the wheat grown today.[3] Dr. William Davis states that wheat today “is not the same grain our forebears ground into their daily bread.”[4] He adds that from the original strains of wild grass such as emmer and einkorn, “wheat has exploded to more than 25,000 varieties, virtually all of them the result of human intervention.”[5]  As part of a worldwide effort to reduce hunger, “wheat strains have been hybridized and crossbred…to make the wheat plant resistant to environmental conditions, such as drought, or pathogens such as fungi…and to increase yield per acre.”[6]

Storage and Milling

Grain stored as kernels keeps indefinitely without spoiling. Ruth would have stored her barley and wheat as kernels and ground them into porridge or flour when it was time for a meal.

Author Sarah Ruszkowski explains that each wheat grain is “made up the endosperm, the bran, the fiber, and the wheat germ. The milling process grinds all these parts together to create a flour. However, the wheat germ is very oily and can become rancid rather quickly when broken and exposed to air. Flour manufacturers must remove the wheat germ for preservation and longer shelf life.”[7] In short, commercial milling sacrifices some nutritional benefit to produce flour with a long shelf life.

She adds, “Unfortunately, the wheat germ is the most nutritious part of the wheat berry. By removing the wheat berry, fiber, and bran twenty-eight of the thirty known vitamins and minerals in a single wheat berry are lost leaving only the endosperm,”[8] although millers do add four vitamins back into the flour to enrich it. The fresh flour Ruth made by grinding wheat berries as needed contained all 28 vitamins (especially the B vitamins, vitamins A and E) thought to be important for proper digestion of wheat.

The Future

The work of Norman Borlaug in the 1940’s and 50’s introduced a variety of short, high-yield wheat that revolutionized feeding the world. But changing the genetic code of wheat might have its downside.  It’s not likely that scientists can further the green revolution and simultaneously eliminate any resultant side effects.

A time is coming when things will balance. God will return all things to how they should be, a Divine reset that restores the creation to proper functioning. God, man and the land will relate in what Isaiah envisions as marriage.

But you will be called, “My delight is in her,” And your land, “Married;” For the LORD delights in you, And to Him your land will be married (Isa.62:4).

by Mary Hendren