Hybridization gone too far?

General Discussions
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I’ve been doing some research on why so many people have a hard time digesting modern wheat varieties. I know that herbicides and pesticides are part of the problem. But even wheat grown without those things, has a hard time being digested by many. Fermenting the wheat seems to help, as with sourdough bread. But it appears the problem has a deeper genetic origin. The most concise explanation I’ve found is:

“Traditional wheat, often referred to as ancient grains, has a simpler genetic structure and produces weaker gluten proteins, making it easier to digest. In contrast, modern wheat has been heavily hybridized, resulting in stronger gluten that can be harder on the digestive system, potentially causing discomfort for some individuals.”

It’s not that modern wheat has had genetic modification (GMO). It’s that it has been “heavily “hybridized”. This phrase had me concerned. Isn’t that exactly what were doing with landrace gardening? Heavily hybridizing? Can hybridization go too far and you end up with something nearly indigestible? How do we avoid the same mistake with other crops? How will we know when we’ve gone too far?

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But wheats hybridization also involves a lot of inbreeding creating less genetic diversity from the parent plants before hybridization… remember one of the main reasons so many seed catalogs/companies create hybrids is because of “hybrid vigor” which is actually just a plant doing better than its inbred parents, the amount of genetic diversity in modern wheat is still very small even when hybridized. Our goal is to be creating genetically diverse populations through hybridization of plants with very different genetics where as the hybrids your referring to have a very small genetic diversity… I find this graphic helpful the colored dots representing different genetics and there loss over time

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The book return to resistance which has been mentioned a lot and there is even a post on here that summarizes the chapters may help you get a better understanding of what modern hybrids are vs what hybridization is in general, the latter being natures intention and our goal. Here’s my power point on seed saving and a couple of the slides on hybridization may help you understand if a whole book feels like too much!

Seed Saving.pdf (12.5 MB)

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Thanks for the reply. I know the genetic diversity is key. I guess it’ s more of a cautionary tale of how over selection for a particular trait like gluten content can produce unintended consequences.

I’ll have to check out “Return to Resistance”. I’ve read “Landrace Gardening”, “Botany of Desire” and “Breed Your Own Vegitable Varieties” so I’m not adverse to reading a whole book lol.

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Definitely unintended selection has happened in almost every aspect of our major food crops for instance nutrient density /lack there of is directly connected to lack of genetic diversity and population bottleneck like we see with many crops including what you described with wheat, I just wouldn’t say that hybridization is the cause, rather inbreeding is.

Definitely suggest that book it was a wonderful read and taught me a lot though certainly outdated in some aspects!

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Charles Darwin, way before we understood anything about genes, observed cross-pollinating plants grow better than inbreeding plants.

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My memory of this isn’t totally clear and I did not go back and try to find the reference, but I do remember hearing from the old Biodynamic grain farmers that when they hybridized the wheat it went from being a tall plant way up off the soil in the sun and wind, to a short squatty plant that would be easier to harvest. But there were tradeoffs. The plants that were closer to the ground had more fungal problems, then the ones high in the air in the sunlight. I’m sure there was more to it, and this is just a single kernel but I think it’s worth following.

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Hybridization is just general necessary way of breeding. You get variety of results depending of your goals. You can selectively breed varieties that have just those traits you want (and usually have some unwanted/unneeded/detrimental traits) or you can let nature do most of the selection and just guiding by removing some unwanted traits. It would be matematically impossible to get anything that wouldn’t have any unwanted/unnecessary/detrimental traits. Nature isn’t perfect no matter how much humans try to play with it. What you are discribing is most likely just a result of favouring/trying to get many resessive traits in a single variety and having to accept more unwanted traits.Or not knowing that those traits are unwanted as some results might take years in the population to be visible. It’s similar case with varieties that are bred to be ornamental. Usually the expression is a result of several resessive traits and so generally you give up some in taste, growth or vigour. That’s why I’m not too keen on going looks first. I do favour unique looks in the first generations as it’s good way of knowing that there is something different to other plants, but in the end you have to choose is it worth keeping them if conditions seem to want to eliminate that trait. With species that crosspollinate easily 2-3 generations will make sure, given that the popolation is big enough and early selection isn’t way too hard, that all possible traits have had the change to spread and that either stay or get eliminated in the harder selection in subsequent years.

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Another claim that I’ve read is that the number of chromosomes in modern wheat is part of the problem.

“Modern wheat has a complex genome with 42 chromosomes, which leads to the production of stronger gluten proteins that are harder to digest. Einkorn, the oldest type of wheat, has only 14 chromosomes, resulting in weaker gluten that is easier on the digestive system.”

I’m not sure if a more complex genome is a problem in other plants or if it’s just wheat.

It seems modern wheat has been created through Allopolyploid hybridization (2 different species mating, resulting in a full set of chromosomes from each parent).

Maybe I’m digging too far into the weeds on this but it’s an interesting case study.

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I think its also worth noting that modern bread is vastly different than bread all throughout history. Even breads made with grape must, weren’t the same as todays loaves. Most people are consuming highly processed, artificially fortified bread.

If we ignore the differences in grains just for now, and zoom in on the difference between how our modern bread and ancient breads are made, it makes sense to me why a lot can’t eat bread today.

Here’s an article I found talking about a process used in the UK for industrial bread, I dont know if it’s the same in the US, but I wouldn’t doubt it’s something similar.

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I wonder if our gut biomes are also different? Maybe back then we had better gut biomes to digest certain wheats? I not sure but I feel there are multiple factors, from the genetic diveristy of modern day wheat to the diversity of gut flora in modern day humans. + there some people who can’t digest glutten & need glutten free alternatives. I wonder what that’s all about & how people developed the inability to digest glutten (maybe it’s the gut biome again or something else).

Sure, it depends on what you select for? You can always breed a less digestible version.
Altho as @Taja points out, genetic inbreeding in many modern lines may also be a cause of this? Genetic Bottlenecking does have unintended consequences & these could certainly be subtle things like digestibility of glutten.

Hmm… making the crop easier to harvest on mass may have tradeoffs like affecting glutten! Lots of modern day varieties aren’t bred for nutrition as the prime objective, it’s often traits like ease of harvest by machine, shelf-life, & many other relevant traits. Often diverse flavors & nutrition get sidelined as not so important traits.
This is something to follow as a lot of our modern day foods are less nutritious, but the consumer is becoming more & more aware of this & so some grocery store varieties are now being bred for this in mind.

The Purple GMO Tomato was bred to have Purple Snapdragon genes & thus leading to higher concentrations of anthocyanins in tomatoes. This is one way some industry breeders are attempting to capture the “health conscious” demographic.
Some other greenhouse cherry tomatoes I found at my grocery store are very delicious, some are definitely bred for taste without compromising shelf storage.

:100: Exactly! Sometimes it’s a mutation of the same variety, like in some landscaping spruces a “Witches Broom” effect happens where a single branch or spot in the tree grows everything in minature. Sometime this form reverts back. Countless examples like this.

This is interesting & it’s something worth looking into. I do know when Chromosome double in many of crop species, it often results in bigger edible parts due to literally bigger cells. Could it be that when chromosome double, it pulls genetics from different genomes which process glutten differently & thus combines them all into more glutten?

Yes! Allopolyploid hybridization created a lot of modern crops, from Quinoa, Peanuts, Canola, Potatoes, Strawberry, Ethiopian Kale, many Asteraceae & Poaceae crops & so much more!

Allopolyploid hybridization is also how new plant families, orders, tribes, genera & species are made! In particular the Caryophyllales order evolved thru Allopolyploidization! Allopolyploid hybridization is super common in Brassicaceae & Poaceae families.

This phylogeneic tree of the Caryophyllales order shows ancient Chromosome doubling events, big cause for the spontaneous diversity! Claytonia is one of those genera that simply doesn’t care about mis-matching chromosomes, it easily finds a way around hybridization barriers. Easily could be where the next big root crop emerges from & likely will be a big polylpoid (Following the same trend as many domesticated crop species).

Caryophyllales Order Phylogenic Tree Show Chromosome Doubling Polyploidy Events
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With the focus on extreme sterilization in our food systems, most gut bacteria never get that far. Most people just don’t eat raw fermented foods, and even as infants everything is required to be “safe.” So yes, our gut biome is very different from that of our ancestors simply because the introduction of bacteria, etc., has been all but eliminated. But our digestive system works symbiotically with the gut biome, so digestion is hampered. That creates a lot of problems.

Added to that, the gluten levels in ancient wheats can be as high as 6-10%. With modern wheat, and particularly with the added gluten in bread recipes, it’s as high as 30%. I think people with gluten intolerance are for the most part reacting to a severe overdose which triggers an ongoing immune response. We are simply not designed to handle an overdose on that level.

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Mmmm, should not ‘designed’ be distinguished from ‘adapted’? If it’s an adaptation that can be reacquired by healthy engagement with microbes, that would be a wonderful thing.

Here’s an excerpt from the biography of a veterinarian in Yorkshire which always comes to mind when the human microbiome comes up. Fair warning; it does get a tiny bit graphic. I’m used to such things, having grown up around hospitals of the undeveloped world.

There were three of us in the cheerless yard, Isaac Cranford, Jeff Mallock and myself. The only one who looked at ease was Mallock and it was fitting that it should be so, since he was, in a manner of speaking, the host. He owned the knacker yard and he looked on benignly as we peered into the carcass of the cow he had just opened.

In Darrowby the name Mallock had a ring of doom. It was the graveyard of livestock, of farmers’ ambitions, of veterinary surgeons" hopes. If ever an animal was very ill somebody was bound to say: “I reckon she’ll be off to Mallock’s afore long.” or “Jeff Mallock’ll have 'er in t’finish.” And the premises fitted perfectly into the picture; a group of drab, red-brick buildings standing a few fields back from the road with a stumpy chimney from which rolled endlessly a dolorous black smoke.

It didn’t pay to approach Mallock’s too closely unless you had a strong stomach, so the place was avoided by the townspeople, but if you ventured up the lane and peeped through the sliding metal doors you could look in on a nightmare world. Dead animals lay everywhere. Most of them were dismembered and great chunks of meat hung on hooks, but here and there you could see a bloated sheep or a greenish, swollen pig which not even Jeff could bring himself to open.

Skulls and dry bones were piled to the roof in places and brown mounds of meat meal stood in the corners. The smell was bad at any time but when Jeff was boiling up the carcasses it was indescribable. The Mallock family bungalow stood in the middle of the buildings and strangers could be pardoned if they expected a collection of wizened gnomes to dwell there. But Jeff was a pinkfaced, cherubic man in his forties, his wife plump, smiling and comely. Their family ranged from a positively beautiful girl of nineteen down to a robust five year old boy. There were eight young Mallocks and they had spent their lifetimes playing among tuberculous lungs and a vast spectrum of bacteria from Salmonella to Anthrax. They were the healthiest children in the district.

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Designed or adapted, it amounts to the same thing in this case. Our digestive system works best with a huge population of microbes, bacteria, and other critters. In a healthy system they do a lot of the sorting, break down items too difficult or badly chewed, destroy toxins, and in general help all the organs function better. They also hunt down and destroy the bad critters that are at the base of many digestive issues.

Our current obsession with cleanliness, not to mention the squeamish reactions to anything that might be alive when we put it in our mouths (bacteria, fungi, microbes? Ewwww!) means that our gut is not colonized on the level it should be for optimum health.

This means that there aren’t enough of the good bacteria, so the bad guys run rampant, destroying the system still further.

We have a symbiotic relationship with the micro world, just like the soil we grow our food in. Sterile soil doesn’t grow the best produce or animals. We don’t maintain optimum health either, in a sterile environment.

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I’m not disputing any of those points, only making a distinction between ‘designed’, which we can’t do anything about, and ‘adapted’ which can be corrected if we put in the effort. The former implies that no effort will improve our ability to process high amounts of gluten, and the latter implies that it’s worth trying to make an effort to improve our state of adaptation. Your assessment of the present state is spot on. But after the present state comes: ‘Ok, that’s the situation at the moment. Now what?’ And breeding higher diversity grains (including lower-gluten wheat) is certainly a good place to put our efforts. But so is re-adapting ourselves. Spending more time in the dirt is a good start, I think. Which I’m about to go do, actually. Slight break for a sandwich and posting (mmm, gluten) and then back to mulch-making. And occasionally nibbling the unwashed greens, wild and cultivated, which are flourishing around us right now. Human nature being what it is, we do not always, as a species, do the better thing. Even when we know what it is. But individuals can resolve to change.

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We’re working with different definitions, which is fine. As I understand it, you’re saying that they’re two different things but intertwined. We’re “designed” for strong bones. We “adapt” to a sedentary lifestyle and break bones all the time. Use it or lose it.

So base structural identity vs what is done with that structure.

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Exactly so. A really good book on the subject is Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, MD. She explains the science of epigenetics: how genes turn on and off over generations in the abundance or dearth of nutrients. Healthy function of our systems can be easily compromised by unhealthy habits of intake and lifestyle. And those losses can compound and reverberate over generations. But that which can be lost can also be regained. With the proper (if somewhat daunting) application of effort. Right now the common notion of genetics is ‘that’s what I was born with’, but that’s overly simplistic and can be used as an evasion of responsibility. I, at least, used to think that what I was born with could not be corrected. Now I know that some of what I was born with can be corrected, with time and lots of hard work. The amount of work involved is hard to deal with, some days, but it sure beats the ‘I’m stuck with it’ mentality I used to have. Also, crucially for me, I now know that by dint of all that hard work, I can prevent my health issues from being such a big deal to my daughter. Who today is playing in the dirt and eating wild garlic with dirt on her hands. As we have to say around my house sometimes to keep our spirits up: We can too do stuff.

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Often when someone says “You can’t “ it’s a reflection of their own internalized limitations. I’m glad you’re making the necessary changes.

For me, it was knowing growing up that our family has a strong disposition toward addictive behaviors, and choosing to avoid those things like the plague.

Epigenetics is amazing. When I was growing up they called a huge part of the genetic code “junk dna.” They’re just starting to scrape the edges in figuring out what it really is.

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Might this also be why some people struggle to digest sunroot aka Fartichokes (Helianthus tuberosus)? Or why people have bad gas problems from eating beans? Might be the gut bacteria in your gut biome is not used to beans. I don’t know for 100% certainty but it does help explain it. Also Cumin, Fennel & Anise seeds help with digestion. Fenugreek also seems to help reduce the gas.

Wow! Now that’s a lot of glutten, hmm… I wonder if more glutten actually makes the wheat taste better? What does glutten add to wheat & in turn add to the final product bread? Corn aparently doesn’t have any glutten but still taste delicious!

Isn’t this also how the soil food web works best too? More diverse soil microbes & life = more resilient healthier soils? Perhaps our gut biome functions similarly to the soil life below? Perhaps Diverse life everywhere is good?

However I do wonder if you compost your own humanure, doesn’t the soil life that grows your food finally get’s to interact with your personal gut bacteria? In this scenario, I can see a symbiosis loop system forming, the soil life fixes your gut biome & vice versa? Not to far fetched eh?

True but it’s also a self-reinforcing cycle, the more we try to clean our food, the weaker our adaption to dirty food gets & thus the even more strict we have to be about cleaning our food.
Truth be told there are some really nasty things you could get, so there should be a balance. For example if you try to eat aquatic vegetables, you have to make sure the water is clean enough to be safe. Don’t forage for watercress if there’s a cow farm shitting into the river you eat your food from (Might get nasty buggers in your system this way).

Well put! So It’s not so far fetched after all, it’s nice that we both came to the same conclusion.

:joy: :sweat_smile: yes indeed! It really is use it or loose it. I get this feeling our bodies are like “Oh so you aren’t using you muscles enough, eh no need to maintain them then”. Working out is like the only way to tell your body, hey I need those muscles & bones.

Same goes with the heart muslce & your brain, if you don’t use them, you loose them.

Interesting so natural selection not only selects for genetics but epigeneitcs as well!

:100: genetics is like the loaded bullet, your lifestyle choices are what pull the trigger.

I don’t as often as I should! But I do occasionally pick wild garlic greens & wash the root sometimes but I big concern is all the toxic crap like pesticides, herbicides & other industrial nasties that are close to where I see delicious wild garlic. Landscaping herbicides can be harsher than foodgrade ones like those at the grocery store but maybe the positives outway the negatives? All the more reason why I want to grow my own food where I can simply not spray the toxic shit to destroy nature. It’s why I got into foraging wild plants since I had to place to garden.

True :joy: :sweat_smile:, it often is, but hey I guess the truth hurts good.

Indeed amazing! Fasha was also mistakenly considered junk (and how wrong were we :joy:). But knowing that we could be so wrong about this makes me think what are we so wrong about now.

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One of the known problems with keto and carnivore is the abdominal upset when switching off of carbs. Your gut biome has to take the time to switch over to using meat, which means all the good guys that helped you digest carbs are killed off or go dormant while the meat eaters proliferate. So yes, any new food requires changes before it can be eaten easily.

Gluten is the protein that allows bread to rise. Used in conjunction with either yeast or other leavener, it creates the structure the bubbles form in. When new wheat was introduced with a higher gluten content (initially accidental) people saw their breads rise much stronger and higher, creating an instant demand for the new wheat. There is gluten in corn and rice, but in such small amounts that it’s not much help.

Yes, there are some really nasty things out there, but as mentioned before part of the gut biome is a suite of predators that hunt down the bad beasties. Unless we kill them off with antobiotics, or never colonize our systems in the first place. And the cow farm is no more natural than an antibiotic.

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