The problems of modern wheat, focusing on the Eucharist
Is it possible to be grain and alcohol free AND Catholic?
I do not have Celiac's disease, but I cannot digest grains or alcohol, among other foods. I am under doctor supervision as I eliminate all foods from my diet except for grass fed red meats, pasture raised chicken, a few types of fish, and a certain type of vegetable. It is very important that I completely purge myself of all other foods during this time, because even a little bit of grain, for example, can hinder my healing process. In fact, it's not something that I "cheat" at anymore. When I took the wine at communion last week (for the first time in many weeks,) my stomach curled and my gut was in pain for a little while.
The Eucharist is at the heart of Mass. The reason we attend Mass is to receive the Eucharist as a community. It is of such importance to our Catholic faith that we are asked to participate in it daily. But what is the Eucharist? I do not mean to ask if it's actually Jesus or not. What are the ingredients? It is something that is safe for all people to consume? After all, "All are called to the supper of the Lamb." I do not need to explain what the wine is made of. The host (bread,) however, I think deserves some explanation. There is an entire theology around the ingredients used in the host.
The host may only be made of wheat and of water. No other grain is allowed, and the Vatican stated that it must contain enough gluten to contain the "confection of bread." (http://www.catholicceliacs.org/CatholicCeliacOverview.pdf) So not only must the host be made of wheat, it cannot be wheat with the gluten removed. The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration did create a "low gluten" host, containing 0.01% gluten, which has been approved for use as a host. To those with celiac, however, this is still more gluten than they should consume. Also, to those with a true wheat allergy, like me, this is not a solution.
Now that the dilemma is apparent, you may ask why it so important that only wheat is used. Catholic Answers addresses the question very well: http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-wheat-bread. To sum up the answer, wheat is the most symbolic of Jesus as it is so heavily referred to throughout the Bible and in His parables. No other grain possesses the same qualities to uphold the symbolism. One example they use to explain the necessity of wheat in the Eucharist is to compare it to baptism. Water was the only tool used to Baptize in scripture, so it would not be appropriate to Baptize today in another liquid, such as juice.
But let's back up. Why bread in the first place? Why can't any food be treated as the Eucharist? After all, when the early Christians gathered in each other's homes to worship Jesus, they all brought food so they could share a meal. Though bread was a staple food during that time because wheat was so common place, the food they brought was not necessarily limited to bread. It is actually the same at the Last Supper. Scripture implies that the disciples were eating food other than bread before Jesus broke the break. The Eucharist as bread can best be explained by two scriptures:
John 6:51-58: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." 52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" 53 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 "For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 "This is the bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."
and
Mark 14: 22-26: 22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” 23 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” 26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Jesus always refers to himself as bread.
From this point on, this blog will be theory based on what I understand to be true.
First and foremost, I question if the problem of wheat today would be a problem for anyone if the wheat used today where the same type of wheat the Romans and Jews were eating during Jesus' time. There are several reasons why wheat today is drastically different from wheat back then.
First and foremost, wheat back then was always organic. When farming was first discovered is about when the first great cities formed. Civilization went from small tribes and communities of people to great metropolises with millions of people. As I learned on the Discovery Channel during History of the World, this was primarily due to the new ability to mass farm wheat, therefore mass producing it. Bread was as the center of the economic structure of these cities, and many people ate only bread as it was the only food they had access to. But the farming was simple then. Farmers simply kept the ground fertile, planted wheat, and harvested it at the appropriate time. Bugs were a concern if they destroyed the crops, but people ate bugs as a normal part of their diet then. Do you remember the story about God sending a locus plague to Abraham? It was so that Abraham could eat and stay nourished. Today, these practices simply wouldn't do. Those simple farms could not produce enough grain quickly enough to support the demand for wheat in today's world economy. The norm today is to feed the soil with non-organic (chemical) fertilizers that feed crops so they grow faster and spray the crops with non-organic (chemical) pesticides that are toxic to bugs (keeping the bugs away.) These chemicals both grow into the grain and do not wash off the grain. When we eat conventional wheat today (which is the type of wheat the church uses,) we are also ingesting significant amounts of toxic chemicals that may be the true cause of reactions in many people.
Secondly, because the grain was organic, it was allowed to grow at its own natural pace. When a crop is grown in good organic soil at its own pace, it is able to absorb all the nutrients it needs to be complete. The wheat that people ate back then, the wheat Jesus used in the Eucharist, was loaded with nutrients, making it a food one could live off of. Today, crops are grown as quickly as possible with the help of "conventional" farming methods such as chemical fertilizers and genetic modification (which I'll get into next.) This means that the wheat is not only grown in non-organic soil (therefore less nutrients and more chemicals to absorb,) it's also grown so quickly that it does not have the chance to absorb as many nutrients as it can. Wheat, by today's standards, is not a nutrient dense food. It is not considered a complete food by any nutritionist, and it is recommended that other foods be eaten with it in order to get enough protein, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins into our diets.
Thirdly, crops today are often altered in a way farmers back then could not have dreamed of. Many of our crops are genetically modified, but wheat has been especially modified over the years. http://authoritynutrition.com/modern-wheat-health-nightmare/. Genetic modification of any food allows it to withstand the environment better, allowing foods that normally couldn't grow in some climates to grow. This is a blessing in some parts of the world, such as in Africa where food is scarce. Genetic modification also helps the crops grow more quickly, which is important quality in our modern food chain. If wheat or corn didn't grow quickly enough, our grocery stores would have significantly less food in them. However, genetic modification has proven very dangerous results. Third party testing companies keep finding, after many tests, that GMO crops cause tumors, thyroid failure, gut damage, and other organ failure in test subjects, mainly rats. Though the debate between companies that fund GMO crops and third party (non-biased) testing companies is still raging (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/19/161424735/as-scientists-question-new-rat-study-gmo-debate-rages-on), no one can disagree that crops today, including and especially wheat, is not like the wheat that Jesus ate. The vast majority of wheat sold today is genetically modified.
Finally, people back then knew how to treat their crops so they were most edible. They knew that a crop always did its best to protect itself from its environment. Grains emit chemicals that are toxic to bugs, and their exteriors are tough to break. People back then soaked their grains until they sprouted. This caused the exterior to soften, the grain to stop emitting chemicals to ward off bugs, and for the crop to open up and start growing. When the grain sprouts in this way, it is releasing its nutrients, which is when it is the most digestible. Our organs do not have to work as hard to pull nutrients out of spouted grains. Today, however, it is almost unheard of to sprout our grains before eating them, causing us to absorb very few nutrients from eating grains. Despite this, grains are still the greatest source of food in our world today.
Back to my original question. Would people who can't tolerate wheat and gluten today be able to tolerate wheat and gluten from Jesus's time? It's a question that needs to be explored more, but there are evidences that helps me to guess at an answer to the question. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/03/food.allergies.er.gut/. Food allergies are on the rise in first world counties. In fact, food allergies are becoming common. There has been an 18% increase in food allergies since 1997, and the amounts of genetically modified foods have skyrocketed since then. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27319364/#.Uv5cMWeYa70. There are other contributing factors to why food allergies might be on the rise: we are too clean today, we eat too great a variety of food, and the amount of rancid and moldy foods in markets today is very high (peanut butter can be very moldy because peanuts grow underground and oxidize too quickly, and I'm suggesting that a person might be reacting to the mold instead of the peanut.) However, we cannot dismiss the fact that allergies have greatly increased alongside the increase in genetically modified crops.
But there is one more factor to consider. This factor is what the Blood Type Diet is based on: http://www.dadamo.com/. People all over the world in 32 AD did not share the same diet. While some cultures thrived on grains, such as the culture Jesus lived in, other cultures didn't have any grains at all. Native Americans and Eskimos did not eat grains or fruits. In fact, they had access to very few vegetables. They ate mostly meat and fish. Research shows that when someone from one culture ate another culture's food, they got sick and couldn't thrive. I personally am following a highly tailored version of this diet and am healing because of it.
So it's a difficult guess, but I'm leaning towards a guess that most people today (who are used to eating wide variety of foods) could tolerate the bread that Jesus broke, even if they couldn't tolerate bread today. I do not guess this is the case for all people, but most people. I am willing to bet that I personally could tolerate His bread to some degree, whereas I cannot tolerate any wheat today.
I want to move back to the point I made about the Blood Type Diet so that I can make a new point. Jesus only talked in parables that related to the culture of the time, so that everyone he spoke to could understand his message. It would not have made sense for him to make parables about kangaroo babies living in their mother's pouches, because people of the Middle East did not know what a kangaroo was back then. Therefore, it only makes sense that Jesus spoke about wheat so often. Wheat was a major part of the culture he was living in. If Jesus came to America and preached to us in our time, he may not have chosen wheat as the basis for most of his points (I have no clue, however, what he would use because Americans are basically clueless about what they eat and eat such a wide variety.)
I therefore wonder if it is appropriate to implement theology for all cultures and all people based on the culture of one ancient civilization. Should all cultures break wheat bread for the Eucharist when wheat is not native to all cultures? If Jesus had originally been born and preached in America to the Native Americans, would he have chosen to transubstantiate beef at the last supper instead?
I am a big fan of rules, structure, and theology that keeps people on the straight and narrow path. Breaking away from very important theology about the center of our Catholic faith, the Eucharist, is not my intention. I do, however, feel the need to question the use of wheat in the Eucharist due to the significant amount of modern health issues related to modern wheat.
If I were to make one suggestion to the church at this point in time, it is a suggestion that does not challenge the theology about the use of wheat. I strongly suggest that the church move towards using only organic sprouted wheat in the host. (I realize the problems of bread expiring too quickly to mass produce hosts and ship them to churches, but I do think a realistic solution is to hire someone to bake the hosts at every church. I know there will be a lot of resistance to this, but I don't see why it wouldn't work if churches were willing to put the effort in. It is, in fact, what churches used to do until modern times.) My hope is that this change would allow a greater number of people to safely participate in the Eucharist, because it eliminates many (though not all) problems of modern wheat. I also argue that this would allow the Eucharist to be much more similar to the bread that Jesus broke.
I am very open to hearing your opinions, comments, suggestions, questions, and corrections about this blog. Please do leave a comment below.
--Sarah Langer