Back to the Future with Spelt: World Wellness Weekend, January 28th, 2006
As a baker, I first became aware of spelt and its potential as a bread grain when I noticed spelt loaves appearing on the shelves of supermarkets in Austin, Texas, where I make my home. These loaves were wholesaled by a baker who had discovered that she could not tolerate gluten but that she could eat spelt without suffering any gastrointestinal distress. In our bakery, we had played around with spelt, baking breads and rolls, but we had never crafted a truly great bread. Spelt flour and spelt baking have their idiosyncrasies, and only later, through trial and error, did I learn that the key to baking great spelt bread is a spelt sourdough, the high acid content of which fortifies the gluten in spelt so that the bread, rather than collapsing rises and holds its shape. As a baker and part-owner of the Dallas-based Dr. Kracker Enterprises, I have found that spelt is perfect for the baking of yeast-raised flatbreads. Spelt bread, even when baked with sourdough, has a tendency to dry out and crumble very quickly. Flatbreads are baked dry. Instead of crumbling, spelt flatbreads remain deliciously crisp. Of the many varieties of flatbread we produce, I prefer the ones made with spelt because of their great crunch!
When I first contemplated delivering this talk, I intended to highlight the fact that there is a small but significant group of people in our population that has stopped eating wheat because they have celiac disease (CD), a genetic, autoimmune illness also known as gluten-sensitive enteropathy or celiac sprue. Someone with CD has an immune system that’s like a gun trained on his or her intestinal villi. Absent villi, the tiny fingerlike projections on the small intestine, the body is unable to absorb nutrients into the bloodstream. Gluten in foods is the gun’s trigger.
According to Alessio Fasano, M.D., an Italian researcher formerly with the University of Naples and now with the University of Maryland, one in every 133 people in the U,S, has CD. Possible symptoms include headache, anemia, diarrhea, and skin problems such as eczema and dermatitis. Additionally, people with Celiac Disease risk osteoporosis, miscarriages, deformed offspring, and even non hodgekins lymphomas and adenocarcinomas The only known way to treat these symptoms is to avoid consuming wheat products and grain products that contain gluten. The only way to know for certain whether one has celiac disease is to first have a blood test that will show indications of the autoimmune response to the wheat gluten, but the gold standard for tests is an intestinal biopsy. Because CD is a genetic condition, first cousins of CD sufferers have reason to suspect CD if they have any of the above symptoms. The best remedy or treatment for celiac disease is to stop eating gluten. The villi will regenerate fairly quickly and damage can be reversed.
More prevalent than celiac disease or CD is the relatively common gluten intolerance, which is not genetic and does not, as far as experts in the field know, have the potential to destroy the intestines and lead to life-threatening illnesses even if a strict gluten-free diet isn’t followed. Both people with CD and people with gluten intolerance avoid wheat in order to feel well, but there may be some exceptions in the group with gluten intolerance.
Originally, I wanted to look at spelt as a wheat surprise that could possibly be included in the diets of people with CD. Because I had heard firsthand from a number of people who were on gluten-free diets that they could eat spelt products with no difficulty, I suspected that there was a difference between CD and gluten intolerance, and that spelt may be appropriate for both. This encouraged me to believe that I could recommend spelt to the estimated one in 133 Americans who are celiacs as well as to the gluten intolerant, but I later learned that whether or not people with CD experience unpleasant or painful symptoms after eating any given food containing gluten, their intestines continue to suffer serious damage.
These risks don’t appear to be shared by the one in seven people who are gluten intolerant. Of course, it’s possible that even this population should proceed with caution when it comes to all wheats, including spelt. Cynthia Kupper, executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America in Seattle, herself has celiac disease. According to Ms. Kupper, people with gluten intolerance, not celiac disease, may in fact be able to indulge in spelt. They may actually be reacting to carbohydrates rather than gluten, she told me! Because it may not be the gluten that is causing discomfort to this group, I think it more accurate to call this group “wheat sensitive,” and I will do so for the rest of this paper. Clearly, much more research is needed, and the names of these two disorders may need tweaking to avoid confusion, inaccuracy, and perhaps even potentially serious medical errors. But I’m now inclined to tell my wheat sensitive friends to consult their doctors with regard to including spelt in their diets, assuming it provokes no perceived discomfort, while warning those with CD to avoid spelt as they would any other wheat.
In January of this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began enforcing the 2004 Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) , which stipulates that all foods that contain food allergens or that are derived from food allergens be labeled. Wheat is one of the eight major food groups that Congress has stated account for all food allergies. Labels applied prior to Jan. 1, 2006, need not be changed.
Spelt products will, of course, be labeled “Contains wheat.” Still, a number of wheat sensitive people have told me that the modern bread wheats are the ones they must avoid in order to feel well. They can, and do, eat breads made from spelt. Spelt is often referred to as the ancient wheat, but spelt is actually not that ancient. Spelt is two genetic transformations removed from the truly ancient Einkorn wheat. Twice, spontaneous crosses between other grass species and the Einkorn wheat introduced new genetic material into wheat, each time increasing the number of chromosomes and the amount of genetic material. Spelt was the result of the second crossing.
So where does spelt fit into the wheat family? It is classified as hulled wheat because of the thick hull that encapsulates and protects the seed. The seed can be released by pounding on the hull. This hull and its disappearance is the key to the emergence of modern bread wheats. This transformative event could have occurred very quickly via a simple genetic mutation. The result was a seed freed from its hull. With this change, the new class of wheats called free-threshing wheats arrived on the scene. For the next 5,000 years or so, these two classes of wheats survived. They were planted and harvested, and they nourished both humans and animals at many a farmstead. In fact, spelt was still widely planted in the United States and Europe until the early 1900’s.
While wondering why spelt quickly faded into obscurity, I discovered that spelt’s fate was closely tied to horses on farms. Spelt nourished both humans and animals, but it was more important as a feed grain for horses. Spelt is high in protein, and its hull provides the extra fiber that horses require in their diet. Since the farmer was using spelt as a feed grain, there was no need to mill away the protective hull. However, as agriculture mechanized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, horses were no longer essential on the farm, and the demand for spelt as animal feed declined. Only the Amish retained spelt seeds and knowledge of the grain because they continued to plow with horses. Apparently, spelt remained much more of an agricultural star in Europe and fed both human and beast until very recently. However, I have not been able to find out why spelt endured longer as a grain for the human diet. Like many traditions in Europe, its endurance may have had no reason to survive other than tradition itself.
Meanwhile, the industrial revolution changed bread baking, which in turn influenced the demand for spelt as flour. Bread baking had once been a local or quite regional practice but changed as larger bakeries, producing sliced pan breads, proliferated. Spelt doesn’t work for bakers of commercial breads because it lacks the modern bread wheat’s balance of the proteins gliadin and glutenin. This balance is the story of elasticity and extensibility. For the baker, perfect bread dough needs to have both and both must be correctly balanced. Too much elasticity, and the bread dough is too tight. The gases created during fermentation cannot expand adequately. Too much extensibility, and the bread collapses during the rising process like elastic that has lost its snap. The collapsing of the dough is the problem that characterizes bread baking with spelt.
Plant breeders did not look to spelt to perfect the mix of elasticity and extensibility. They were satisfied with modern wheat’s existing fine balance. Spelt already had one strike against it because its hull required additional milling. The free-threshing characteristics of modern bread wheats made processing from grain to flour quite easy. Wheat breeders successfully teased new varieties out of modern genetic material, and these varieties exhibited even better baking characteristics despite the punishing treatment that doughs received in the mechanized bakeries that became the main source of bread in the United States. Scientists focused on the same wheats and found ways to increase vastly their yield per acre. We don’t know whether, with focused breeding, the gluten balance of spelt could have been improved as was the gluten in modern bread wheats or whether the yield per acre would have increased to the same extent, but fortunately for those of us who love spelt and for whom spelt is a genuine substitute for modern bread wheat, plant breeders left spelt as it was, and there is a different type of wheat available to us. In effect we are the recipients of this wonderful heirloom.
Currently, all heirloom foods are regaining visibility and winning respect as customers learn about their impressive nutritional value and rich complex flavor. There is great charm to unimproved foods that don’t fit into the industrial agricultural model; they bring out the rebel in us that always wants to support the underdog. Whether true or not, I think many of us also feel that these older plants possess an inner vitality that they draw on since heirlooms didn’t depend on the massive input of chemical fertilizers and herbicides to grow and reach maturity.
Undeniably, heirloom spelt holds an important place in healthy diets. Its special taste and color bring it closer to the white wheats that are gaining in popularity. This class of wheats is blond in contrast to the red wheats that are make the daily bread and everything else wheat. Although the white wheats are free-threshing modern wheats, they lack the red pigment that can cause whole wheat to be bitter in flavor. This lack of pigment creates a new flavor profile. Whole grain spelt is not only sweeter in flavor but more gentle to digest. Interestingly, spelt also has some unique carbohydrates called mucopolysaccharides, which stimulate the body’s immune system.
The 12th century Medieval Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, later Saint Hildegard, endorsed spelt, calling it “the healing grain.” She’s actually quoted as saying, “It is rich and nourishing and milder than other grains. It produces a strong body and healthy blood to those who eat it, and it makes the spirit of man light and cheerful.” Perhaps her food wisdom was as far-reaching as her talent as a composer! Although I have clearly said that spelt is a wheat and should be avoided by anyone with celiac disease, it may very well be that spelt is indeed a healing grain and that these healing properties are the reason so many people have made spelt their grain and flour of choice.
For its part, Dr. Kracker Enterprises is extending its reach and moving full speed ahead with spelt baking. We are identifying ways to combine the nutritious power of seeds and the abundant fiber in grain to make food both delicious and healthy. Our new Seedlander, Muesli, Sunflower Cheese, and Krispy Grahams are 100 percent whole-grain spelt and pack two to four grams of fiber per serving. We will continue our efforts to please palates, improve nutrition, and, if possible, to help those on restricted diets to savor the best Nature has to offer. We respect our heritage, we seek to preserve it, and we share it as generously and inclusively as we can, now and in the future.
