Food Bullying Podcast
The heart of the wheat kernel: Episode 125
Wheat hasn’t changed – and a 40-year wheat breeder can prove it
If you’ve ever had a patient insist that wheat today is “different” than it was decades ago, or that U.S. wheat must be GMO, Dr. Brett Carver has spent the better part of a decade building the research to address exactly that claim.
Dr. Carver is a Regents Professor of Wheat Breeding and Genetics at Oklahoma State University, where he has worked since 1985. He is not a scientist who lives in an ivory tower – his own description. He’s a practicing plant breeder whose team has developed 37 wheat varieties that end up in the bread, pizza dough, and pasta consumed across the United States and internationally. Approximately 65 to 70 percent of the flour in American pantries originated with varieties produced at land-grant universities like OSU. No other food in the U.S. supply can make that claim.
He joined the Food Bullying Podcast to clear up what he considers two major fronts of misunderstanding about wheat: where it comes from, and what – if anything – has changed about it over the last century.
The answers, backed by his own published research, are more reassuring than most consumers realize.
There is no GMO wheat in the U.S. food supply – period
This is one of the most common misconceptions Dr. Carver encounters, and one of the easiest to correct: there is no commercially available GMO wheat anywhere in the United States. None.
Wheat is simply not easily genetically modified due to its biology. The science of transformation – introducing foreign DNA into the genome – is more technically difficult with wheat than with corn or soy, and the public wheat breeding system has developed conventional techniques sophisticated enough that GMO alternatives haven’t been necessary. There is research ongoing in other countries – Argentina has made efforts to commercialize a GMO wheat variety – but Dr. Carver does not anticipate it entering the U.S. commercial market anytime soon, and he does not feel his breeding program is missing anything by not having that option.
For dietitians fielding patient questions about GMO wheat: the answer is simply that it doesn’t exist in the marketplace.
Wheat has not changed – the gluten is the same as it’s always been
The Wheat Belly book, published in 2011, made claims that wheat breeding had fundamentally altered the composition of wheat and that modern varieties were driving widespread health problems. Dr. Carver was developing wheat varieties at the time and knew those claims didn’t match the reality of what his program – or any public wheat breeding program – was doing.
He didn’t just object. He did the research.
His published findings confirm what wheat breeders have understood throughout: the principal proteins that form gluten – the gliadins and the glutenins – have not changed. These same proteins are present in ancient grains like einkorn and spelt, which are closely related to modern bread wheat. The 33-amino-acid peptide sequence that the immune system responds to in celiac disease is the same sequence that has existed in wheat for thousands of years. Wheat breeding has not altered it.
What has changed is the perception of wheat – driven largely by books and media coverage that the underlying science did not support. Dr. Carver watched that perception shift almost 180 degrees after 2011, and he has spent the years since building a body of research to give dietitians and consumers accurate ground to stand on.
Why some people feel different eating bread in Europe – and what it actually means
This comes up in dietitian practice regularly: a patient returns from Italy or France feeling they tolerated bread better there and concludes that U.S. wheat must be different or inferior. Dr. Carver addresses this directly.
Wheat germplasm is exchanged across borders almost freely within the global wheat breeding community. When he develops a variety for Oklahoma, he draws on genetics from Eastern Europe. European breeders use American germplasm. Wheat is wheat, genetically speaking, whether it’s grown in Kansas or Germany.
What does differ is processing. The U.S. food system feeds a very large population through mechanized production, which requires additives and dough improvers – FDA-approved, but additional ingredients that an authentic, minimal-ingredient loaf wouldn’t contain. Dr. Carver has actually pursued breeding research aimed at developing varieties that require fewer processing additives – fewer dependence on vital wheat gluten and other dough improvers – specifically to make U.S. wheat products more comparable to a simpler European baking experience.
He also notes the obvious: eating bread on vacation in a different country, in a different context, with less stress and more leisure, is a meaningfully different experience from eating at home. The difference patients report is likely multifactorial – and not primarily genetic.
Who actually needs to avoid gluten – and the numbers behind it
Dr. Carver distinguishes carefully between three distinct groups, and the distinctions matter for how dietitians counsel patients:
Celiac disease: Affects approximately 1% of the world population according to the National Institutes of Health. Complete avoidance of gluten is non-negotiable. This is a serious autoimmune condition and should not be minimized.
Wheat allergy: Affects up to 1% of the population, occurs primarily in children, and can be outgrown.
Non-celiac wheat sensitivity: The murky middle ground. Dr. Carver estimates somewhere between 3% and 10% of the population may have a genuine sensitivity that isn’t celiac – a wide range that reflects how much research remains to be done. The small intestine shows no damage, but symptoms are real. What’s causing them is still being sorted out.
Meanwhile, survey data shows 9 to 12% of Americans are actively making dietary choices away from gluten, with millennials and Gen Z leading that trend. Roughly one in five people will reduce or eliminate gluten from their diet based on a belief that it’s healthier. The gap between that number and the 1% with celiac is where the food bullying problem lives.
It might not be gluten – the FODMAP and ATI question
One of Dr. Carver’s most important contributions for the dietitian community is his research into what non-celiac wheat sensitivity might actually be responding to. His working hypothesis: for many people, the culprit may not be gluten at all.
FODMAPs – fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols – are carbohydrates that can trigger irritable bowel syndrome symptoms in sensitive individuals. The primary FODMAP in wheat is fructan, a fructooligosaccharide that is very much present in wheat flour. For patients who believe they have gluten sensitivity but haven’t been tested for celiac, the actual trigger may be fructan – not gluten. A low-FODMAP diet may involve reducing wheat, but that’s a different clinical conversation than gluten avoidance.
ATIs – amylase trypsin inhibitors – are natural defense proteins found throughout the plant kingdom, including in wheat. These have also been associated with non-celiac sensitivity. Dr. Carver is researching whether sensitivity to ATIs, rather than to gluten itself, may account for some of the symptoms attributed to wheat.
The practical implication for dietitians: before counseling a patient to eliminate wheat, it’s worth asking whether the issue is celiac disease, FODMAP sensitivity, ATI sensitivity, or genuine non-celiac gluten sensitivity – because those are different conditions with different dietary implications.
The future of wheat breeding: making it more nutritious, not just more productive
Dr. Carver is candid that yield has historically driven wheat breeding – because farmers are compensated by what they deliver to the elevator, and the public breeding program is partly self-sustaining through the success of its commercial varieties.
But his current research direction is shifting toward health-oriented traits. Specifically, he sees the starch composition of wheat as a larger opportunity than gluten has ever been. Modifying starch so that it’s digested more slowly – producing less of a glucose spike, functioning more like a fiber-oriented carbohydrate – could make wheat meaningfully healthier for a much larger portion of the population than gluten modifications ever could. That work is already beginning in the industry, and he wants to accelerate it at OSU.
He also notes that his funding is not from commercial interests. He is a faculty member paid like any other faculty member, with additional support coming from the university’s licensing of the germplasm his program develops – an arrangement that creates an incentive to keep the program productive and transparent, not to serve any particular corporate agenda. He eats the wheat he breeds. That is, in his words, a vested interest in getting it right.
What a wheat breeder reads on a bread label
His wife has effectively banned him from grocery stores because he reads every label. What he’s looking for: as few additives as possible. The simpler the ingredient list on a bread product, the closer it is to what his program was breeding the flour to produce in the first place – before mechanized processing requirements added vital wheat gluten, dough conditioners, and other functional ingredients back in.
For dietitians helping patients navigate wheat anxiety, this is useful framing: the question isn’t whether to buy wheat. It’s whether to choose products with shorter, simpler ingredient lists – a goal that’s actually aligned with what the people breeding the wheat are working toward.
Learn more about Dr. Carver’s work at experts.okstate.edu/brett.carver and find him on X at @osuwit. Read the related journal article or watch his video explanation of how wheat has changed for a deeper dive into the science.
Want to bring evidence-based agricultural science to your next conference or event? Michele Payn speaks to agricultural organizations, agribusinesses, and dietitian associations on food bullying, consumer trust, and the science behind modern food production. Book Michele to speak →
