In this episode, Stacy and Sarah talk to Cyndi O’Meara of ChangingHabits.com.au and producer of the What’s With Wheat documentary movie about making such an ambitious project and talking to so many experts!

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The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 203: Cyndi O’Meara and the What’s With Wheat Movie

• Intro (0:00)
• News and Views (0:56)
  • Our guest is Australian Cyndi O’Meara of Changing Habits!
  • Also maker of a new documentary What’s With Wheat (featuring Sarah!)
  • Cyndi has a fascinating history!
    • Her mom had 7 brothers, all with haemophilia, which she suspects might due to lead chemicals on the family corn farm in Iowa
    • But the Australian branch did not have health problems and Cyndi wanted to figure out how with an elimination diet
    • So many health benefits right away! The best she’d felt in a decade.
    • She realized that wheat was the number one issue with her and went on to research and discover why that is
  • It’s a part of Sarah and many people’s health journey to understand what factors contribute to your health.
  • The movie ends on a positive note of “just cook tasty food! It’s easier than you think!”
  • Everyone is influenced by Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
  • Rodney Ford was the only person she could find around Australia talking about gluten and wheat.
  • Everyone was so fascinating that she included extended interviews with all the experts.
  • All the experts were given the same questions, but gave very different answers.
  • When she interviewed Stephanie Seneff, her mind was blown, particularly about the shikimate pathway.
    • The shikimate pathway is a metabolic process that every lifeform except animals use to create certain amino acids.
    • Because animals cannot make these amino acids because they cannot do the shikimate pathway, they are essential amino acids that must be obtained in food

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  • There were so many topics that there wasn’t time to cover in the documentary. Maybe a What’s With Wheat 2?!
  • Sarah is a big fan of documentaries for fun, so it was special to see herself in one.
  • Everyone had a great message and perspective, and one question that they were an expert in.
  • Cyndi is constantly combating skeptics who doubt that non-Celiac gluten sensitivity exists (she often links them to Dr. Fasano).
  • Changing Habits has a series of education programs to help people to learn because learning, particularly in diet and nutrition for doctors, will be the key to spreading the healthy message.
  • Why can’t we have our health message go viral when, for example, Ancel Keys was bad and incorrect health message that went viral as anti-saturated fat propaganda.
  • Continued studies find different information when further research is done, but we don’t quickly update our understanding.
  • Only 8-11% of grants are funded so research is very limited. Particular for following up of hypotheses.
  • And scientists are overworked as well as they try to keep finding research that will be funded with the limited funds available. 100 hour weeks hurt Sarah’s health.
  • Also, science is being misrepresented by sensationalist media.
  • Remember: generally one study won’t change the overall scientific consensus.
  • Saturated fat does cause insulin resistance, but there’s a evolutionary reason for it. Generally, you’ll find for every weird quirk of the human body, there’s a reason it got to be that way.
  • Find Cyndi’s documentary at Whatswithwheat.com (And the prices are in Australian dollars, so they’ll be 30% off in US Dollars!)
  • You’ll find former TPV guests Mark Sisson, Terry Wahls (who wrote the forward for The Paleo Approach), Joel Salatin (who wrote the forward for Beyond Bacon). Also, Pete Evans who’s partner Charlotte Carr has been on the show. Also Sally Fallon, who we’ve talked about. Should be interesting, considering Sally and Joel aren’t necessarily anti-wheat.
  • This might be a great resource for someone who doesn’t want to do Paleo but might be benefited by eliminating wheat.
• Thank you for listening!
• Outro (48:19)