(www.smithsonianmag.com)
"Triticum turgidum" is ambiguous, because this wheat species has many different subspecies, with very different characteristics.
There are 2 important subspecies of "Triticum turgidum", emmer wheat, which was 1 of the 3 cereals domesticated at the beginning of the Neolithic (barley, einkorn wheat and emmer wheat), and durum wheat (a.k.a. pasta wheat or macaroni wheat), which was produced from emmer wheat by a genetic mutation, several thousand years after domestication.
From the article, it is not clear if the discussed wheat is just some cultivar of emmer wheat or it belongs to a more exotic subspecies of "Triticum turgidum".
Any references from the Bible are unlikely to describe anything else but some variety of emmer wheat.
While most wheat-based food is nowadays produced from either hexaploid bread wheat or tetraploid durum wheat, there are on the market various niche products made from spelt wheat, emmer wheat or einkorn wheat (though the product labels frequently confuse the hexaploid spelt wheat with the tetraploid emmer wheat).
Aurion, a mill with a web shop: https://www.aurion.dk/
Kornetshus, a knowledge center on seeds: https://kornetshus.dk/
Both are highly recommended.
Based on the name I think ur (ancient) Dinkel (spelt) is even older than regular spelt but I'm not sure. All I know is that it makes great crackers but terrible pasta and ok bread but not great.
It is really different from usual spelt, which was crossed with wheat and has shorter straws.
Edit: maybe this is interesting to some so I'll write a short paragraph about older varieties. There is also Einkorn and Emmer. Einkorn is considered the ultimate ancestor of all modern wheat varieties. It has been grown 10k years ago and is diploid with only two chromosome sets. Then there is Emmer, which is also ancient and appeared shortly after Einkorn. It is tetraploid and yields two corns per spikelet. If you want to eat like an Egyptian Pharao you can eat bread made out of Emmer ;-)
Rye is entirely different. It is very hardy and frost resistant and can't be baked without sourdough because of the amylase.
At the start of the Neolithic, besides barley, 2 species of wheat were domesticated separately and they evolved through domestication into einkorn wheat and emmer wheat.
Einkorn wheat has always remained a minor crop, while either barley or emmer was the major crop, depending on soil and climate. For instance in the early Ancient Greece barley was the most important, while in the early Roman Republic emmer was the more important. Later, emmer ("far" in Latin) was mostly replaced by durum wheat ("triticum" in Latin), and even later durum wheat was mostly replaced by the hexaploid bread wheat ("siligo" in Latin).
Besides the original emmer and einkorn, other wheat subspecies have appeared many thousands of years later after domestication, either through mutations, like the tetraploid durum wheat (pasta wheat) or through hybridization, like the hexaploid bread wheat (and also the hexaploid spelt wheat).
Why is that? I thought nitrogen is taken in through the roots, then distributed as other ground-based nutrition, regardless of the height.
In the article it describes the crops as more drought resistant etc.
As in all things commercialized, the tempting easy path weakens in the long term. Mono crops are easier to grow and then the soil gets depleted beyond all recognition. White bread probably outsells whole wheat in America but it is basically devoid of nutritional value.
“Old” means things were scarce because people had to work by hand and oxen. So a failed crop meant a dead family.
Oat however is from the tribe Aveneae.
Also larger things like figs and grapes - only after you spend a few years here do you learn that dona olema has one particular fig tree that tastes like melon, and senor rodrigo has a grape vine that makes gigantic (billiard ball sized) ridiculously sweet grapes. This knowledge doesn’t travel to the next valley over, even. Oh, and then you find another vine, the same, climbing a tree in a forest that was a vineyard 70 years ago.
Kinda amazes me how much genetic diversity for crop cultivars there still is, smack under our noses, across Europe.
Maybe you mean it gets more sticky if you cook it too long? But al dente I think it's amazing. It has a nutty taste that works very well with tomatoes if you ask me.
The second best time is when you recover his stash of seeds.
My kingdom for even a tiny bit of scientific literacy amongst people who are reporting on science.
Not only is this absurd ("children" need all amino acids to grow...as does anyone else), arginine isn’t even one of the essential amino acids. Your body makes it unless something is seriously wrong.
The need for arginine may exist during some illnesses and not for children in general, but for very young babies, especially for those born prematurely.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07533...
In any case, I seriously doubt the author is talking about this, given the imprecision of the language. Also, eating this wheat specifically for arginine supplementation is goofy gym-science. Arginine is trivial to supplement.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...
Preterm infants are unable to synthesize arginine internally, making the amino acid nutritionally essential for them. Most healthy people do not need to supplement with arginine because it is a component of all protein-containing foods and can be synthesized in the body from glutamine via citrulline.
Your body is one hell of a lab.
People who do not have Celiac and say they are gluten sensitive usually are not. They are either experiencing a nocebo effect or have gas from other components of wheat rather than gluten. Actual non Celiac reactions to gluten are minor if they exist at all. So when someone says they are gluten sensitive it is overwhelmingly likely they either have Celiac and even a very very tiny amount of gluten will cause them horrible consequences, or they are incorrect and they are not sensitive to gluten at all.
So people on the low-FODMAPs diet end up using "gluten free" as a convenient shorthand for "doesn't contain these particular grains".
Italy recently started screening kids nation wide. Initial results are showing that of 4.4% of kids are affected. [1]
Celiac disease is massively under-diagnosed and GPs knowledge about the disease is limited. Also, celiac disease might cause issues which are not directly gut related: one might end up with a B12 or iron deficiency, one might get migraines, fatigue, gluten induced ataxia and many many more.
[1] https://celiac.org/2025/09/24/how-research-is-shaping-italys...
Pardon?
There are already things like gluten free wheat starch if you want wheat without gluten, but you still have to work around not having the gluten. Like the article alluded to, it is needed for breads to rise.
Here's one that I learned about via their YouTube channel
https://mtranchrescue.com/products/7-s-true-whole-wheat-flou...
That's obviously an oversimplification.
Vague digestion issues, maybe that has an effect.
For celiac there's not much evidence that the difference would change whether someone develops it, and once they do develop it even minuscule amounts are very bad for them.
Whilst having a high amount of gluten forming amino acids might sound good in prinicple, in fact breads do not rise as well when too much is present (the gluten is too strong, fighting the expansion of the dough from the leavening agent).
Cakes require flours to have less gluten forming amino acids again.
I'm not sure about pastry though, a bottom pastry for a pie I would guess needs to be quite strong, but I have no idea if there is an upper limit.
The point here is, flours can be as strong as they like, but too much is actually bad for breadmakers - meaning - gluten levels in the diet aren't changing that much.
Edit: I forgot to mention, some parts of China have a pure gluten dish - where they hydrate the gluten forming amino acids, then "wash" the starch out, leaving only the gluten, which they then cook and eat - so 100% Gluten
A slighly taller variety of grass hardly matters.
Thanks for sharing the story about this ancient wheat but I recall reading about this highly productive type of grains not in agriculture books but in holy books.
Fun facts, this type of miracle grain is mentioned in Abrahamic religions holy books namely Bible (Old Testament) and Quran.
In Surah Al-Baqarah (2:261), "The example of those who spend their wealth in the cause of Allah is that of a grain that sprouts into seven ears, each bearing one hundred grains. And Allah multiplies ˹the reward even more˺ to whoever He wills. For Allah is All-Bountiful, All-Knowing."
In the Book of Genesis (Genesis 41:5), "He fell asleep again and had a second dream: Seven heads of grain, healthy and good, were growing on a single stalk."
This exact multiplication of deeds described in the Quran demonstrates the 700-to-1 ratio represents the actual biological maximum yield for that specific ancient wheat variety under optimal conditions.
All this while I thought the description is metaphorical allegory, but it seems originated from real grains of wheat phenomenon.
The scriptures specifically mentioned "sanabila" a type of grain with multiple ears branching out from a single stalk unlike rice paddy that's grow ears differently.
Another fun facts, in Arabic the word "sabil" meaning providing freely flowing water to travellers, and sanabila share the same root word, most probably derived from this very verse, because charity in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic is sadaqa.
Please note the only Quran in Chapter of Al- Baqarah (Female Cow) mentioned the analogy of multiplications for doing good deeds [1].
The other verses, one verse inside Bible in Chapter Genesis and two verses inside Quran in Chapter Yusuf (Joseph) refer to Egypt Pharaoh's or King's dream, respectively. This led to the introduction of the brilliant economic policy that saved Egypt kingdom from the severe famine that effect other sorrounding kingdoms at the time as per Yusuf's advice based on the correct interpretation of the King's dream [2],[3],[4]. Yusuf later become one of the appointed ministers of Egypt from the very humble beginning of a slave boy, and brought along other Jews to start migrating to Egypt.
Apparently Quran is more accurate since during prophet Yusuf time Egyptian rulers are called King not Pharaoh yet. Only later stage of Egyption Kingdom during Musa (Moses) time, Quran correctly refer to Pharaoh (meaning owner or king of great house) not King.
[1] Quran, Al-Baqarah 2:261:
https://quran.com/en/al-baqarah/261
[2] Bible, Genesis 41:5:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2041%3A...
[3] Quran, Yusuf, 12:43:
[4] Quran, Yusuf, 12:46:
If a straightforward account of a story offends your sensibilities, rather than complaining, simply move on.
Reasonable people may differ and your mileage may vary. What were your key takeaways from the article?
I left out the points about shortcomings of Bourlag's wheat and the value of genetic diversity in a population. But my focus was to encourage people to read an article I found significant.
On a side note I don't use AI to craft HN comments beyond sometimes using Grammarly to check them for basic errors.
Like that line in Barbie, ... actually not a life guard, my job is just "beach".
I wasn’t going to click on the click-bait headline without understanding the topic better, so the length of the original was unknown and irrelevant to me. The above comment tersely explains it enough to satisfy my prerequisite.
The comment, “slop” or not, was useful. When slop fills comments with junk and fake commentary, it’s far more annoying and detrimental than a basic summary. Slop-policing is exhausting to read - just downvote or flag trash instead of adding more noise that takes away from the actual content.
Also, how is this headline click-bait? If anything, it's anti-clickbait, dull, matter-of-factly, and not really that inviting.
Or you do what Claudio Grossi did, and you mix the ancient grain with short growing grains that add stability. Sometimes the solution is simpler then just throwing chemicals at the problem.
You harvest the top crop, the one you want, cutting above the lower height, then go back through and make a second pass with the head lower.
You'll lose some of the lower crop, crushed under the wheels, but it was there as bonus anyway.
- allow modern machines to harvest it more easily
- move slighly more of the plants energy into the seed
- prevent wind damage. (small farms bordered with trees was more typical historically)
On the historical side;
- The long stalks allow the crop to be bundled and dried without the seed touching the ground.
- It makes the stalks themselves useful as a building material in walls, roofs, isolation, bedding.
- It makes for a good grip as the seeds are pulled form the stalks with an historical thresher.
In short, we didn't start breeding grains to be short until modern post industrial farming techniques. Short grain does provide better yield on industrial mono-crop farming. But would have been seen as worse historically.
My father and many other people in my family increased to neutral millets and started giving up wheat as much as they can.
Those problems are worth solving for or roll back to grossini seeds and use his creative technique to not let it withered by wind and let’s you have better nutritional value
Yes, I spent an interesting week hanging out at the cinema!
This grain, while interesting, is far far less productive than modern varieties and less efficient to grow. It's valuable for genetic diversity and rediscovering it is wonderful and valuable, but it is more or less worthless for farmers as anything other than a novelty.
This is clearly not true, considering it has already been successful as a niche specialty product. So you're obviously wrong.
You could become right by weakening your claim. The wheat will remain a niche specialty product, and will not overtake other wheats in the mass market.
Specialty products made on a smaller scale can be plenty valuable and successful. They are not "novelty" products.
That phrase is actually in the article.
"Black Plague almost annihilated FIFA 2026 final" is closer historical range than this usage.
Description of ancient grains, meanwhile, reach back into Egyptian and other empires that precede the bible.
If I think of any food and taste from the 70's, I feel suffocated now. It's disgusting to see all processed, sugar-loaded, gene-modified, beautiful foods in the stores.
The economy planners gave you cars, roads, food stores, supply chains and took away your time to grow your own food. You are just forced to take 5x amount of food in your car and consume it like biological pump with inputs and outputs. You became fat and ill and the economy tells you to believe it as a norm and call it growth. They even show in TV how all this is normal so that you don't feel bad about it.
You are turned into a country full of workers with everything streamlined to make you focus on the work. Your short working years are good enough. It has machinery to dump you in nursing home and not let your younger family care for you. Small kids? You got care centers. Don't waste your time in caring for others or yourself. Just get into the commute circus.
> GM foods, with a goal of high yields, lost all nutritional value
sounds like unmitigated total bullshit.
If GM grains have zero "nutritional value" then why do tests show otherwise and why do people not die when they spend a year eating GM grain ?
Ag scientists measure nutritional value for all crops, GM and not GM, - how is possible they haven't noticed "zero nutritional value" results for GM grains?
https://www.incitecpivotfertilisers.com.au/resources/agronom...
Further:
these data support the conclusion that GM events are nutritionally similar to conventional varieties of wheat, corn, and tomato on the market today.
Again, why do people on exclusive GM grain diets not die due to zero nutritional value then?
Living or dying is a bit coarse a metric, don’t you think?
> There’s people that die on a Twinkie diet.
This literally has nothing to do with GM corn V non GM corn nutrition levels.
Living V dying is a spectrum with various grades of malnutrition in between - is there _any_ actual evidence of less nutrition from 100 tonne of GM grain v 100 tonne of the same grain sans the GM mod that increases weed killer resistance?
Recall the claim above is that GM grains have zero ( 0 , nada , nothing ) nutritional value.