Healthy eating or extreme diet?

(Wheatless) Jalapeno Poppers

I am reading a book on my kindle reader app that blames the entire obesity problem on wheat. Typical of books written by doctors, the title comes in two parts, of which, "Wheat Belly" by Doctor William Davis, is sufficient here. 




In "Wheat Belly", Dr. Davis presents what appears to be a logically sound case that wheat, especially the hybridized wheat developed since the 1950's, stands as a major culprit in our nation's (and increasingly, the world's) obesity epidemic. He cites numerous studies that support the case, yet, in most cases the target of the case was gluten induced problems, not wheat particularly. Dr. Davis goes on to point out studies that may connect wheat consumption to some mental issues like schizophrenia and that wheat may affect areas of the brain associated with addiction in the same manner as heroin.  In essence, the book's theme is based on his observation of the coincidence of wheat hybridization combined with the gluten and other studies and his observation that his own patients that followed his no wheat prescription obtained good results.

I am not done reading the book yet, but I find the cure hard to imagine, let alone follow. By Dr. Davis's recommendation a healthful thing to do is to not eat any wheat, or wheat products at all. At least that is what I gather having read half the book. However, that idea strikes me as rather radical and difficult to accomplish, simply because there are a lot of wheat products I would find difficult to give up. I enjoy "Mischbrot" a German mixed wheat-rye bread I bake. I enjoy Inge's German cakes, which are not cloyingly sweet like American cakes. I enjoy pasta occasionally. These three things I would have a hard time giving up. However, I would find it reasonably easy to surrender eating most of the rest of the wheat products available in the market place today.

For now I will leave this here and finish reading the book. I am interested to find out if Dr. Davis writes of the possibility of a vastly reduced wheat consumption prescription rather than a total elimination. I could live with vast reduction, but total elimination places the bar too high in my mind. I will, however, given the sound reasoning he presented, choose to eliminate what wheat I can for a couple months to see if there's any noticeable difference - especially with the belly fat.