Einkorn Wheat (Triticum monococcum) seeds

Einkorn wheat is an ethnobotanically extremely important crop because it is an ancient grain from the ancestral line of wheat. Archaeological finds have shown that Einkorn wheat seeds were cultivated by Stone Age people in Central Europe. The ancient heirloom grain is thus one of the oldest cultivated plants of mankind. Due to its lower crop yields, it has been largely forgotten over the centuries, although recently, Einkorn wheat has been experiencing a renaissance as a food crop. Einkorn has culinary properties similar to modern wheat, but it is much more digestible, especially for people with wheat and gluten intolerance. This is probably due to its rather simple genetic structure. Modern wheat has emerged by crossing multiple different Gramineae over and over again and contains 42 chromosomes, while Einkorn wheat has a much simpler code with only 14 chromosomes. These efforts in crossing and breeding wheat are likely to have caused changes in the structure of wheat proteins, which in turn may cause these allergic or auto-immune responses to wheat gluten which many people suffer from nowadays.