In Dr. Steven Gundry’s Book, The Plant Paradox, He Says Lectins From Plant Foods Cause Health

in dr. Stephen Guthrie’s best-selling book the plant paradox he says lectins are microscopic proteins that plants evolved to defend themselves from predators including insects and animals that includes humans they are essentially indigestible and have the unique ability to increase the permeability of your intestines that means that they can pass through the wall of your gut and will and be treated as foreign invaders by your immune system this causes an inflammatory response which can set the stage for a host of diseases as well as weight gain what foods are rich in leptin is generally speaking all grains and legumes have more lectins than anything else in some cases pressure cooking can destroy the lectins nightshade vegetables squashes and select nuts and seeds are also rich in leptons do you agree with dr. Guthrie why or why not I I would say I agree with the first part of what he said that lectins are compounds in plants that help to protect the plants and and those basic bits of information about lectins but I I don’t agree that they are the issue that he’s making them out to be and and in fact if they were the issue he’s making them out to be I don’t think plants would be the foundation of the diets of all of the longest-lived people in the world and the one food that is consistently consumed in every blue zone you know there are two things about diet that are that are said that are the sort of the golden threads of diet that we can weave through every single Blue Zone one is the plant-based diet and two is that they eat legumes if legumes were so toxic they wouldn’t be the foundational one of the foundational foods for every single blue zone on the planet so I think that is really important to recognize the second thing to recognize is all lectins are not created equal so there are many lectins some of which have been actually found to be highly protective to health they there have been studies done per tick particularly out of Japan showing that they’re highly anti-carcinogenic and they they’re they’re you know they’re they’re they’re doing studies to look at using them to treat cancer even so there there are a variety of lectins they’re not all the same and in the legume family for example the lectins and small legumes like lentils and even in peas are are not as toxic as those in say red kidney beans which are the hemagglutinin in red kidney beans are actually very toxic and but you almost never see toxic reactions from them why because lectins are destroyed by soaking sprouting cooking and it takes about 30 minutes of you know boiling or cooking at a reasonable temperature to pretty much destroy all the lectins and so that’s why i think they haven’t been found to be an issue you don’t destroy necessarily a hundred percent but you destroy the vast majority of them and i can remember one study that came out showing kidney beans you know having this horrible reaction and people well it was a study of people in a hospital that had been fed undercooked kidney beans you get kind of your symptoms are like food poisoning a horrible stomach upset vomiting diarrhea the whole nine yards you’re sicker than a dog for about five hours and then you’re okay but it’s not a good thing you don’t want to go through it cook your kidney beans so one thing that does concern me is I do see people sometimes selling sprouted kidney beans and sprouted black beans and sprouted large beans as part of a mix and that is not you are not going to get rid of enough lectins just by sprouting you get rid of you know a percentage of them but they’re not as completely taken away and I think that that’s very risky so I would definitely for the larger beans larger beans need to be cooked period

there are so many Paleo Kido Atkins low carb authors and books why are so many people who are well-educated credentialed and smart concluding that the low-carb diet not the whole food plant-based diet is best for human health one of the most compelling important and convincing studies that make you believe that a whole food plant-based diet is the proper diet for humans and that a diet that includes animal products is not well this you know it’s true these diets have become wildly popular they’ve become wildly popular because they work for weight loss they induce fairly rapid weight loss so when you put your body into a state of ketosis especially and so here we’re talking about the ketogenic diet you you burn fat and and it works for that and and with a paleo diet you have to remember with a paleo diet you’re eliminating refined carbohydrates you’re removing dairy products you’re removing grains you’re removing beans but you’re removing a lot of processed foods what are you eating you’re eating meat and you’re eating a lot of vegetables and fruits this is better than the Western diet that’s a lot of fried foods a lot of fast foods a lot of soda pop there’s no soda pop on a on a paleo diet so yes we’ll see some improvements and yes we see some you know short-term improvements in a keto diet and and so what I would say about these diets is that they’re they’re short I think especially a keto diet but even the Paleo diet is there a little bit short-sighted I think a really well-planned Paleo diet if it really is paleo and it’s getting a hundred you know grams of fiber 70 to 100 grams of fiber and 500 milligrams of vitamin C if it really is akin to a Paleo diet it’s a diet full of plants as a matter of fact I did an analysis where I I actually I actually did an analysis using a some software of three days of recommended paleo menus and then three days worth of recommended menus and the vegan diet actually came way closer to the nutritional profile of a paleo diet then then what people call paleo today as a matter of fact the only nutrients that they get closer to a true Paleo diet on are cholesterol because we don’t have any cholesterol on a vegan diet they were closer in protein because the diet contains about 30% of calories from protein they were a bit closer on zinc and vitamin A otherwise all 13 other nutrients were closer on a vegan diet which I thought was quite interesting so so basically I think what people need to understand is what we’re calling paleo isn’t as close to a paleo diet as what they sometimes assume it is and and to get to more closer to the paleo numbers they need to be thinking about more plant foods more fiber more vitamin C more potassium added to the diet and what we know about the connection is that the concern I have is the 30% of calories from these domesticated animals is a huge mistake because we know we have you know so many studies there was a study that nurses health professionals and health professionals follow up study that actually quantified the the increased risk if you replace just 3 percent of your calories from animal products with plant proteins so animal protein with plant protein you reduce your risk of death by I think was 32 percent if the replacement was from processed meat it was I think 19 percent from eggs it was like 12 percent from meat it was about 9 percent from from poultry and about 6% from from fish or or maybe it was 6% from poultry or fish anyway it was in those numbers but you replace 3% of calories from animal protein with plant protein and you reduce risk of death no matter what kind of animal protein you’re replacing then there was another study out of Canada from 2014 where they found in people 50 to 65 years of age if you ate more than 20% of calories from protein you increase your risk of mortality was I think 74% you increase your risk of diabetes and and and cancer by about 400% it was incredible and no we didn’t see quite the same numbers with people over 65 but but what they did find what they did find was the we only saw the increase when it was animal protein when it was plant protein it was the the the results were no longer valid plant protein didn’t increase risk it was just animal protein we have multiple studies showing high animal protein increases risk of disease diabetes heart disease cancers and and so diets that focus on that so Paleo diet is very high in meat because they’re trying to reach that 30% protein no a keto diet it’s fat I mean you’re talking 75 to 80 percent of calories from fat so it is literally some meat which doesn’t contain any carbohydrate and a bunch of oil poured on the meat or coconut oil or I mean they do include a little bit of avocados a little bit of nuts and seeds but not since these they’re 12% of calories from carbohydrate they only allow five so you can only put so many of those in and then the other food they allow is is non starchy vegetables now non starchy vegetables while leafy greens have only about a gram of carbohydrate per per cup they are allowed about 20 grams of carbohydrate so you could have a good amount of greens but other non starchy vegetables contain between 6 and 12 grams per cup of carbohydrate so it’s not like you’re eating cups of vegetables I you know a cup of Brussels sprouts is 11 grams of carbohydrate you’re not eating a ton of that stuff when you’re eating a keto diet you’re eating mostly fat and meat this is not a good plan because what we need to remember is we need to remember that the components that are most protective to human health that we’ve seen time and time again to be most protective to human health are fiber phytochemicals antioxidants pre and probiotics you know all of the trace minerals and vitamins that are needed for health protein coming from plant foods carbohydrates coming from whole plant foods and when people eat that way like the people of the Blue Zones like the people in the Adventist Health Study – and and and and in you know epic Oxford when people are eating more plant foods we actually see better a health long-term comparing in the Taiwanese house study again we see better results long-term on the people eating more plants because plants contain most of the compounds that are associated with better health and longevity better brain function better gut microbiota all of those things are improved on a plant-based diet

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