The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain

by Steven R. Gundry

lectins target and attach themselves to sugar molecules, primarily on the surface of the cells of other organisms—particularly fungi, insects, and other animals. They also bind to sialic acid, a sugar molecule found in the gut, in the brain, between nerve endings, in joints, and in all bodily fluids, including the blood vessel lining of all creatures.

If you think that drinking milk gives you a problem, it’s almost certainly the cow’s breed that is at fault, not milk per se.

In fact, if you were

born by cesarean section, it takes fully six months to build a normal set of microbes and a functioning immune system—just because you didn’t journey down Mom’s birth canal!

that “healthy” chicken breast boasts the equivalent of one birth control pill’s worth of estrogenic substances!

PAIN-RELIEVER ENEMIES: Generic ibuprofen or Advil, Aleve, Naprosyn, Celebrex, Mobic, and other NSAIDs. • Friendly Substitutes: Boswellia or white willow bark. • ACID-REDUCER ENEMIES: Zantac, Prilosec (omeprazole), Protonix, Nexium, and Imeprazole. • Friendly Substitutes: Rolaids are a low-sugar source of calcium carbonate. Also chew DGL

wafers. • SLEEP-AID ENEMIES:

Ambien, Restoril, Lunesta, and Xanax. • Friendly substitutes: My favorite combination of sleep aids is in Schiff Melatonin Ultra, or buy time-releas...

THE ENEMY: All artificial sweeteners, specifically saccharin (Sweet’n Low, Sweet Twin, and Necta Sweet), aspartame (Equal and NutraSweet), acesulfame K (also in Equal and NutraSweet), sucralose (Splenda), and neotame. Also steer clear of soft drinks or sports drinks, any health or protein bar that contains any of these sweeteners, as well as any form of sugar, including corn, agave syrup, or pure cane sugar. Ditto for any processed foods with such sweeteners. • Friendly Substitutes: Stevia (SweetLeaf, which contains inulin), Just Like Sugar (made from chicory root), the sugar alcohols xylitol or erythritol (Swerve), yacón syrup, and inulin. Use all in moderation, particularly sugar alcohols, which can create gassiness and diarrhea. • SPOILER ALERT: Any sweet taste, even from stevia, stimulates an insulin response that makes you want more, as discussed above.

you use mouthwash and have been told you need to take medication to lower your blood pressure, ditch the mouthwash ASAP. Triclosan in hand sanitizers and toothpaste has also been shown to produce bladder cancer and to stimulate precancerous

Most hormone disruptors mimic the action of estrogen, whose main purpose is to tell cells to store fat in anticipation of an upcoming pregnancy. Now, 365 days a year, we store fat for an upcoming pregnancy regardless of our age or even our gender!

if you are tired and fat and your hair is thinning, and you are eating whole-grain foods and boneless skinless chicken breast, and your doctor assures you that your thyroid hormone levels are normal, so you can’t be hypothyroid, think again. You may be making thyroid hormone, but it can’t get into the gate and off the plane to talk to each of your cells because phthalates are blocking the way. These phthalate-laden “healthy foods” are some of the very items you will be omitting (or severely restricting) on the Plant Paradox Program.

ENEMIES: Any food that uses BHT as a stabilizing agent, particularly commercial baked goods. Hint: It is likely that BHT has been added if the food comes in a wrapper or has the words “whole grain.” (Don’t forget that any cracker, bread, cookie, or “crunchy” bar probably also contains transglutaminase.) Food manufacturers are not required to list this chemical on the packaging. • Friendly Substitute: Homemade

baked goods using approved flour substitutes (see here). • ENEMIES: Teflon, the brand name for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and similar products used on nonstick cookware, as well as on stain-resistant fabrics and carpeting. Perfluorooctanoic octanoic acid (PFOA) is also used in some nonstick cookware. • Friendly Substitute: Use conventional cookware or those with a ceramic coating that are certified to contain no PTFE or PFOA made by T-fal, Amoré, Culina, and other manufacturers. • ENEMIES: Containers made of BPA plastic. • Friendly Substitutes: Buy products (and store leftovers) in glass or stainless steel containers, which are nonreactive. Purchase canned foods only in BPA-free cans. Some bottled water is sold in non-BPA plastic, but it is debatable that these plastics are any safer. Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water—pun intended—it turns out that BPS causes the same if not more problems as BPA.35 Purchase a stainless steel or glass water bottle (one with a protective wrapper) and use your own tap or filtered water instead. • ENEMIES: Plastic wrap and plastic bags.

Friendly Substitutes: Old-fashioned wax paper works, or reusable cloth sandwich bags (sold on Etsy). • ENEMIES: Store and bank receipts printed with thermal paper, which may or may not contain BPA. • Friendly Substitutes: Have your bank receipt emailed to you. If you need the receipt from a store in case you have to return something, ask the salesperson to put it in the bag. When you get home, use kitchen tongs to remove it. Wash

your hands after touching receipts. Photograph receipts with your smart phone and then get rid of them. Encourage vendors you use often to switch to BPA-free paper such

ENEMIES: Sunscreens with parabens, such as methylparaben. Avoid all sunscreens unless the active ingredient is titanium oxide. Also avoid scented products. • Friendly Substitutes: Check the Environmental Working Group (EWG) website for its Guide to Sunscreens, which includes some products without parabens: www.ewg.org/sunscreen/. • ENEMIES: Makeup with parabens. • Friendly Substitutes: The EWG also has a database of more than 62,000 cosmetic products without parabens: www.ewg.org/skindeep/.

ENEMIES: Deodorants and antiperspirants that contain parabens or aluminum. • Friendly Substitutes: Again, EWG has analyzed and rated deodorants and antiperspirants as part of its cosmetics database: www.ewg.org/skindeep/browse/antiperspirant;deodorant. Acceptable brands include Be Green, Purely Great, and Penny Lane Organics. • ENEMIES: Hand sanitizers with triclosan and all antibacterial soaps. Aside from all their health risks, there is no need to use such products. Soap and hot water are all you need. • ENEMIES: Toothpastes with triclosan and its cousin triclocarban. Triclosan is also

antibacterial toothbrushes. For a long list of other personal care products with this chemical, see http://drbenkim.com/articles/triclosan-products.htm. Pass them all by. You also want to avoid toothpaste that contains sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS). • Friendly Substitutes: Jason, Face Natural, Desert Essence (Natural Tea Tree Oil or Neem flavor), and Trader Joe’s Antiplaque ...

Glyphosate and GMO Trojan Horses • ENEMY: Roundup and similar products.

• Friendly Substitute: Mix a gallon of white vinegar with a cup of salt and a tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap; spray that mixture on weeds. There are a number of variations on this recipe, including lemon juice instead of white vinegar and Epsom salts instead of salt. • ENEMY: GMO foods. • Friendly Substitute: Organic foods.

“No cholesterol” The fats that replace cholesterol are actually full of bad omega-6 fats. “No trans fats” Again, there are mostly bad omega-6 fats in this product. “Partially hydrogenated” There are really bad omega-6 fats in here. “No artificial ingredients” There is nothing “artificial” in rat droppings, either! At best, this is meaningless. “Heart healthy” Big Food and Big Pharma want you to eat this! And by the way, one product certified as “heart healthy” by the FDA is Froot Loops! However, avocado, salmon, and nuts don’t pass muster by the FDA. Go figure. “All organic ingredients” Buyer, beware. Arsenic

organic and it is legal to feed it to so-called organic chickens. It is a major antibiotic and endocrine disruptor. GMO crops, if raised organically, can be also labeled “organic.”

I cannot emphasize enough that it means that these birds were kept in a warehouse (with access to the outdoors, although they have likely never actually ventured out), and were fed organic corn and soybeans. And if the label says “fed an all vegetarian diet,” put the package down and step away from the meat counter. Chickens are insectivores, not grain eaters. In addition, if the label on your fish says it is organic Scottish, Norwegian, or Canadian salmon, put it back. This means that it was fed organic grains and soybeans.

Likewise for organic beef—if the label does not specify that the animal was grass-fed and grass-finished, suspect a trick. All cows at some point in their life eat grass. Therefore, in theory and in practice, all beef can be—and is—labeled grass-fed, even though that cow spent most of its life eating grains and beans in a feedlot.

Long days and short nights stimulate your body to eat as much food as possible to prepare for upcoming winter. Conversely, short days and long nights stimulate us to seek less food, which is scarce, and instead burn the fat we’ve acquired in summer as fuel. Hunting or foraging for food when little is available makes no sense when you would expend more calories than you are likely to find.

• ENEMY: Constant exposure to blue spectrum light. • Friendly Substitutes: • Download an app (justgetflux.com) to change the blue light emitted from any device’s screen to an amber tint when the sun sets, by simply typing in your zip code. Utilize the yellow screen option on your iPhone or Android. The new iOS has an easy-to-use “Night-Shift” function. • When the sun goes down and you use your cell phone or other electronic devices, wear amber-tinted, blue light-blocking glasses, which are made by Uvex, Solar Shield, Pixel, and many other companies. A wraparound style blocks blue light coming from the side as well as that from directly in front of you. • Replace the bulbs in your bedroom (if not all rooms) with blue-blocking bulbs. I particularly like the Good Night Biological LED Lamp made by Lighting Science (www.lsgc.com), which was originally developed for NASA astronauts. In Cahoots with Lectins HOW DO THE Seven Deadly Disruptors come together with lectins

“Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die by those fated instruments more than the weapons of their enemies.”

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

An integral part of self-healing is achieving the weight your body “wants” to be.

definition, the most successful animal is the one that finds the most calories for the least amount of effort.

I’ve heard it ten thousand times from my patients: “Whole grains and beans are key to a healthy diet.” But I am here to tell you that the evidence with animals is exactly the opposite.

pig has the identical digestive system and cardiovascular system to a human, which is why I use pig valves to replace defective human valves.

eating corn fattens up us humans.

If you’ve read my first book, then you know that our genes will always choose this route: maximize calories from food in order to reproduce, then assure the destruction of the parent after the child is grown so that there is sufficient food for that child or grandchild.

The cumulative result is less muscle mass, starved brain and nerve cells, and plenty of fat. Sound familiar? Recently, it has been found that lectins climb the vagus nerve from the gut into the brain and can be deposited in the substantia nigra,3 the switching center in the brain, damage to which causes Parkinson’s disease. This explains why, according to a large Chinese study, patients who have had a procedure called a vagotomy back in the 1960s and 1970s (in which their vagus nerves were surgically cut to treat ulcers) have a 40 percent lower incidence of Parkinson’s compared to age-matched controls.4 Lectins weren’t reaching the brain as readily, and therefore weren’t able to cause as much harm. It also explains why Parkinson’s is more prevalent among vegetarians, as they consume more plants (and therefore more lectins). Remember, the plant is just doing its job: ridding the world of unwanted pests, including you!

for

Sorry, folks, but tomatoes, zucchini “noodles,” bell peppers, goji berries, peanuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, and chia or pumpkin seeds are not ancestral foods—and they are loaded with lectins.

yams, taro, plantains, and other resistant starches simply pass through your small intestine intact. These foods are resistant to the enzymes that break complex starches—hence their name.

the proportion of “good” bacteria in your gut, just as a prebiotic does, not only enhancing digestion and nutrient absorption but also fostering the growth of bugs that nurture the mucous layer of your gut.8 More mucus means fewer lectins getting through to rip open the tight junctions and start the whole lectin-induced cycle of weight gain and misery.9

In addition to not raising blood sugar or insulin levels, resistant starch assists in controlling your weight by: • Reducing calorie count when substituted for wheat flour and other quickly metabolized carbohydrates.10 • Making you feel full longer and therefore consume less food.11 • Boosting fat burning and reducing fat storage after a meal.12 You need not live on an island and eat taro day in and day out to get the benefits of resistant starch. In Part II, I’ll introduce you to more sources of the microbe-friendly food and explain how to prepare them to maximize their benefits. How Leaves Become a High-Fat Diet!

Every time you waver, every time you rationalize something about what you plan to eat, every time you hear a little voice in your head saying, “But this is healthy food,” stop and return immediately to Rule Number 1 (below).

Rule Number 1: what you stop eating is more important than what you start eating.

What You Stop Eating Has Far More Impact on Your Health Than What You Start Eating

Pay Attention to the Care and Feeding of Your Gut Bugs, and They Will Handle the Care and Feeding of You. After All, You Are Their Home.

RULE NUMBER 3: Fruit Might as Well Be Candy

Forget any idea that fruit is a health food. As you’ve learned, eating fruit in season allowed our ancestors to fatten up for the winter, but now fruit is ubiquitous 365 days a year. The next time you ask for a fruit salad as a “healthy” breakfast, I suggest that instead you order a bowl of Skittles candy. Go ahead—it’s the

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Just to be clear, there are three fruits that you can have, so long as you eat them when they are still green: bananas, mangoes, and papayas. Unripe tropical fruit has not yet increased