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

by Steven R. Gundry

the mystery of why our collective health has declined and our collective weight has risen so drastically in just a few decades—and it starts with plant proteins called lectins.

Lectins are found in almost all plants, as well as some other foods. In fact, lectins are present in the vast majority of foods in the current American diet, including meat, poultry, and fish. Among their other functions, lectins level the playing field in the war between plants and animals.

Long before humans walked the earth, plants protected themselves and their offspring from hungry insects by producing toxins, including lectins, in the plants’ seeds and other parts.

It turns out the same plant toxins that can kill or immobilize an insect can also silently destroy your health and insidiously impact your weight. I titled this book The Plant Paradox because while many plant foods are good for you—and form the bedrock of my eating plan—others that have been regar...

That’s right, most plants actually want to make you ill. Another paradox: small portions of some plants are good for you ...

how the immune system makes decisions about what is its friend and what is its foe.

the human microbiome, the bacterial and other organisms that live in you and on you.

the Plant Paradox Program consists of a cornucopia of vegetables, limited amounts of high-quality protein sources, as well as certain fruits (but only in season), tree nuts, and certain dairy products and oils.

Now here’s a shocker to start off your reeducation: the more fruit I removed from an individual’s diet, the healthier he or she became and the more his or her cholesterol numbers and markers for kidney function improved. The more I removed vegetables that have lots of seeds, such as cucumbers and squash, the better my patients felt, the more weight they lost, and the more their cholesterol levels improved! (By the way, any so-called vegetable that has seeds, such as a tomato, cucumber, or squash, and even string beans, is botanically a fruit.) Plus, the more shellfish and egg yolks the patients ate, the lower their cholesterol numbers. Yes, that’s correct. Eating shellfish and egg yolks dramatically reduces total cholesterol.1 As I said in the Introduction, forget everything you thought you knew was true.

But glutens are just one example of the kind of protein known as a lectin

Incredibly, the plant has chosen to manufacture fructose, instead of glucose, as the sugar in the fruit. Glucose raises insulin levels in primates and humans, which initially raises levels of leptin, a hunger-blocking hormone—but fructose does not. As a result, the predator never receives the normal message that it is full, which would signal it to stop eating. (Would it surprise you that great apes gain weight only during the time of year when fruit is ripe?) That makes for a win-win for predator and prey. The animal obtains more calories, and because it keeps eating more and more fruit and therefore more seeds, the plant has a better chance of distributing more of its babies. Of course, this is no longer a win-win for most modern humans, who don’t need the additional calories in ripe fruit that were so essential for hunter-gatherers and our ape relatives. And even if we still needed those calories, until the last few decades, most fruit was available only once a year, in the summer. As will soon become clear, year-round availability is making you sick—and overweight!

Again, when fruit is allowed to ripen naturally, the parent plant reduces the amount of lectins surrounding the seeds in the fruit and skin and then communicates this information by changing color.

phytates,

trypsin

lectins,

Whole grains actually contain all three of these defensive chemicals in the fibrous hull, husk, and bran.

tannins,

alkaloids

nightshades, which include such culinary favorites as tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and peppe...

also includes goji berries, as well as to grains and to beans...

To be sure, plants don’t think in the way you and I conceive of thinking. But any living thing wants to survive and reproduce.

Plants also respond to circadian rhythms, just as humans and other animals do.

It is lectin, not lecithin (a fatty substance in a plant or animal) or leptin (the appetite-regulating hormone mentioned above).

For the most part, with one important exception, they are large proteins found in plants and animals, and they are a crucial weapon in the arsenal of strategies that plants use to defend themselves in their ongoing battle with animals.

Lectins are sometimes referred to as “sticky proteins” because of this binding process, which means they can interrupt messaging between cells or otherwise cause toxic or inflammatory reactions,10

If you have ever experienced brain fog, thank lectins.

Both soy and corn are laden with lectins foreign to cows, causing them to develop such severe heartburn and pain in swallowing that they actually stop eating. Yes, cows develop heartburn from these lectins, just as you do.

To keep their beasts eating more of this fattening food, farmers dose them with calcium carbonate, the active ingredient in Tums.11

“You are what you eat.” But you are also what the thing you ate, ate.

Knowing how the food you eat was grown and raised is not just a lifestyle choice; it also directly affects your health.

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.

RULE NUMBER 1: What You Stop Eating Has Far More Impact on Your Health Than What You Start Eating

this rule does confirm Hippocrates’s dictum that “all disease begins in the gut.”

RULE NUMBER 2: 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.

Give your gut bugs what they want, and nobody gets hurt.

Remember Audrey II, the carnivorous plant in Little Shop of Horrors, who was always screaming, “Feed me, Seymour. Feed me!”? Similarly, the bad bugs are demanding more sugar, refined carbs, and saturated fat—in other words, junk food. That’s exactly what the bad bugs love to dine on, which takes us back to Rule Number 1. Stop feeding the gang members what they thrive on, and they will leave town. It is as simple as that.

RULE NUMBER 3: Fruit Might as Well Be Candy

If it has seeds, it’s a fruit! That means that a zucchini, a tomato, a bell pepper, an eggplant, and a pickle are all fruits! And when you eat them, they deliver the same chemical message to your genes and your brain as a more obvious fruit, such as an apple, does: Store fat for the winter. Moreover (and this will surprise most of you), eating the fructose in fruit causes your kidneys to swell and suffer injury, which can destroy them.

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 its sugar (fructose) content. Instead, it is made up of resistant starches, the things your good gut bugs love to dine on, but we mere humans don’t have the enzymes to digest. Green papaya and mango are great sliced in a salad. Green banana flour comes in handy for making grain-free pancakes and baked goods. Our dear friend the avocado is the only acceptable ripe fruit because it contains nary a trace of sugar and is composed of good fat and soluble fiber, which help you lose weight and absorb fat-soluble vitamins and antioxidants.

RULE NUMBER 4: You Are What the Thing You Are Eating, Ate

All you have to watch is your intake of animal protein.

Which came first, the chicken or the osteoporosis? Actually, the correct answer is corn. Again, you are eating the stuff that these animals ate.7