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

by Steven R. Gundry

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

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.

Gluten, of course, is one example of a plant component that is problematic for some people, as the recent gluten-free craze has spotlighted. But glutens are just one example of the kind of protein known as a lectin and one factor in the Plant Paradox, and they may well have sent us off on a wild goose chase, as you’ll soon learn.

Because their initial predators were insects, plants developed some lectins that would paralyze any unfortunate bug that tried to dine on them.

Plant seeds can be divided into two basic types. Some are babies that plants actually want predators to eat. These seeds are encased in a hard coating designed to survive a trip all the way through the predator’s GI tract, although a large baby, such as a peach seed, might not be swallowed, and instead simply be left behind. Then there are “naked babies,” which lack such a protective coating; the plant does not want these to be eaten (more on them shortly).

(For this reason, all animals that eat fruit have color vision.4)

ethylene oxide

Thanks to the high lectin count, eating fruit picked too early is detrimental to your health.

These substances include phytates, often referred to as antinutrients, which prevent absorption of minerals in the diet;

trypsin inhibitors,

keep digestive enzymes from doing their job, interfering with th...

lec...

designed to disrupt cellular communication by, among other things, causing gaps in the intestinal wall barrier,...

Whole ...

contain all three of these defensive chemicals in the fibrous h...

tannins,

bitter taste, and the alkaloids found in the stems and leaves of the nightshade family.

tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and peppers, are hig...

goji be...

b...

leg...

thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana),

cabbage family.

Mimosa pudica

When bugs start eating leaves on one side of a plant, the lectin content doubles

almost immediately on the other side,9

lectins in the seeds, grains, skins, rinds, and leaves of most plants bind to carbohydrates (sugars), and particularly to complex sugars called polysaccharides, in the predator’s body after it consumes the plant.

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,

wheat germ agglutinin (WGA),

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.

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

When cows and other animals eat grain- or soy-based feed, both of which are full of lectins, these proteins wind up in the animals’ milk or meat.

meat and eggs of chickens raised on feed full of lectins.

farm-raised seafood, which dine on...

contain more polyphenols.

(Without getting too technical, these beneficial plant chemicals are found in tea, coffee, fruits and berries, and some vegetables.)

it is perfectly legal to keep an animal inside a warehouse its entire life and call it free-range, as long as a door to the outside is open for a mere five minutes a day.

She replied that she ate only organic free-range chicken.

corn and soybeans.

mucus in your nose and saliva in your mouth,

mucopolysaccharides

stomach acid,

bacteria in your mouth and gut

layer of mucus produced by certain cells throughout your intestines.

drugs that eliminate stomach acid and the adoption of a completely gluten-free diet are ill advised except in that small portion of the population diagnosed with celiac disease.

lining of your intestine is only one cell thick,

If one or more of the four lines of defense detailed above are breached,

Zonulin

opens up the spaces between the cells of the intestinal lining, which enables lectins to access the surrounding tissues, lymph nodes and glands, or bloodstream, where they have no business being.

we shouldn’t be surprised to discover that plants purposely make lectins that are virtually indistinguishable from other proteins in your body, a tactic called molecular mimicry.