If your boat is sinking and water is gushing into the hull, instead of bailing faster or using a bigger bucket, both of which are an exercise in futility, you need to plug the holes. Likewise, if you have a health problem, slowing its progress, as modern medicine suggests, is not a solution; instead, you need to stop the problem in its tracks. Only then can your body start to heal itself. Believe me, your body has the ability to restore itself to perfect health, once you eliminate the foods and other forces that prevent it from healing.
Now that you’ve initiated the weeding phase of the Plant Paradox Program, it’s time to begin the six-week (minimum) repair process. The first step is to stop eating the foods full of lectins that are continually blowing holes in the walls of your gut. If you did the three-day cleanse, you have already begun to eliminate such foods. Once more, let me emphasize the point embodied in Rule Number 1 (see chapter 6)—contrary to everything you’ve been led to believe, it’s the things you don’t eat that will dramatically change your health. Once you have that principle firmly established in your mind and practice it on a daily basis, you can move on to Rule Number 2, which says that eating certain foods and taking certain supplements nourish the good bacteria—aka “gut buddies”—and their friends, which have begun to come out of hiding during the three days of Phase 1. Simultaneously, you’ll continue to starve the bad bacteria by eliminating the foods they thrive on, along with other disruptive products that hinder healing.
Make no mistake. For the first two weeks, this will be a challenge, because you will be removing a huge number of so-called healthy foods, which are actually making you sick. You might even suffer some withdrawal symptoms, such as low energy, headaches, grouchiness, and muscle cramps. If so, understand that it merely confirms the old adage: the definition of an addict is someone who uses or eats something that he or knows is killing him, but does so nonetheless. All I ask is that you give me two weeks during which you will hate me, and then see how much you like me after that. But remember, although you will see the changes in two weeks, it takes at least six weeks to cement new habits. Stay the course for six weeks and you will find that it becomes virtually automatic.
The short food lists I promised you follow. For the next two weeks, you should eat foods only from the Say “Yes Please” list, and you should not eat any foods from the Just Say “No” list. The Phase 2 recipes include many of these “Yes Please” foods. Phase 2 meal plans appear here, again including vegan and vegetarian variations. (Depending on how you respond to the first two weeks, you may be able to slowly and incrementally start reintroducing some lectin-containing foods on that list, but I strongly advise you to not add such foods for the full six weeks.) I suggest you copy this list and carry it with you wherever you go. Take it to the supermarket and restaurants. Keep a copy at your workplace. Refer to it often. Soon, following it will become second nature.
For those of you impatient folks who just couldn’t wait to start the Plant Paradox Program and jumped here without reading Part I, the list is followed by a quick summary of why I am telling you to do these “crazy” things. I sincerely hope that as you begin to see the results of following the program, you will take the time to read the earlier chapters. It will help you understand why the Plant Paradox Program works and why it is a lifetime approach to eating, not a quickie diet to follow and then revert to your old habits.
No Means No
THE JUST SAY “NO” list is so named because no human being ever ate any of the foods on it until at least ten thousand years ago, when man began to cultivate grains and other crops. Until that point, grains, pseudo-grains, and beans were not part of our forebears’ diet. As a result, our ancestors and their gut buddies never encountered or dealt with the lectins from these seeds. In terms of evolution, getting to know and develop an immunological tolerance to a new lectin within a ten-thousand-year span is like speed dating—it simply cannot be done. These modern seeds are totally different from the plants and other foods that form the basis of the Plant Paradox Program. In contrast, the ancient foods you will be eating have been the sources of vibrant human nutrition for millions of years. Perhaps just as important, the lectins and polyphenols in these beneficial plants and their leaves have been prevalent in the human diet for so long that your immune system and your gut buddies have developed an intimate and symbiotic relationship with them.
Yes, you read that right. Not all lectins are problematic; however, it does take time, lots of time, for our kind to handle them and the messages they convey. Because this messaging has been constant and consistent over millions of years, these plants foster human health. (While I am on the subject, let me again make it crystal clear that you are not going to eliminate all lectins from your diet. However, you can control which ones you consume and how much.)
So, again, I ask you: Do you want to trust a plant that mankind has dealt with and with which it has developed a mutual admiration for over millions of years, or one that humans first encountered just a few thousand years ago?1 If you are hesitant to answer, let me have Dirty Harry answer for you: “You just got to ask yourself one question, ‘do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” After treating tens of thousands of patients, I can assure you that the folks who thought that they would get lucky by eating whatever they wanted are the same folks who believe that the house wants you to win at a casino.
White Is Right
AS WE DISCUSSED in earlier chapters, all cultures have tried to deal with the lectins that were making its members ill. For ten thousand years, mankind has been trying to make bread white. The vast majority of the nasty lectins, especially wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), are in the bran, which makes the bread brown. Most cultures have been successful in getting rid of the bran—think of French baguettes or Italian white pasta. Italians would never countenance whole-grain pasta! (Meanwhile, brown bread was relegated to the poor.) The same lesson applies to rice, the dietary staple of four billion people. Over the eight thousand years rice has been cultivated, why has every effort been made to remove the hull to create white rice? Well, the hull contains the lectins, and these smart folks have figured out how to eliminate them. However, recently all that changed with the fateful advice to eat “whole-grain goodness.” Let’s reiterate what we learned in Part I: “Whole-grain goodness” is a modern disaster—and in fact something that your ancestors desperately and successfully tried to eliminate or lessen ever since grains entered the diet. Whole-grain baguettes, croissants, pasta, sushi rice, and soba noodles? Absolute nonsense first, and poison second.
The King of Lectins
AS WE LEARNED, beans, peas, soybeans, lentils, and other members of the legume family (often referred to as the so-called pulses) are another relatively recent agricultural addition to the human diet. An individual bean may be small, but with the highest lectin content of any food group, beans can have a big impact. Five raw black beans or kidney beans will clot your bloodstream within five minutes. Ricin, the lectin found in the castor bean, a plant native to Africa but now thriving in Southern California, is the most potent lectin known. A couple of molecules of ricin will kill a human within minutes, making it a favorite espionage tool. Remember, plants don’t like you, and they (and their babies) are armed and dangerous!
Want some examples of bean chemical warfare? Massive outbreaks of “food poisoning” have occurred in schools and hospitals when, as part of a “healthy eating days” program, cafeterias unwittingly served undercooked beans.2 According to the Centers for Disease Control, 20 percent of the food poisoning cases in the United States are the result of lectins in undercooked beans.3 Does this sound like a health food? Eating canned beans can also raise your blood pressure, thanks to both the BPA in the lining of most cans and the lectin content.4 Best to give canned beans a wide berth. Ditto for tofu and edamame (green soybeans), along with any other unfermented soy products. They are most definitely not the health foods they are made out to be. Remember, these are foods that we use to fatten animals for slaughter. What makes you any different?
Despite these serious concerns about legumes, pressure cooking is a great way to destroy the lectins and retain the nutrition in lentils, kidney beans, and the rest of this large and varied plant family. (See “Glad Tidings for Vegetarians and Vegans” and “Not Grandma’s Pressure Cooker.”)
The Dairy Dilemma
ANOTHER OF OUR culture’s food icons, placed high on the healthy foods honor roll, is milk, which has no place in a health-conscious diet—or at least cow’s milk doesn’t. Let me remind you that if you think you are lactose-intolerant, or if milk stimulates mucus production, you are actually reacting to the lectinlike casein A-1 protein (see chapter 2 for a complete explanation of the casein A-1 mutation and its effect on cows around the world). Fortunately, goats and sheep are not affected by this mutation, making their milk and dairy products acceptable on the Plant Paradox Program, with the word of warning that they all have Neu5Gc, the sugar molecule associated with cancer and heart disease.
New World Lectins
WE HAVE DISCUSSED how Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas led to the introduction of New World plants to Europe, Africa, and the Far East. As a side note, my Paleo friends just don’t seem to understand that no European, African, or Asian had ever been exposed to these plants (and their lectins) before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Therefore, why they have any place on the Paleo diet is perplexing. The same folks who rail against the evils of grains—and I’m with them on that—love American plants, including the nightshade5 and squash families, along with peanuts and cashews, and sunflower, chia, and pumpkin seeds. Contemplate this: The lectins in the nightshade family include solanine, a neurotoxin.6 Again, all New World plants have troublesome lectins that most of mankind has eaten for no more than five hundred years. Even Native Americans came from Asia, so these plants are “new” to all of us.
According to my friend and colleague Loren Cordain, Ph.D., author of The Paleo Diet, the first book on the subject, studies that were conducted to see whether humans could absorb the omega-3 fats in chia seeds proved that indeed they could. There was only one hitch: The researchers had hoped to prove that these omega-3 fats would reduce inflammation. But in fact, inflammation markers in the subjects who ate chia seeds went up slightly, rather than decreased, as had been expected.7 You may be getting some omega-3 fatty acids from chia seeds but their lectin content outweighs any benefit.
The Most Popular Nut Is Not a Nut
The peanut, which originated in the Americas, is a legume, not a nut. As such, it is loaded with killer lectins. Did you know that 94 percent of humans carry a preformed antibody to the peanut lectin?8 Get this: The lectin in peanut oil produces atherosclerosis in experimental animals, including even our primate cousins the rhesus monkey—but when that lectin is removed from the oil, atherosclerosis does not develop.9 And here’s a stunner: When peanuts are fed to humans and their resulting bowel movements are fed to rats, precancerous lesions appear in the rat colons.10 All these dangerous effects are the result of consuming the peanut lectin. Think about that the next time you are out at the ballpark!
The Irritating Cashew Nut
Despite its name, like the peanut, the cashew nut is not a nut. Originally found in the Amazon rain forests, it, too, is a bean, which hangs separately from the fruit. Thanks to its potent lectins, Amazonians always threw the “nut” away and ate only the fruit. The shell around the nut is such an irritant that cashew workers must wear protective gloves. There are numerous reports in the dermatological medical literature of outbreaks of rashes after consuming cashew nut butter or the nuts themselves.11 Cashews are actually in the same botanical family as poison ivy. Keep that in mind before you munch on some cashews. And in my clinical experience, cashews dramatically increase inflammation, particularly in my patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
SUCCESS STORY
The Cashew Connection
Here’s an example of what can happen when just a single problematic food sneaks back into your diet. Patrice L. was an extremely thin woman who had battled rheumatoid arthritis since her teenage years and had the joint deformities to show for it. At age fifty-nine, she was afraid of the effect that long-term steroids and immunosuppressants were having on her, especially with her advancing osteoporosis. We started the Plant Paradox Program and within three months, she was off steroids and all other medications and all her inflammation markers had normalized. Once she felt good, we started our routine three-month blood test and follow-up program. On her second-year visit, a typical marker that I follow for lectin ingestion (TNF-alpha) was mildly elevated for the first time since her markers had normalized. I asked if she was cheating on the program at all, and Patrice was aghast! “No. Never. Why would I?” she replied. So, we went down the “bad food” list. True to her word, she was avoiding all the usual suspects like the plague. Then we got to cashews. She said she had completely forgotten that they were on the avoid list and had recently been on a cashew kick! In fact, there was a bag in her car that she had been munching on the way to her appointment. One month later, a recheck showed her inflammation was gone—along with the cashews.
American Bad Guys
TWO OF THE worst lectin additions to our diet are the American grain known as corn (maize) and the pseudo-grain quinoa. We have talked at length about the dangers of corn, but did you know that the French banned corn as unfit for human consumption in 1900 and allowed its use only to fatten pigs? This was prompted by an outbreak of congenital mental retardation (cretinism) in northern Italians, who had adopted corn as their main grain. As you now know, corn is not a natural food for cows either.12
The American pseudo-grain quinoa is just as troubling. The Incas had three detoxification processes to remove the lectins in quinoa. First, they soaked it, then they let it rot (fermented it), and finally they cooked it. If you’ve used quinoa, you’ll know that the first two of those instructions are not on the package directions. Need I add that most folks who go gluten-free regard quinoa as a great substitute for the grains they have foresworn? In fact, the lectins in this pseodo-grain quinoa only further mess with their gut wall.
SUCCESS STORY
Mother Knows Best!
Alicia M., a forty-year-old Peruvian, relocated to Los Angeles from Lima a year ago but continued to eat her traditional diet, which included quinoa as her staple starch. However, since her move, her bowels and overall health had become a mess. Bloating, sleep troubles, IBS, and brain fog welcomed her to America. Yet she continued her native diet (and shunned American fast food poisons)—until she sought my help.
When we got to quinoa on the Just Say “No” list, Patrice was shocked! She had eaten it all her life without any problem. When I started to explain that the Incas had three steps to eliminate the lectins in quinoa before they ate it, her eyes flew open wide. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “My mother always said you could not eat quinoa without first pressure cooking it. I thought that was just an old wives’ tale, so I have been eating it without pressure cooking it since coming to America. And you are not going to believe this, but my mother visited two weeks ago and bought me a pressure cooker! She was right, but I thought that she was just being old-fashioned.”
Six weeks later, I got the call that I was expecting. “You and Mom were right,” Patrice told me. “I’m back to normal, and I love my pressure cooker!”
Dealing with Deadly Nightshades
YOU’LL RECALL THAT the nightshade family includes eggplants, potatoes, peppers, goji berries, and tomatoes. Would it surprise you to know that Italians refused to eat tomatoes for two centuries after their native son Columbus brought them home? To this day, Italians peel and deseed tomatoes before making tomato sauce because the peels and seeds contain the lectins. The clever Italians also hybridized the Roma tomato to maximize the ratio of pulp to skin and seeds. Cooks then blanch the tomato in boiling water, pull off the skin, cut the fruit in half, squeeze out the seeds, and presto—pulp minus the skin and seeds. And by the way, tomato sauce and pizza were invented just a little over 120 years ago, making them very new foods in evolutionary terms.
The same approach applies to cooked Italian red peppers. When you open a glass jar of them, do you see any peels and seeds? No. They have been removed, which is not necessarily the case in most American products. The Indians of the American southwest always roast, peel, and deseed their peppers, again to rid them of lectins. Likewise, you won’t see peels and seeds in a can of green chilies. Once more, the lectins have been removed. And why are Tabasco and other hot sauces fermented? Because using bacteria to break down the lectins is a time-honored method of lessening the lectin load, just as the Incas did with their quinoa. There is substantial evidence that fermentation significantly reduces lectin content. For example, fermentation in sourdough kills gluten.13 And fermentation eliminates 98 percent of the lectins in lentils.14 If you are willing to invest the time, you can banish lectins with the age-old technique of fermentation—although a pressure cooker can do the job in a fraction of the time. Just remember that this won’t work with gluten-containing grains.
While we are on the subject of methods used to minimize the impact of lectins, let me overturn a few more myths. Soaking dried grains does not remove gluten or WGA. And sprouting legumes does not make them any easier to digest. In fact, it actually increases lectin content.15 Feeding sprouted beans or grains to lab animals has been shown to cause cancer.16 However, as we will discuss further in the next chapter, removing the skins and seeds from tomatoes and peppers and peeling and deseeding squash does reduce the lectin load. Speaking of squash . . .
The Squash Family
WITH THE EXCEPTION of the cucumber, which was first described in India three thousand years ago, but only made its way to Africa and Europe with Columbian trade, the squash family hails from the Americas. As such, its members have lectins that have been foreign to humans for most of their evolution. It bears repeating that any “vegetable” with seeds, such as pumpkin or zucchini, is a fruit, which will have grown only during the summer. And sugars in these summer fruits that we call vegetables signal your central operating system that winter is coming. This means there are two reasons to avoid the squash family: the lectin content and the store-fat-for-winter message they convey to your body.
SUCCESS STORY
The Attack of the Tomatoes
When fifty-year-old Renate Z. sought my help, she was taking three medications and using two rescue inhalers to manage her severe asthma, which was accompanied by severe arthritis, hypertension, and high cholesterol. Within a month of starting the Plant Paradox Program, she had stopped all her medications, including her blood pressure pills, and tossed her inhalers. She also lost thirty pounds over the next six months. When I saw her ten months into the program, she mentioned that about a month earlier she was hungry one night and went to the refrigerator, where her husband had left a container of grape tomatoes in plain view. Renate hadn’t had tomatoes in nine months and said to herself, “What the heck. I’ll have just three.” Fifteen minutes later, she suffered a massive asthma attack! Because she had thrown out her inhalers and medications, she had to call 911. The night in the hospital made her a firm believer in the ability of plants to harm their predator using chemical warfare. She hasn’t wavered since.
You Are What They Ate
YES, I HAVE said this a few times already, but it is so important that it bears repeating (again). If you feed grains or beans to fish, chicken, cows, pigs, or lambs, they become walking, clucking, and swimming ears of corn or bushels of soybeans. This transformation has occurred only in the last fifty years, coincident with our epidemic of health problems. Some of the most dangerous plant lectins now lurk in the meat of our favorite animal foods. This is but one reason to moderate protein intake. My research and that of others have confirmed that we are overproteinized as a society. From childhood, we are programmed to become protein-aholics. And eating modern animal protein is a major cause of our obesity crisis.17 As you will soon learn, the single factor that stands out in long-lived societies is the very small amount of protein, and particularly animal protein, that its members consume during their long life span. Limiting animal protein—and let me remind you that a fish is an animal as well—extends health span and life span.
Good Fats, Bad Fats
THE OILS LISTED in the Just Say “No” list are all chemically derived from lectin-bearing seeds or beans, meaning they should be avoided as much as possible. I used to include canola oil, made from rapeseed, on my acceptable foods list; however, almost all canola oil now comes from GMO seeds, so I have removed it. For now, and for at least two weeks, I also want you to limit your intake of all long-chain saturated fats, such as coconut oil and animal fats, along with most other mono- and polyunsaturated long-chain fats, such as olive oil, avocado oil, and MCT oil. Also limit your consumption of cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, and cream cheese (even from grass-fed animals), all of which contain saturated fats.
Instead of using olive or coconut oil in this period, I recommend perilla oil. It has the highest content of rosemarinic acid (from rosemary), which improves cognition and memory.18 You may not have heard of it, but it is the primary cooking oil in Korea, Japan, and China. You can find it at Asian markets, natural foods stores, and Whole Foods, as well as from online sources. Perilla oil also has the highest content of alpha linolenic acid,19 a form of omega-3 fat used in the Lyon (France) Heart Diet, which has been shown to be more effective at preventing heart disease than the low-fat American Heart Association diet.20 The Lyon Heart Diet established the gold standard for heart-healthy diets in 1994. Another good alternative is MCT oil (MCT stands for medium-chain triglycerides), which is 100 percent composed of ketones. It is sometimes called liquid coconut oil because it remains liquid even at cold temperatures. The body burns MCT ketones for fuel easily without turning them into body fat. Unlike regular coconut oil, it contains none of the long-chain fatty acids on which those nasty lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) can ride. Other good choices include macadamia nut oil, walnut oil, avocado oil, Thrive algae oil, and ghee. (Ghee is clarified butter, meaning that the milk solids—protein—have been removed and with them the offending lectinlike casein.) You can also use citrus-flavored cod liver oil on salad or to dress cooked vegetables.
Along with perilla oil, which does the best job, all of the oils and fats on the Say “Yes Please” list block LPSs from breaching the gut barrier. Unlike other polyunsaturated fats, long-chain fish oil omega-3s also block the entry of LPSs past your gut wall.21 I’ve mentioned before that LPSs ride into your body from your gut on saturated fats. But these fats can’t get through without special transport molecules called chylomicrons. The LPSs stow away on chylomicrons, which are formed to carry the long-chain saturated fats, and hitch a ride to get through the gut wall. And the last thing you want are LPSs invading your body right now. Sadly, even my best friend, olive oil, should be limited for the first two weeks of this phase of the Plant Paradox Program, as it, too, is carried by chylomicrons.
A word of advice to any Paleo and ketogenic followers who believe that saturated fats are good for you: A recent study shows that saturated fats such as lard increase hunger and appetite by delivering LPSs to the brain’s hunger center;22 by contrast, fish oil does exactly the opposite, actually sending signals to the brain that help you moderate your food intake!23 Is it any wonder that so many Paleo recipes are for desserts? One popular Paleo blogger’s site is called “All Day I Dream About Food.” That’s the last thing that will happen as the Plant Paradox Program kicks in.
The Program: Phase 2
NOW THAT YOU have the food list and some accompanying information, and assuming you have done the three-day cleanse (or chosen not to), it is time to put the rest of the program into action. You will follow Phase 2 for six weeks. Why so long? Although you can begin to repair your gut and drive out most of the gang members in a few days with the Phase 1 cleanse, some of them are still lurking, plotting to take over the neighborhood again. During Phase 2, you can’t let your guard down as you follow the list of acceptable foods. I’ve found that people typically need at least six weeks to change ingrained habits. Let’s be clear, habits and addictions are hard to break, as anyone who has detoxed or cleansed at a rehab center or spa for a couple of weeks knows all too well. Yes, you will start to feel great in a couple of weeks, but please, don’t be fooled. The bad bugs are still there, marginalized to be sure, but just waiting for a chance to regain their advantage. Please, show them no mercy for a full six weeks. After what they’ve done to you, you need to punish them unmercifully, and starve them out of your life.
Continue to Plug the Holes
What will you be avoiding or omitting to allow your body to heal?
• As indicated on the Just Say “No” list, eliminate most high lectin–containing foods, including vegetables in the nightshade family and vegetables with seeds—the exception being avocados—as well as grains, pasta, bread, cereal, crackers, etc.
• Omit all out-of-season fruit (except those with resistant starches, the not-yet-ripe fruits on the Say “Yes Please” list, and avocados). Preferably, give all other fruit the boot! Modern fruit is as bad as candy.
• Avoid long-chain saturated fats, as well as limiting olive oil and coconut oil, for the first two weeks to block LPSs from breaching the gut wall.
• Consume no more than 4 ounces of all animal protein twice a day (for 8 ounces total). For instance, if you have two eggs for breakfast, wait until dinner for the next 4-ounce portion of animal protein.
• Who Neu? Consider eating less beef, pork, and lamb to reduce your Neu5Gc intake. This applies to grass-fed animals as well.
• Consume only pasture-raised chicken, duck, and turkey.
• Try to make wild fish and shellfish a significant portion of your protein intake, but avoid any farm-raised fish (do not be fooled by claims that it is organic), particularly salmon, tilapia, catfish, or shrimp.
• Avoid fish high on the food chain such as swordfish, grouper, tilefish, and sushi-grade tuna, which accumulate more mercury and other heavy metals.
• Vegetarians and vegans should omit tofu and other unfermented soy products.
Continue to Feed the Gut Buddies
What will you be eating to feed the residents of the condo that is you?
• Maximize your resistant starch intake to allow your friendly gut bugs to produce short-chain fatty acids and ketones (the fats you can use directly as fuel) that you can absorb from your gut (see “When is a Carb Not a Carb”). These starches include plantains, taro root, shirataki noodles, and other nongrain “pastas,” parsnips, turnips, jicama, celery root, and Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), as well as unripe fruits such as green bananas, mangoes, and papayas.
• Eat lots of fructooligosaccharides (FOS), a form of indigestible (for you) sugar in the form of inulin and its cousin yacón, on which your gut bugs thrive. These compounds are found in vegetables such as radicchio, Belgian endive, Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), okra, artichokes, onions, and garlic. They are also available as powders and in sweeteners such as SweetLeaf and Just Like Sugar. (See “Your Gut Buddies Get to Eat Sugar.”)
• Eat raw or cooked mushrooms, which provide more unique FOS to pamper your gut buddies.
• Consume as many leafy green vegetables and vegetables in the cabbage family (crucifers) as possible. (See “The Crucifer Paradox.”)
• Increase gram-positive bacteria and their friends (the “gut buddies”) by consuming polyphenol compounds in pulp from all acceptable fruits. Put your juicer back to work by “reverse juicing.” Juice your fruits, toss the juice (which is where the “candy” lurks), and add the pulp to a smoothie, or blend it with plain goat, sheep, or coconut yogurt and toss into any salad dressing.
• Consume lemon juice and vinegars, including balsamic vinegar from Modena, Italy, which also contains polyphenols.
• In addition to cooking with the acceptable oils, take a fish oil capsule before each meal. Or mix flavored cod liver oil—I love Carlson’s lemon or orange flavors—with an acceptable oil to dress salads or cooked veggies. Vegans and vegetarians can use an algal DHA capsule instead.
• Nuts—particularly pistachios, walnuts, macadamias, and pecans, which are full of polyphenols—promote the growth of “gut buddies.” Nut consumption is also associated with reduced risk of overall mortality.24 You can have ¼ cup of Dr. G.’s New and Improved World-Famous Nut Mix twice daily.
• Consume figs (which are technically flowers, not fruit), and use dates or dried figs as a sweetener in limited amounts. Both are full of the FOS that boost the growth of good gut bugs and overall health. Add figs and dates to salads or toss a couple of dates into a smoothie.
I realize that this is a lot to absorb, but let me remind you to do the best you can do with what you have and where you are. See the Say “Yes Please” list for more specifics. If you are unfamiliar with any of these foods, see “How to Evolve Your Shopping Style” and “Tools for Success” for sources and further explanation.
The Crucifer Paradox
Although you should eat as many vegetables in the cabbage family (crucifers) as possible, if you have been told or suspect that you have IBS or “leaky gut,” remember my advice to overcook all crucifers initially. When eaten raw or in large quantities, these vegetables often cause stomach upset and diarrhea. If you are new to them, increase your intake gradually. Crucifers, including sauerkraut, activate specialized white blood cells in the intestinal lining, and those cells contain receptors that calm the immune system gone awry. Compounds in cruciferous veggies thus alert the border patrol on your gut wall to calm down and not to shoot anything that moves. These receptors are called the Ah receptors. When activated, your immune cells say, “Ah.” Now you know why Mom made you eat your broccoli!
Your Gut Buddies Get to Eat Sugar
Your gut buddies require indigestible (for you) sugars for proper growth and function, particularly the guys that guard and feed the cells that line your gut. These indigestible sugars are called prebiotics, not to be confused with probiotics, which are the friendly bacteria that are the seeds for your new rain forest. Unless you feed probiotics what they need to grow, meaning prebiotics, they will perish. Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are a special form of prebiotic, which feed the gut buddies that live near your gut wall, stimulating the mucus production that protects you from lectins and LPSs. Want more good news? Many prebiotics contain polyphenols. According to research at the Cleveland Clinic, the polyphenols in fruit pulp also paralyze certain enzymes in gut bugs, preventing them from converting the animal proteins carnitine and choline into an artery-damaging compound called TMAO.25
Bid Adieu to Gut Busters
As well as making the dietary changes above, stop taking antibiotics if at all possible. Note, however, that you should always check with your health-care provider before doing so. In addition:
• Eliminate all stomach-acid-blocking drugs. Instead, use antacids such as Rolaids or Tums as necessary. You will be shocked at how quickly your heartburn will disappear when following this program. You can also take betaine or marshmallow root and chew DGL. (For more information, go to www.DrGundry.com.)
• Eliminate NSAIDs and replace with Tylenol, or preferably 5-loxin (boswellia extract). There are several good products that contain boswellia such as Now D-Flame and MRM Joint Synergy. (Again, for more information, go to www.DrGundry.com.)
Additional Important Supplements
I have already advised you to take a fish oil supplement before each meal, but let me get a bit more specific. In terms of dosage, take the capsule with the highest number of milligrams of DHA you can afford—you’ll need about 1000 mg per day. In addition to protecting the lining of your gut, fish oil consumption is associated with a bigger hippocampus and overall larger brain size, making it an important tool in avoiding dementia and other neurological problems associated with aging.26
I cannot emphasize enough that the vast majority of people are profoundly vitamin D deficient. In my opinion, vitamin D is the single most important missing ingredient necessary to restore your gut health and therefore your overall health. It is essential to stimulate the growth of enterocyte stem cells, which repair the gut wall that has been damaged by lectins on a daily basis.27 In my fifteen years of experience as a practitioner of restorative medicine, pushing vitamin D blood levels up to 70 to 100 ng/ml per day is necessary for most people, and may require upward of 40,000 IUs a day to achieve. I have absolutely no qualms keeping my patients’ levels of vitamin D greater than 100 ml, which is where I keep mine. However, unless a health-care professional is checking your levels, limit yourself to 5000 to 10,000 IUs initially.
In addition:
• Restore gut flora with targeted probiotics Bacillus coagulans (BC30), available at any drugstore under the trade name Schiff Digestive Advantage, or other probiotics such as L. reuteri and saccharomyces boulardii, and stomach mucus enhancers like DGL (deglycyrrhizinated licorice root), slippery elm, and marshmallow root.
• Repel invaders by rebuilding stomach acid with betaine and grapefruit seed extract.
• Repair the gut wall with vitamin D and fish oil, as discussed above, as well as with L-glutamine (a protein that feeds gut cells), butyric acid from ghee, polyphenols like grape seed extract and pycnogenol, and anthocyanins, the polyphenols in dark berries like blackberries. All are available over the counter.
• Reactivate and calm white blood cells in the intestinal lining with the supplements indole-3-carbinol and DIM, or simply increase your intake of cruciferous veggies.
• For recommended doses and a schedule, go to www.DrGundry.com.
SUCCESS STORY
Taming the Relish
Jane Y., a fifty-year-old nurse who lives in the Pacific Northwest, had been troubled by intractable migraines for most of her life. She had run the gamut of treatment options without success. Jane sought me out after hearing of my successes with other migraine sufferers, including myself—I know from personal experience how awful migraines can be. She immediately started the Plant Paradox Program and within days her migraines abated. She was delighted, but after a few months she visited to discuss a dilemma. One of Jane’s passions is canning (and eating) a zucchini and tomato relish she makes with the vegetables in her garden. With both fruits now off limits and canning time fast approaching, she was in a quandary. I suggested that we do a lectin challenge: she should can half of her relish using her traditional canning method, and the other half using a pressure cooker. Jane returned home delighted, and a few weeks later she called me. Not surprising, within a few minutes of eating her regular canned relish, wham, a migraine struck. But the next day, when she gingerly tasted her pressure-cooked relish, nothing happened. She ate some more, and, again, nothing. Jane was back in business with her relish! Thanks to her lectin sensitivity, she has gone on to become one of my most cherished lectin testers. Despite her best efforts with pressure cooking wheat, oats, rye, and barley for an hour (that is a long time in a pressure cooker), she still gets migraines from these grains.
Putting It All Together
MY PATIENTS HAVE been remarkably successful in constructing a diet that they can live with, literally and figuratively, just by following the two food lists and the above rules. Having said that, a few tips are in order.
• BREAKFAST may seem daunting initially, but it is actually pretty easy. My wife, Penny, and I have a Green Smoothie nearly every day, unless I am doing intermittent fasting, which is discussed in the next chapter. Bars from the approved list—certain Quest bars, certain Yup bars, the Human Food Bar, and the Adapt Bar—also all work well. The first two contain 20 grams of animal protein apiece, so the protein content adds up quickly. But by far, my patients’ favorite breakfasts are my muffins, either the cinnamon and flaxseed or the coconut and almond flour variety. Ready in just a couple of minutes in the microwave, they can be easily transported to work or school. Try the Perfect Plantain Pancakes on the weekend. Finally, two pastured or omega-3 eggs or ¼ cup of Dr. G.’s New and Improved World-Famous Nut Mix are filling, meaning you can probably skip a morning snack. Got to have yogurt? I prefer plain (unflavored and unsweetened) coconut milk yogurt, but if that is unavailable, plain goat or sheep milk yogurt will do fine. Both are casein A-2, which is good, although they do contain Neu5Gc.
• SNACKS. You can have a morning and afternoon snack in this phase, at least initially. The advent of single-serving organic guacamole—it contains no peppers—by Wholly Guacamole, available at most Costco stores, has made portable guacamole my go-to snack, if I need one. Buy sliced jicama at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods to serve as dipping “chips,” or bake up a batch of Paradox Crackers. Alternatively, carry cut-up pieces of romaine lettuce or Napa or Belgian endive in a mason jar or stainless steel container. Or reach for ¼ cup of my nut mix. Just don’t overdo it on the nut front, since they are notoriously difficult to stop eating.
• LUNCH ON THE RUN. This is the meal my patients find the least challenging to adapt to their new lifestyle. A salad always hits the spot! Carry it with you premade, or purchase it at most grocery stores or a salad bar. Keep in mind that most prepared salad dressings, even the better ones, are made with toxic oils—and often corn syrup. Carry a portion of balsamic or another vinegar mixed with extra-virgin olive oil in a small shaker bottle instead. In a restaurant, ask for dressing on the side, or simply order olive oil and vinegar. No olive oil? Vinegar and/or lemon juice will do just fine.
• DINNER. This is where you get to have fun and feed your gut buddies what they like. That means that animal protein plays a supporting role in your meals, not the central one with which most of us grew up. Consider the palm of your hand (don’t include the fingers) as the size of your protein portion for the night. I would prefer that you choose wild, nonthreatened smaller fish or wild shellfish. A reliable guide is available at the Monterey Aquarium (www.seafoodwatch.org). Always consider incorporating the protein into a salad—think of a Caesar salad topped with grilled or boiled shrimp—or tossed with shirataki noodles, kelp noodles, Miracle Noodles, Cappello’s fettuccine, or another acceptable form of “pasta.” A spiralizer is a great tool for turning root vegetables into “noodles.” My wife and I share a large mixing bowl of salad every night, regardless of what else we are eating—and several nights a week, it is all we have for dinner! Let me assure you, we are never hungry. Vegetarians can use the approved types of Quorn, a mushroomlike product with a meaty texture; hemp “tofu,” available at Whole Foods; or tempeh without grains, found in most grocery stores or health food stores. Hilary’s Root Veggie Burger is a delicious product I discovered recently, but avoid the lectin bombs in other veggie burgers at all costs. See the recipes for more suggestions.
Get Out of the Dinner Rut
I ALWAYS TRY to encourage my patients to rotate vegetable choices with seasonal availability, but I realize that studies show that most people rotate between five and six go-to vegetables. Why not try to buck that trend? After all, each vegetable has a unique set of phytonutrients. Changing them frequently delights your gut buddies. And mixing things up helps avoid mealtime monotony.
Thanks to misguided nutritional advice, dinner is often associated with having a starch. But that advice rarely if ever includes a certain category of starches that you and I should cherish, the resistant starches, aka soluble fibers. These are tightly bound chains of sugar molecules that are nearly impossible for your digestive enzymes to break down to be absorbed—which is why they are called resistant. These unabsorbed sugars arrive deep in your intestines, where your gut buddies are just waiting for their favorite meal! The gut bacteria convert these sugars into short-chain saturated fats that power you and your intestinal cells. And the best news is that the gang members can’t use these sugars for fuel, so they are starved out. Enjoy that sweet potato, or some turnips, parsnips, or rutabagas, among an array of other choices on the Say “Yes Please” list. Your gut buddies will thank you.
After about six weeks, most people really start hitting their groove. If you are one of them, it is time to join me at the next stage of your health journey. However, if you are not ready, you can stay in this phase longer.
In fact, there is really no need to move on. Some of my patients have taken a year to regrow the rain forest in their gut. You may take even longer. Everybody is different. You may even choose to spend the rest of your healthy life in this phase. There are plenty of healthy options available to you, and there’s no need to compare yourself to other people—this is not a race.
That being said, if your
• weight returns to normal,
• aches and pains alleviate or vanish,
• brain fog clears,
• persistent gut issues and any autoimmune symptoms abate,
then it is probably time to meet me in the next chapter.