Do you make a point to include foods in your diet that you believe are healthy? 

I know I do. We were all taught about the food pyramid as kids, right? You’ve got to include your grains, your veggies, and your fruits to equal a healthy diet — just like our teachers taught us in science class.

What if our teachers were wrong? What if I told you that some of the very staples of the food pyramid have been found to actually be toxic to our bodies? 

As we progress in scientific research and the understanding of our bodies, we are understanding that some foods that have been common inclusions in our diet are not what we thought they were. There are certain foods that are literally poisoning our bodies — so why are we still eating them?

Thankfully, we have Dr. Steven Gundry with us to give us valuable insight on this topic. He illustrates how some foods have merely come to be common in our society by chance or ease of access, and may not necessarily be good for us. More than that, some foods are downright toxic to us!

Who is Dr. Steven Gundry?

Dr. Steven Gundry is a renowned cardiologist, surgeon, medical device inventor, and bestselling author. Although he has performed thousands of heart surgeries in his 40-year career, Dr. Gundry’s current focus is empowering people through diet to reverse and prevent ailments. 

As the Director and Founder of the International Heart & Lung Institute as well as the Center for Restorative Medicine in Palm Springs and Santa Barbara, CA, he helps patients learn how to take control of their weight, health, and energy by using his surprisingly simple diet advice.

Dr. Gundry is also the New York Times best-selling author of The Plant Paradox, and his latest book, The Longevity Paradox, takes a look at how we can live long, healthy lives and fight the disease of aging. He also hosts his own health podcast, The Dr. Gundry Podcast, which gives you the tools and information you need to hack your vitality, avoid dangerous “health foods,” and balance your all-important gut.

What Foods Should You Definitely Avoid?

Let’s get this out of the way first — lectins are bad for us. Lectins are proteins produced by a plant as a defense mechanism to try to ward off anyone or anything from eating them. Obviously, this hasn’t stopped us from eating them, but most people aren’t even aware of what lectins are, let alone which foods fall into that category. 

“Gluten happens to be a lectin and lectins are plant defense proteins that plants produce to convince their predator that we shouldn’t eat them or their babies. Harvard professor Alexia Fizano proved that in fact, lectins like gluten can attach to the wall of our gut and kind of flip a switch and produce leaky gut. We can now measure leaky gut. Wheat and gluten are just one of the lectins — there’s plenty more.” – Dr. Steven Gundry

Awareness of gluten and our body’s sensitivity to it has come a long way in the past ten years. I remember asking about gluten-free options at restaurants ten years ago and being met with utter confusion. People didn’t even know what gluten was! While grains are still important in maintaining a healthy diet, we now know that gluten is a lectin and can cause our stomachs a lot of trouble. 

So the obvious measure to take after learning that gluten is harmful to us is to search for gluten-free options, right? Well, think again. Dr. Gundry explains that even some healthy gluten-free foods are being targeted by our immune systems as if they were the real deal. I love to eat a bowl of oats in the morning, so I asked Steven if eating gluten-free oats is a viable option to still get grains in my diet.

“Basically … there is a protein in oats that isn’t gluten, but it looks a lot like gluten. And our immune system can’t tell the difference. Similarly, 70% of people who are sensitive to gluten react to corn as if it was gluten, and that’s why so many patients who are gluten-free, eating gluten-free foods, still have leaky gut and autoimmune diseases. When we take away their healthy gluten-free foods like corn, like oats, like quinoa, then their leaky gut goes away.” – Dr. Steven Gundry

Grains and gluten are not the sole culprits of a leaky gut and other health problems, however. Other lectins that are harmful to us include tomatoes, goji berries, beans, cashews, and potatoes. If you’re like me and love the foods I just mentioned, don’t panic! There are ways to prepare these foods that eliminate the toxicity they present to our bodies. 

Much of the lectins in potatoes are found in the skin, so simply removing the skin is a great option if you really can’t cut them out of your diet. Similarly, tomatoes and peppers lose much of their toxicity when you remove the skin and seeds. 

In fact, Dr. Gundry mentioned that tomatoes in Italy never come with their skin or seeds. When tomatoes were first brought to Italy by Columbus, they refused to eat them for over 200 years because they thought them to be toxic to humans. Americans didn’t even start eating tomatoes until the late 1800s because they were thought to be deadly!

Did you know cashews are part of the same plant as poison ivy? It’s no wonder cashews are lectins, there’s poison in their plant name! Unfortunately, cashews cannot be prepared in a way that makes them less toxic to us, so it’s best to stay away from them altogether. 

Dr. Gundry suggests switching to pistachios if you need a replacement for cashews. Surprisingly, pistachios have the highest melatonin amount of any food, so there may be an added benefit to indulging in a pistachio snack instead of cashews — better sleep! Hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, and walnuts are all great examples of other nuts you can indulge in besides cashews.