AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
We've examined calorie counting and restricting food intake to more healthy items. Now we're going to explore a whole new thought with regard to foods and diet.
Dr Steven R Gundry has rocked the dieting world with his book and diet, The Plant Paradox. The paradox is that many of the so called healthy foods we've been told to eat are packed with proteins called lectins which ultimately hurt us as part of the process of prolonging the individual plant species.
In plants lectins provide a protective mechanism to prolong the species. When these plants are eaten by humans poor health may be the result because they trigger the immune system to go to war and protect the body which most often results in inflammation and weight gain.
Mary found "The Plant Paradox" book by Dr. Gundry and quickly read it. We've since purchased the Audible version and listened to the book together.
Dr Gundry has documented cases of cancer being reduced or eliminated all together by persons following the diet, since I've been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and am currently under the watchful eye of a Urologist it seems like a good time to try any and everything possible to prolong my life.
On June 1st of 2018 I began to follow the Plant Paradox diet, Mary was already at least a week into it. After two weeks my weight is down six pounds and inflammation all over my body seems reduced. Dr Gundry asks that a person gives the diet six weeks before evaluating the overall effect.
WHAT YOU CAN'T EAT
This is a highly restrictive diet which means you're losing a lot of the things you've been eating all your life. Many of the things we've been told are good for us are now, according to Dr Gundry, bad for us to consume.
In my previous calorie-restricted diet I had success with using 100-calorie bags of snacks as portion control to maintain my daily intake of calories and carbs. These little bags are now all gone since they were filled with wheat and corn, both of which are chock full of lectins.
Beer is gone! I'm seriously bummed about this one. I've been drinking beer all my life, now it's gone! No more yummy pale ale. No more I P A. Not even a Heineken or a lowly Bud Light. Beer is made from grain, grain is the enemy, if there is the slightest hope I can beat cancer by not drinking beer I'm ok with that.
French Fries are out! Not even a few. Sweet potatoes don't have the bad lectins white potatoes have so they are still on the YES list.
If you drink milk it should be A2 type. If you eat cheese it should be made from A2 type milk.
Almost all fruit is out on the lectin free diet. Why? It's just candy, sweet stuff, picked green, ripened artificially with gas and served to your packed with inflammation inducing lectins. The one YES is local fruit, that is picked ripe, in season. If you must eat fruit this is all you get.
Tomatoes and fruits with seeds are out too. What? Apparently the Italians have known about this for years. Cans of Italian tomatoes are peeled and deseeded to remove the lectins. If you're willing to peel and deseed them then you can consume tomato flesh.
PLANNING IS KEY
Planning the food you're going to eat is the hardest part of the Lectin Free Diet. You won't find lectin free food in restaurants, they're filled with foods packed with inflammation causing lectins.
HOW DO LECTINS HURT YOU?
Lectins are large proteins which attack your body through the human gut system. The large intestine is just a single cell thick so when the barrage of inflammation inducing lectins come sailing in they excite an immune system response, stick between tissue lining cells and ultimately breach the wall and make their way into other parts of the body where they're not supposed to be.
In plants lectins are a protective mechanism to assure reproduction and sustain the plants existence. In humans these lectins agitate the immune system and cause inflammation.
WHO IS DR STEVEN R. GUNDRY?
Dr Gundry was a heart surgeon, regularly doing multiple heart bypass operations on people with arteries lined with shortening-like fat. After years of success he turned his attention to the "why" of the illness befalling these patients which ultimately led to "The Plant Paradox".
For more information about Dr. Gundry and his book check out his web site:
www.drgundrymd.com
Unlike many fad diets this one is backed by a real honest to goodness surgeon, scientist and medical doctor. The data has been peer reviewed and the only people calling foul are the ones who ultimately derive their lively-hood from making foods packed with lectins (which in case you missed it, are killing you). As you might imagine enemy is gearing up the propaganda machine to put down the data and encourage you to keep eating the same things that are making you gain weight and have poor health.
Fast food restaurants are lectin bombs. Not only that their foods are packed with chemicals which are also becoming known for their toxicity.
My father was a Phd chemist at Monsanto and helped develop RoundUp herbicide, he was proud of their accomplishment and assured me this was safe for humans, you could even drink it and not die. I never saw him test that last statement. All of this was going down 45+ years ago.
Now in many parts of Europe RoundUp is illegal and products produced with it are labeled as cancer causing. The state of California has also ruled that RoundUp causes cancer.
RoundUp is now routinely used in harvesting crops, it's much easier to harvest dead dried up plants than vibrant green ones so they spray RoundUp on the plants to finish them off for harvest. This leaves the plant material with a nice fresh coating of RoundUp. Does it wash off completely? What do you think?
WHAT CAN YOU EAT?
We've constructed our own temporary YES list to help us in the initial period of adjusting to the new diet. We'll be improving the list as we gather more data.
Here is a link to our first food list: http://foodlistlectinfree.blogspot.com
more to come!
