Looks like lectins are culpable of just about any disease, from auto-immune, to heart, to diabetes, to anything inflammatory, digestive, and even respiratory. Turns out that lectins destroy our gut inhabitants and intestinal wall, causing havoc all over the body because the immune system collapses. Lectins, and gluten is only one of many, albeit supposedly not the worst one, are toxic plant proteins that protect seeds from germinating too early and animals from eating them.
Turns out that some food preparation techniques were developed to remove lectins, but we forgot about them - techniques like fermentation, soaking nuts and grains before consumption, peeling and deseeding peppers and tomatoes, pressure cooking beans and quinoa. But there is more to the lectin story.
I am currently reading Steven Gundry's The Plant Paradox. Dairy is another pitfall (don't consume dairy from the ubiquitous northern European Holstein cows, only from southern European cows); grains, and in particular whole grains, are out because of the particularly toxic lectins in the bran (if you must eat bread, white sour dough is it, and no whole wheat pasta either). Another one of Gundry's gripes is the nightshade family (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes), and lastly squashes and beans. These last three vegetable families were only brought from the New to the Old world about five hundred years ago, and therefore our digestive systems have not developed a tolerance to the lectins in them, hence their toxicity to most of us. Digestive systems adapt over thousands and even millions of years, so five hundred years is nothing.
It sounds like this diet is a true panacea, and the book is a must-read not only for all healthcare practitioners, dieticians and nutritionists, but pretty much everybody else as well. Will keep you posted, trying it myself.
