Turbo Charge Your Energy – Eliminate Lectins

According to Dr. Steven Gundry, the most effective way to increase your energy is to eliminate lectins from your diet and increase polyphenols. This means there are two parts to your energy equation:

Learn how to eliminate lectins

Learn how to increase polyphenols

In this post we’ll focus on how to eliminate lectins from your diet. Our next post will focus on how to increase your polyphenol consumption.

What Are Lectins and What Do They Do?

Lectins are a group of proteins found in nearly all plants and animals. There are over 100 know types but 12 major lectins that typically cause health issues.

Plants usually have a higher quantity of lectins because they use them as a natural pesticide to protect themselves from being eating by insects. In fact one of the dangers of GMO foods is that lectins have been spliced into their genetic coding to make them more resistant to insects.

While this may help protect crops from insects and reduce the need for pesticides, they increase the risk for stealing your energy and causing you health problems.

Here’s how.

Lectins like to bind to sugar moelcules. Now you might think this would be useful in reducing the effects sugar can have on your health. What most people don’t understand is that your cell membranes contain sugar molecules that are either attached to fat (glycolipids) or proteins (glycoproteins).

Lectins that are particularly harmful to you are the ones that bind to these sugar molecules. They adhere to these molecules and disrupt cellular communication and the structure of your cell wall.

This can spike inflammation in the gut and lead to a severe health issue like “leaky gut.” This is when the cells that line your small intestine become damaged causing gaps between the cells. These gaps allow partially digested food particles into your blood stream. Not only is this unhealthy but it also allows other toxins into your blood stream.

These toxins can then initiate inflammation of the vascular system (endothelial dysfunction) as well as inflammation in your tissues and organ system.

It is estimated that 20% of all rheumatoid arthritis could be due to lectin consumption from the standard American diet.

Additionally, these lectins bind to the cells of our small intestine to thicken our intestinal walls. This reduces your ability to properly absorb nutrients. And in severe cases cause your immune system to attack the lining of your small intestine to create additional health issues.

How to Eliminate Lectins From Your Diet

The best way to eliminate lectins from your diet is to first identify the food sources that contain the highest quantity of lectins and create the greatest risk for compromising your health and energy. Here is the list in order of greatest concern:

Grains: Wheat, rye, barley, and corn with wheat being the number one grain to eliminate from your diet.

Legumes: Kidney bean, navy beans, and soybeans with soybeans being the number one to eliminate from your diet. Although kidney beans can even more dangerous if not properly treated and cooked.

Nightshade Plants: Tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, potatoes, Goji berries, peppers. Goji berries would be the first one to eliminate and then potatoes. However, it’s best to experiment in this category. The best way to see which ones affect your energy is to eliminate all of them from your diet for 14 days. Then consume just one with your meal. For most people that would be either tomatoes or potatoes. And only one at a time. If after eating that particular nightshade plant you feel sluggish, then eliminate that particular food from your diet.

Nuts and Seeds: Peanuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnut, sesame, coconut, and sunflower. In this category peanuts would be the number one food to eliminate as it creates the highest allergic reaction. For the others use the same process that I described above in eliminating all of them from your diet. Then reintroduce one at a time to see how they effect your energy.

Bottom Line in Eliminating Lectins

Now when you look at the list of foods above you might be thinking “That’s a lot of food that I have to be concerned about!”

So here’s a simpler solution to eliminate the largest source of lectins from your diet. Avoid eating foods that contain: wheat, legumes, peanuts, and soy.

If you focus on those four, then you’ll experience a significant improvement in your overall health and energy.

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer