Nightshades include tomato, eggplant, bell and hot peppers (not peppercorns), potato (not sweet potato or yam), regardless of the color of the skin. They also include tobacco and ashwaganda.
Approximately 5% of the population will have an autoimmune disease triggered and/or maintained by the use of nightshades, usually as food.
Lectins, which include gluten, are proteins that attach to carbohydrates. Since carbohydrates are components of virtually every part of the body, lectins attach to cells and molecules within our connective tissues and blood.
Lectins evolved before we did, and were first used by the plant world as signal molecules, similar to hormones, but less specific (hormones have specific receptors, lectins do not). We can think of lectins as early hormones. Every organism has a set of lectins, complex proteins, that are involved in signalling and controlling it’s own function. When we ingest other organisms, we also ingest their lectins.
The topic of lectins was championed in the 2017 book, The Plant Paradox by Steven Gundry MD. Gundry is a cardiovascular surgeon who switched to nutritional medicine after realizing that heart disease could be reversed by changing food plan. click here . For a seven-page list of yes and no foods (very instructive), plant-paradox-shopping-list. For a one-page table, click here.
If these plants want to be eaten, such as with ripe fruit, then their lectins are either friendly or de-activated. However, if ingestion is not desired, then the lectins have evolved to attach to critical molecules within the ingestor and make them sick. This negative reaction discourages any further ingestion.
As we accelerated our food cultivation, distribution, and preparation methods, we have sometimes ignored certain traditional food preparation methods that evolved to render the foods safe and nutritious. Lectins in some ways may be history repeating itself. From 1906 to 1946, hundreds of thousands of people died in the US, Canada and Europe from a disease named pellagra, due to changes in foods and how they are processed.
Each food has an optimal way of removing its lectins. Some lectins, such as gluten, are not deactivated by heat, but they are by fermentation (by yeast). Tomato lectins are removed with removal of the skin and seeds.
Lectin content/preparation of important foods:
| Food | How to deactivate | Links | Notes |
| Apple | |||
| Beef, GRAIN Fed | |||
| Beef, GRASS Fed | |||
| Peanuts | Can’t–don’t eat! | peanut lectins increased cancer cell growth; can enter the blood stream. | |
| Potatoes | cooking only decreases 50% | ||
| Red Kidney Beans | 20-70,000 hau, after cooking 200-400 | Contain lectin called phytohemagglutinin. As few as five can cause negative effect, | |
| Soy | 212F for 10 min | 70F for several hours had no effect | |
| Tomato | remove skin and seeds; eat only when ripe | Tomatoes | can overlap with pollen food allergy syndrome or |
| Wheat | 149F | ||
7 High Sugar Fruits To Ban (Plus, Which Fruits To Eat Instead)
