What not to eat!
Dr. Steven Gundry reminds us that eliminating the inflammatory and toxic stuff that we are currently eating likely has the greatest impact on our health. The most challenging part is undoing the normal thinking patterns we’ve had for many years if not decades. Things we consider food are just not food. It definitely stretches the brain and is difficult to believe at first. Please consider this, you are here reading this because of the way your body and health are right now. Everything you normally eat has gotten you here. The only way to change this is to change the way you think about food and the way you eat.
Unfortunately much, maybe most, of what is sold as “food” in our stores is not Human food. Dr. Robert Lustig reminds us to look in the dictionary; food is “substrate that contributes either to growth or burning (fuel) of an organism.” Heavily processed, preserved, artificially colored stuff is legally edible, but is not food. Sugar is not food. Anything with preservatives is not food. To “preserve” a perishable item means to inhibit bacteria. This also inhibits the bacteria in our gut that is required to process the substance! A good rule is that if it has a label with things you don’t understand, like sodium benzoate, then you shouldn’t be eating it!
Lectins
And then there are lectins, the molecules of inflammation and major source of “leaky gut”. These molecules are the defense system that plants use to prevent being eaten. That’s right, plants generally do not want to be eaten. They can’t bite or run away but they can make us feel sick. Eat a raw potato and you’ll know what I mean. Many common items fall into the high lectin category such as legumes like peanuts. Dr. Steven Gundry emphasizes the importance of avoiding and reducing lectins. Many can be deactivated by cooking or fermenting which is why the pressure cooker is so helpful. Many, like the lectins in wheat, oats, and rye cannot be removed by any method. Dr. Dan, do you mean bread and everything made with wheat, oats and rye is not Human food? Yep, that’s a story for another page. The food I emphasize in Dr. Dan’s food is generally low lectin food and that makes it Human Nutrition!
Sugar
There is no way around this one, sugar is not food! That’s right, if sugar were invented today it would be a prescription drug regulated by the FDA! Sugar signals our body to put on weight while making it impossible to lose weight, it is highly addicting similar to alcohol, and it metabolizes into the same liver-toxic chemical as alcohol! Yes you read that correct, fructose (the sugar in fruit, half of table sugar and majority of HFCS high fructose corn syrup) and alcohol are the same inside the human liver. We’ve been told to have five helpings of fruit per day. Imagine if we were told to have five glasses of bourbon per day! Well, it’s the same thing. They are just as toxic. That big bowl of fruit touted as healthy and recommended for breakfast is diabetes in a bowl. Fructose directly causes metabolic syndrome, elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance, and elevated triglycerides. There is a safe way to eat fruit and I’ll detail that elsewhere. The message here is that all sweet additives, natural and artificial and even honey, contribute to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. They are mitochondrial toxins. Sweets in liquid form, that is ALL sodas, energy drinks and even natural fruit juices are the worst of the worst. There is no food program that can help you if you continue to consume sugar and artificial sweeteners! Fructose makes us fat and keeps us fat.
The good news is that when you stop eating sweets your brain will re-calibrate and no longer crave them. Eating sweets creates the desire to eat sweets while not eating sweets decreases the desire. You won’t miss it after you stop, but there will be a couple weeks of a “withdrawal”. Sweet foods are highly addictive drugs.
Bread
Here’s the second bomb, bread is also not Human food! But Dr. Dan, humans have been eating bread for thousands of years, right? True, we traded survival for sickness the past 10-15,000 years but for hundreds of thousands of years there was no wheat in the human diet. Bread, wheat and similar grains are the source of many of our chronic inflammatory illnesses and greatly contribute to our obesity epidemic. Wheat has many inflammatory molecules that cannot be removed by any cooking method. These molecules cause inflammation inside the blood vessels leading to heart disease, strokes, arthritis, dry eye and much more. The “heart healthy” fiber we read about is NOT found in wheat products. Whole grain and sprouted are even more loaded with inflammatory lectins. The plants are sprayed with chemicals like glyphosphate to help with weeds and harvesting, yes even if non-GMO. These chemicals get into the plant and cannot be washed or cooked out. We love bread because it converts rapidly to sugar and has a morphine-like compound in it. Double hit of sugar high and morphine high! Of course we’re addicted to it. Think of bread as sugar with extra inflammation. If you absolutely insist on bread, then home-made sour dough from European flour is likely the least worst option. When starting the Dr. Dan food plans please cancel the bread for best success.
Alcohol
Ok, bomb number three, alcohol. We used to think there was some redeeming value in a “few” drinks. There was even a major study that claimed mild-moderate drinkers had better health than nondrinkers. Well, the data are in and there is no redeeming value to any alcohol. It is a depressant. It converts to a chemical toxic to the liver (exact same as fructose sugar) and enhances weight gain and desire for more food. It is not food. It does not make people feel good after the temporary dis-inhibition. It does contribute to violence and highway destruction. It does not help with sleep and actually ruins beneficial sleep. Some colored varieties of distilled spirits like bourbon and red wines do have polyphenols, but the benefit likely outweighed by the harm from the alcohol. Any regular alcohol intake will sabotage your progress. Beer is the absolute worst because it contains three weight gaining components; alcohol, sugar, and yeast umami.
Corn
For all you “gluten free” folks who turned to corn (like I did), it’s not on the good food list either. Corn is high in inflammatory lectins other than gluten and very high in carbohydrates. This is why they use corn to make high fructose corn syrup. It is often sprayed with glyphosphate and other chemicals. Think about this, farmers give corn to animals to fatten them up. We fatten up too from corn. It’s just sugar by another name. Hint, I’m going to advise against any meat that was fed corn.
Soy
Soy is an “anti-nutrient.” This means it actually blocks digestion of certain proteins and prevents absorption of critical minerals especially zinc. Definitely not a food. Almost all soy in USA is GMO (genetically modified) and often highly processed to use as an additive to many items. Even worse are the phyto-estrogens that will disrupt your natural hormone balance. Fermented soy products are not the same and if you find organic fermented soy items like tofu, miso, and others then it is a nutritious food. Soy sauce is fermented but often has added sugar and is made with wheat. The pure fermented soy is available as tamari.
Milk
Milk is designed to help baby animals grow fast. As an adult, why would you ever want to grow at all? Milk is loaded with insulin-like growth hormones, estrogen, sugar and fats and an inflammatory protein A1 beta-casein. Cow milk promotes obesity. Of course it tastes good, sugar and fat are delicious. The amount of estrogen in cow milk is staggering and another reason to not consume it. It’s not good for children either unlike goat milk which is much closer to human mother’s milk. Most cow milk in the USA, China and much of Europe is A1 casein protein, which is inflammatory and associated with worsened gut function, brain fog, diabetes type 1, heart disease, and a host of other ailments. We are A2 casein animals. Also in the casein A2 club; goats, sheep, buffalo/bison, venison and just about every animal except cows. There are casein A2 cows and cow products available. Fermented milks are different and as long as you choose A2 casein products the cheeses, yogurts, kafir are examples of good fermented casein A2 dairy. If you insist on milk for your coffee for example, goat milk is the least worst option. More on coffee later.
But Dr. Dan what about vitamin D and calcium in milk? Isn’t that a good reason to drink it?
No, it’s not. The vitamin D in milk is fortified around 150 units per 8 ounce glass. The actual needed amount of daily vitamin D is closer to 10,000 units. You would have to drink about four gallons a day to get that much vitamin D! The calcium in cow milk is not in a form digestible by humans and actually leaches calcium out of the body.
Seed Oils
Most of the oils used in restaurants and at home are the seed oils. These are leftover industrial products after WWII ended and manufacturers needed somewhere to sell their product. Soy oil, corn oil, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed (Crisco®) are examples of seed oils to avoid. All of these oils are inflammatory and loaded with omega 6 fatty acids. We’ll talk about the good oils like olive oil in the next sections.
Addendum for the Science geeks like myself. As Richard Johnson M.D. describes in his book, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat, fructose directly turns on a survival switch that makes the body think it is starving. This pushes fat storage and down regulates metabolism. He also describes endogenous (self made) fructose that the body will create when glucose levels are very high. Regardless of source, external or internal, fructose has the same function, it makes us fat. The internal mechanism is likely via a sorbitol intermediary so that glucose to sorbitol to fructose is the polyol pathway. So why does most commercial toothpaste contain sorbitol???? Alcohol is processed via the polyol pathway to sorbitol and then fructose which also explains how alcohol and fructose can cause very similar liver damage.