Lectin Foods To Avoid
We all have extremely unique and complex bodies. These biological machines we inhabit accept only certain items as food for nourishment, sustenance and proper functioning. Along with other factors, lectins are what largely determine what items our bodies accept as food.
Now, when you read the word “lectin”, you may immediately think of the lectin-free diet coined by Dr. Gundry. Well I do agree that the lectin-free diet does make some valid points, but I argue that it is missing the consideration of a key point.
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What are Lectins?
As I explained in the first article of this series, lectins are proteins on our cells that are unique to you and determine what your blood type is. For more information, I encourage you to read that article here.
In this article, I will teach about lectins in our food, how valid the lectin-free diet is and how we can avoid foods that our lectins naturally reject.
Certain dietary lectins that we eat are absorbed into the bloodstream and can bind to our red and white blood cells, causing them to become damaged and destroyed by the immune system.
For example, wheat is the one food that will wreak havoc in literally any part of the body of a person with O blood type, and will create many diseases. Lima beans cause destruction of A blood type cells, and chicken do the same for B blood type cells.
Why is that?
This is because lectins are our internal body guards on the cellular level, who have preferences that they do not waver on. They prefer the food that matches our blood type, whether A, B, AB or O (as outlined in your blood type food list guide), and reject the foods that go against our blood type.
The lectin rejection process is quite extreme as they look for ingested food lectins that fit the shape of their receptors. Receptor matchups will then cause your immune system to destroy the food they don’t prefer by clumping the food cells up with your surrounding cells. This clump is then destroyed like a foreign invader. This process is called agglutination.
Constant agglutination occurring in your body means that you are constantly eating the wrong food. And you may not even know it! Being in the state of constant agglutination is a guaranteed way to experience all sorts of diseases.
Not too long ago, I didn’t know about the right foods I should eat either, until I found out about the Blood Type Diet.
Food with Lectins
There are many food lectins that affect humans, but it depends on the blood type of that human since lectins prefer certain blood types. The main foods high in lectins tend to be legumes, seafood, grains and vegetables; foods that make up a typical diet. Some of these lectins can be destroyed during normal cooking methods, but many of them remain intact even after long periods in high temperatures.
For example, while our normal cooking temperatures range between 150 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit, wheat germ lectins resist heating at 230 degrees Fahrenheit even after 30 minutes. Kidney bean lectins resist heating at 194 degrees Fahrenheit well passed three hours. However, kidney bean lectins are destroyed when they are presoaked.
Some other foods that have resistant lectins even after cooking are apples, carrots, canned corn, pumpkin seeds, bananas and wheat flour.
If you didn’t catch that, the lectins in these above-mentioned foods are NOT destroyed when we cook them using our normal stove and microwave methods. So when you cook them and eat them, you will still experience the effects of agglutination if they don’t match your blood type.
And it doesn’t matter how high or low the food is in lectins, if your biological lectins perceive the food lectin as a threat then the agglutination of many cells in your body will occur.
In addition, agglutinating activity persists in several-fold dilutions of extracts in foods including tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, wheat bran, whole wheat, sesame, sunflower seeds, vanilla yogurt, coconut, bananas, carrots, onions, apples, alfalfa and soy protein.
There has been speculation that many of the Third-World countries experiencing low-grade anemia is due to a diet rich in the food lectins of grains and beans which, based on their blood type, destroy red blood cells and cause inflammation in the gut which mimic food allergies.
The Lectin-Free Diet
Now all of this is more or less general food-lectin knowledge. In order to make it matter to you, we need to get specific. This is what I believe the lectin-free diet lacks. Yes there are some foods that will negatively affect many, if not all people (like wheat and pork).
However, some food lectins can be bad for one set of people and actually highly beneficial for another set of people. Even if it is a small group, we can’t leave them out because it could deem them malnourished if they omit these foods. Those groups of people are based on blood type.
Food Lectins Each Blood Type Should Avoid
At this point, you may be on the edge of your seat wondering what foods your lectins don’t like based on YOUR specific blood type (find out your blood type HERE). So let’s get specific.
Each blood type has a different biological makeup and thus needs specific foods to survive. Below I have listed foods from various food groups that each blood type should avoid based on their lectin preferences. Find yours:
Blood Type A
Major food lectins that you should avoid for cellular health are: whole wheat, tomatoes, oranges, mussels, kidney beans, eggplant.
Blood Type B
Major food lectins that you should avoid for cellular health are: chicken, black beans, peanuts, corn, avocado, sesame oil.
Blood Type AB
Major food lectins that you should avoid for cellular health are: chicken, garbanzo (chickpea) beans, corn, garlic, sunflower oil.
Blood Type O
Major food lectins that you should avoid for cellular health are: all wheat products, kidney beans, sunflower seeds, cucumber, castor oil.
But there’s More
Now this list is all based on what your lectins will attack. However, this isn’t the full list (get a longer, more comprehensive list here). Plus not all foods are attacked by your lectins. The rest of your body is designed to reject certain items as non-foods as well and can identify that in various ways. Moreover, there are other foods that you should avoid based on your blood type aside from lectin response.