Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we’re gonna talk about the dark side of going gluten-free. First, we’ll talk about the problems, but stick around in a bit, I’ll compare some gluten-free products to the gluten version. You’re gonna love to see the difference.

(00:31):
Okay. Number one. Gluten-free junk is still junk. The problem is gluten-free does not mean lectin-free. Folks ditch the wheat and then they lean hard on corn, oats, quinoa, brown rice, peas, or ancient grains thinking they’re automatically better. As I talked about in the plant paradox, there was a very famous study using people who had celiac disease, which most people know is the extreme form of gluten intolerance. Now, how do you diagnose celiac disease? The gold standard is to do a biopsy of the intestines with a scope. And we see the typical changes of damage to the inside wall of the gut. These people with diagnosed celiac disease were put on a gluten-free diet for a year and a half using all these gluten-free products that we just mentioned. They were re-biopsied. Are you ready for this? 70% of people with celiac disease who went gluten-free still had celiac disease when they were re-biopsied.

(01:55):
Why? Because they were eating a lectin-rich gluten-free diet. And sadly, I see this all the time in my patients. Gluten-free does not equate to lectin-free, so the damage from lectins is still there. And let me remind you, gluten is just one of many lectins. It happens to be a bad one, but it doesn’t make any difference. Now, number two, there is a health halo effect. Now, people tend to eat more of a gluten-free product because it feels virtuous. Well, I’m gluten-free. I’m eating gluten-free, so I can have as much gluten-free food as I want. I got news for you. Gluten-free Oreos are not any healthier than regular Oreos. Number three, and I see this all the time in my clinics. There are starch swaps that backfire. Most of these gluten-free products are highly processed. That means their ingredients have been ground up into fine, fast-digesting carbohydrate that can spike blood sugar actually more than you expect and make you gain weight because you might be eating more of these things because, well, they’re gluten-free.

(03:28):
Number four. Sadly, I see a lot of almond flour overload. It’s really the go- to substitute. I see the most, oh, almond flour this, almond flour cookies, almond flour cupcakes, almond flour, whatever. Suddenly, you’re eating a ton of very finely ground nut flour or nut milk daily. Now, sadly, quite a few of my patients are very sensitive to almonds, which we can test in blood work and even stool samples and even peeled almonds are mischievous. And many times, when we really look at what people are eating, almond flour, almond milk rises to the top. Now, finally, number five, there’s a rice overload going on. Now, gluten-free often becomes rice-based everything, whether it’s flour, whether it’s pasta, whether it’s cereals. And trust me, the rice wasn’t pressure cooked before they started playing with it. And rice has a fairly nasty lectin. But the problem is, and this goes with really any grain, whether it’s a safe grain or an evil grain.

(04:42):
A whole grain that you actually ate whole is much more slowly digested into its sugar. Starches are just sugar molecules bound together. Then when you grind up that whole grain into a fine white powder, once you do that, you’ve literally predigested all the starches into individual sugar molecules. So you get a sugar hit from what you thought was a healthy, safe whole grain. Now, sadly, many gluten-free replacements have less real fiber than the whole food version. So people can get constipated, people get snackier, they want more, and they feel off, and then blame it on something completely ill. There’s another problem with what I call seed oil creep. Now, most packaged foods, even the gluten-free ones, rely on cheap vegetable oils, sunflower oil, safflower oil for texture and shelf life. But here’s the deal. All of these oils go rancid rapidly. So what do companies do?

(06:08):
They put antioxidants in the mixture, and most of these antioxidants, which extend shelf life, shorten your life. So for an example, gluten-free Oreos are loaded with these bad oils whose shelf life has been extended. You may have heard me talk. We lost our home in Montecito to the mudslides nine years ago, this month, and we were thankful to find a home that was fully furnished about a year later. And when we bought the home, the previous owner had a giant glass jar of Oreos, beautifully arranged, uh, kind of as a statement piece in the kitchen in a glass jar. And that glass jar with the Oreos is still there nine years to the day later. Those Oreos have not changed a bit in nine years. Now, think about what that means. If a self-respecting mold or fungus or insect or bacteria is not interested in eating those Oreos eight years later, what makes you think that you eating those Oreos is going to have any benefit to you?

(07:41):
I rest my case. Let’s compare kind of before and after, uh, gluten-containing … Well, let’s start with bread. So here’s a gluten-containing bread. Don’t get me started on Dave’s Killer bread. I think it’s appropriately named. So this is thin sliced, and here’s what I want you to look at. So there’s 14 grams of carbohydrate per slice, and it’s quite a thin slice. There’s two grams of fiber. The old rule, and here’s what you do whenever you pick up a package. Take the total carbohydrates, subtract the fiber. So that’s 14 grams minus two grams. So there’s 12 grams of carbohydrate per slice. Now, there’s four grams of carbohydrates in a teaspoon of sugar. So each slice of this bread has three teaspoons of sugar per this very thin slice. Ooh. Why didn’t they put that on the label? ‘Cause they don’t want you to know, and they’re not required to tell you, thanks to a change in the law during the Reagan administration.

(08:56):
Well, let’s compare that to carbo not gluten-free. This sounds fabulous. Now, they’ve got resistant tapioca and/or resistant potato starch. Now, lectins are actually proteins. Starches are carbohydrates. So even the word potato, you go, “Oh, I can’t have potatoes because they contain lectins.” Interestingly enough, potato starch doesn’t. So this one’s got, ooh, uh, ole- high oleic sunflower oil is the third ingredient. Now they’ve got psyllium. Cillium fiber is great for you. Inulin, inulin is great for you. Oops. P protein or fava bean protein. Word to the wise. Peas have lots of lectins. If you see the words pea hydrolysate or isolate, the lectins have been removed. But if you see the word pea without those modifiers, it’s got lectins. Yeast. Modified cellulose. Modified cellulose means, I mean it, they put wood pulp in there. Native corn starch. Maybe, I guess maybe ice was checking the, the corn ID to see if it was born in America.

(10:22):
I, I don’t know. Rice brand rice has tons of lectins in it. Xantham gum, salt natural flavor. So this has a lot of fiber in it, but the fiber is, a lot of it is not very good for you. So it actually has more carbohydrates than what it replaced. The good news is that this has got 16 grams of total carbohydrate, but 15 grams of it is fiber. So there’s actually only one gram of sugar per slice. But half of the stuff you’re getting there is funky ingredients that really shouldn’t be in your diet. And again, if you see the words rice or corn, you know that they are one of the biggest mischief makers and lectins that you can eat. So, and I see this all the time in my patients. They’ll even do that calculation say, there is no sugar in here, and yet we still see them reacting with inflammation.

(11:21):
Uh, let’s go to the cookie shop. Oh, boy. So here’s the regular one. It’s Kate’s Baked Shop. Uh, I don’t know them, so I’m not picking on them. So two cookies have 18 grams of carbohydrates. There’s no dietary fiber. They added 12 grams of sugar, so they’re admitting to you that they put three teaspoons of sugar in two cookies. So we do the math, and there’s actually four and a half teaspoons of sugar in two cookies. So each little cookie, and they’re thin, crispy cookies that oughta warn you that they’re pretty doggone, small. Still has over four teaspoons … Well, actually, two and a half teaspoons of sugar per cookie. But these are gluten-free. So there are two cookies, total carbohydrate. Oops, 19 grams instead of 18 grams, still doesn’t have any fiber, still added 12 grams of sugar, and … But let’s look carefully.

(12:35):
Mainly, it’s sugar, brown sugar, natural flavoring, but the number one ingredient is rice flour. And so you’ve traded one lectin bomb for another lectin bomb, but the point of all this is, there’s actually a little more sugar in the gluten-free than there is in the original one, and you thought you were getting thin eating these. Just remember, buy or beware. Now, I gotta admit that my wife just think walker’s Scottish finest cookies are delicious, and it may be one of her guilty pleasures, but it’s very rare that she ever eats them. Why? Because there’s two cookies per serving. There’s 20 grams of carbohydrate, zero fiber. They’ve added nine grams of sugar. So for two cookies, four into 20, there’s five teaspoons of sugar in two little cookies. Talk about a guilty pleasure. Well, okay. You really want a chocolate chip cookie. So grain-free cookies. Not only do they not have ancient grains, they don’t have any grains at all.

(13:55):
And almond flour, tapioca flour, aroot flour, cassava flour, chickpea flour, lectin, coconut oil, coconut sugar, cane sugar, avocado oil, apple cider vinegar. That sounds great. Oops, serving size is five cookies. Now, I, I’m feeling them. I’ve seen these. These are little bitty cookies. So five of them have 17 grams of carbohydrate, one gram of dietary fiber. So that’s 16 grams of carbohydrate divided by four. Five little cookies have four teaspoons of sugar. So, well, I guess you’re more virtuous having four teaspoons of sugar than five teaspoons of sugar, but you get my point. These sound virtuous. These sound like a incredible indulgence, but they’re basically the same, even though one is grain-free.

(14:59):
Well, how about bagels? Uh, here, here’s Dave’s killer bagel. Uh, wow. One bagel has 52 grams of carbohydrate. One. Now, let’s give it to Dave. He’s got six grams of dietary fiber. So that’s 46 grams of carbohydrate divided by four. That’s 11 and a half teaspoons of sugar per one bagel. No wonder it’s appropriately named killer. But let’s get rid of that evil gluten showing. Gluten free. A hundred percent whole grain bagels. There’s a warning sign right away. Brown rice flour, number one ingredient. Tapioca flour. Uh, that’s not a whole grain. Potato starch. That’s not a whole grain. I thought you said 100% whole grain. Um, where’s the truth in advertising? Cultured brown rice flour. That’s a grain. Whole grain sorghum flour. That’s a grain. Cane sugar. What? Capioca starch, all sorts of fun. Well, w- maybe we’re better. So one bagel has 51 grams of carbohydrate.

(16:28):
There’s only one gram of fiber. So that’s 50 grams of carbohydrate in a bagel. We do the math. That’s about 11, 12 teaspoons of sugar in this whole grain gluten-free bagel. Oops. Not too virtuous. Well, come on. First thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna get rid of pasta because everybody knows pasta is made from wheat. And here it is, this is pasta direct from Italy made in Italy. And there is three quarters of a cup serving is the sauce. In three quarters of a cup, there’s 41 grams of carbohydrates, two grams of dietary fiber, so there’s 39 grams of carbohydrate. So we’re already looking at nine and a half teaspoons of sugar in this healthy pasta.

(17:33):
It’s got wheat. In fact, number one, semolina. Semolina is wheat. Even though it doesn’t say wheat, semolina is a type of wheat flour. But this Italian company says, “Well, I know you’re really worried about wheat in pasta, so we’re going to make gluten-free pasta.” And unfortunately, the serving size isn’t three quarters of a cup. It’s actually a half a cup. So a quarter of a cup less. Three quarters of a cup had 41 grams of carbohydrate. Oh, no. A half a cup has 44 grams of carbohydrate. So you get a third less and you get more carbohydrate. You actually get 11 teaspoons of sugar in less … And what’s the ingredients? Brown rice, number one. Lectin bomb. Yellow corn. Number two, lectin bomb. White corn. Lectin bomb. Rice. Another lectin bomb. This is gluten-free, but it’s a sugar and lectin bomb. And this is what I see with my patients all the time.

(19:00):
I’m going gluten-free. But what they didn’t know is they went sugar full and still lectin loaded. So buy or beware. If you’re getting the point, I wouldn’t recommend you eat any of these things, even if they were gluten-free. And we’ll get to lectin-free maybe as we go along. Everybody loves macaroni and cheese. I mean, who doesn’t? Come on. I lived on it. Believe it or not, my roommate and I in medical school lived on craft macaroni and cheese, literally. And now I don’t mean lived well, but that’s all we could afford. Uh, back in the dark ages, we could get four boxes of craft macaroni and cheese for a dollar. And that lasted us basically the week. And it, you know … Oh, well. So there’s two and a half servings per container, uh, about one cup of this prepared. Oh my gosh, no wonder we looked like we did.

(20:06):
There’s 48 grams of sugar in this. Now there’s four grams of fiber, let’s give them that, but there’s still 44 grams of sugar per serving. Divide by four, that’s 11 piecepoons of sugar per serving. Now I have to admit, my roommate and I split this. Yeah. So we had, unfortunately, uh, about 24 grams of sugar for dinner. But it’s got gluten in it. So this was organic, but let’s try gluten-free because that’s must be good. It’s ward-winning. And believe it or not, Jovial makes some really good products. They are an Italian company, but same problem here. One cup prepared. Total carbohydrates. 50 grams of sugar. Two grams of dietary fiber. Son of a gun. There’s actually more sugar in here than this one. And since everybody’s on a protein craze, there’s 11 grams of protein in this one. Oops. There’s only seven grams of protein in this one.

(21:19):
So not only are you getting more sugar, you’re getting less protein. And that is not a healthy swap. But you go, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that. ” I’m going to use shells made by Bonza. And Bonza, in case you didn’t know, is a chickpea pasta. In fact, they stay right on the label. What’s the ingredient? Chickpeas. Pea starch, tapioca and xantham gum. And then there’s a whole bunch of kind of fake milk products. This is made in Italy, so it must be really good for you. One cup prepared just like the other ones. Oh, well, total carbohydrate’s 38 grams. We’re down from the 50 area. Dietary fiber is eight grams. So take that away. There’s 30 grams, so that’s about seven and a half teaspoons of sugar. And there’s 16 grams of protein. So less sugar, more protein. The only problem is the protein comes from chickpeas.

(22:25):
Chickpeas are part of the legume family, and chickpeas must be pressure cooked to take the lectin out. So this sounds like the best bet, and people go for it all the time, but I see these people react to chickpeas all the time. Sad.

(22:42):
Well, come on, there must be something. Years ago when I was writing my books about where lectins are hiding, I really, really wanted buckwheat to be safe because I figured, well, buckwheat’s not a grain, it’s a pseudo grain. The Japanese eat soba noodles and they seem to do just fine, and that’s made out of buckwheat. And around the world, buckwheat is prized for its nutritional value. It’s a super food. So here’s a cracker and nine crackers first serving. Darn it. 12 grams of carbohydrate in this. Buckwheat flour is the number one ingredient. Sunflower oil is the second ingredient. Sunflower flour, sunflower seeds have lectins. Cassava flour, that’s okay. Wholesalium, that’s okay. Organic rosemary, great idea. The point of all this is there’s actually three teaspoons of sugar in nine crackers, but it’s loaded, sadly. Buckwheat is loaded with lectins. In fact, I, I have a patient who listened to a very famous doctor who happens to be a friend of mine touting the benefits of buckwheat.

(24:12):
And he went on kind of a added buckwheat flour diet and we had sealed his leaky gut. He was looking great. He had issues with his thyroid. He had Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, all cleared up. Next lab, his Sashimoto’s is back, his leaky gut is back. And I said, “What the heck are you doing?” And he says, “Oh, I’m, you know, on this really highly praised buckwheat because it’s the superfood of all time.” I said, “Get that out of your diet.” And he did. A month later, his Hashimoto’s was gone, his leaky gut was gone because we took away the superfood buckwheat. I’m sorry, I really wanted buckwheat to be a super food, but the evidence is that buckwheat is loaded with lectins, and sadly, I see it all the time.

(25:11):
How about, well, seeds are good for you. Uh, humble seed. Let’s have seed crackers. Oh, no. Are we getting a story here? So there’s 14 grams of carbohydrates, two grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of carbohydrates, that’s three teaspoons of sugar. But number one ingredient in this seed cracker is whole wheat flour. Oops. That’s not a seed. The seed blend is next. Sunflower seed that has a lectin, chia seeds, that has a lectin, pumpkin seeds, that has a lectin. Flaxseeds, that doesn’t have a lectin. Shelled hemp seeds. That doesn’t have a lectin. Enriched flour is the next one. So this is mostly wheat disguised as a seed cracker. Finally, simple milks. Now, when I tell my patients if they have to have a cheat, th- this may be the safest choice, but why might it be the safest choice? It has tapioca starch, cassava flour, it has rosemary extract, it has almonds, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds.

(26:35):
So the almonds are sketchy, the sunflower seeds are sketchy, but there’s not a whole lot of them in there. But here’s the problem I see. Total carbohydrate is 18 grams per serving. Dietary fiber is two. That’s 16 grams of carbohydrates per serving. That’s four teaspoons of sugar per serving. So I see my well-meaning patients look at this label and go, “You know, that’s pretty compliant. It certainly doesn’t have any wheat.” But then I see their triglycerides go up, which is the first form of fat that we manufacture from sugars and starches. I see their insulin levels go up, their insulin resistance go up, and they’re eating healthy. And sadly, I see this all the time. So feel what good food can do is their trademark, registered trademark. Unfortunately, I see in the blood work what “good food” can do, and it’s not good.

(27:48):
Peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets. You know where this is going. So first of all, peanuts. Most of my patients have an antibody to peanuts, the peanut lectin. So that is a no starter. A hundred percent of my patients have antibodies to wheat. That’s a no starter. So number one ingredient is peanut butter. Number two ingredient, whole grain sorghum flour. Hey, I’m for that. Oops, brown rice flour is the next one. Tapioca starch. Okay, with that, potato starch. Eh, we’re okay. Oops, there’s sunflower oil. Oops, there’s organic cane sugar. Pea protein. Oh, man. But it’s got peanuts. And besides, it’s got 18 grams of sugar, really no fiber. So there’s four and a half teaspoons of sugar plus peanuts in that. Well, let’s compare that to the regular peanut butter pretzel nugget. Oops, wheat flour, peanut butter, cane sugar, barley malt extract, barley malt. Barley has gluten.

(28:59):
And canola oil. Oops, there’s 17 grams of carbohydrate, one gram of dietary fiber. There’s 16 grams of sugar. Do the math, there’s four teaspoons of sugar, plus peanuts. Neither of these are a healthy option.

(29:19):
Darn it. Okay. Capellos. Now, I happen to be a big fan of capellos for people who can tolerate almond flour. And they’re in my book. Unfortunately, so many of my patients with autoimmune diseases, almond flour is the mischief maker. But let’s be careful out there. Let me give you an example. There’s a half a pizza is the serving size. Fair enough. That’s 520 calories. Fair enough. Total carbohydrates, 33 grams. There’s four grams of dietary fiber. They’ve added sugar. There is then 29 … So there’s seven teaspoons of sugar in half a pizza. And it’s got pizza sauce. So what’s it got? Crushed tomatoes. Darn it. Tomatoes are loaded with lectins. Uh, what’s in the crust? Eggs. Number one, almond flour. Casava flour, coconut milk. Most of this stuff is pretty good except for the almond flour. So just remember that this is in my list of acceptable foods, but you always gotta realize how much sugar is in a processed food.

(30:42):
And this one is no better than anything else. In fact, let’s compare. Here’s … Ooh, this is handstretched margarita pizza. I assume if we put human hands on it, it’s somehow better. Now, this is the best of Italy brought to you, but the company, uh, they won’t even tell us where it comes from. Oh, it’s Canada. Uh, Canada uses wheat that has glyphosate on it like ours.

(31:18):
Now, good news is a third of the pizza is a serving size, but this is a bigger box. Holy cow, there’s 40 grams of carbohydrate. There’s virtually no dietary fiber. So there’s 10 teaspoons of sugar in a third of this pizza. But then the worst part, what’s the ingredients? Enriched tweet number two. Tomatoes. Tired. But they’re peeled, but they’re not de- seeded. At least they peeled them. There’s part skim mozzarella cheese. It’s made in North America, so that’s an A1 cow. Durham, wheat semolina, simulina flour. So this one, safer, more virtuous, but remember, both of these are a dinner of sugar. This with the added benefit of all that wheat flour that’s been sprayed with glyphosate. So just a virtuous sounding food may be just as mischievous as what you’re trying to run away from, which was the wheat flour. So be careful out there.

(32:31):
And sadly, I see so many of my patients who are not only trying to eat gluten-free, but they’re really trying to eat lectin-free, but they ignore the fact that most of these processed foods get so much of their calorie content from sugar. And that’s part of the problem with our American diet. So gluten-free, buy or beware, the replacements may actually be worse than what you’re trying to run away from. So if you’re trying to buy gluten-free substitutes, look for those with ingredients like psyllium husk, flaxseed, coconut flour, tiger nut flour. Look for gluten-free products with oils like olive oil, organic canola, or avocado oil. But watch out for the hidden sugars. Look at the carbs per serving minus the fiber divide by four, and that will shock you with the amount of sugar that’s been purposely hidden from you in all these ingredients. Hope that helps you make sense of the jungle out there in gluten-free foods.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.