Five vegetables that are toxic for your gut. All right, I wanna get back to the basics today because we’ve all been taught that if it’s a veggie, then it most definitely deserves a spot on your plate, right? Well, not so fast. There are actually veggies out there that can straight up destroy your gut health, especially if you eat them frequently. So let’s talk about five of the worst ones out there.

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Tomatoes. Now, Europeans called it the poison apple and actually wouldn’t touch it for 200 years. And why is that? Well, it’s part of the nightshade family. So lectins are primarily in the skin and the seeds. So if you’re gonna use them, do like my mother did and peel and deseed it like an Italian Nona would do as well. And until I went to college, I never had a tomato that hadn’t been peeled and deseeded because she was taught by her mother that these are dangerous. So how does it destroy gut health specifically? Well, remember, lectins are part of the plant defense system against being eaten. Most plants do not want you to eat them or their babies. So they develop defensive proteins that are called lectins. Now there are many other defensive proteins in plants like oxalates, for example, but lectins in specific are capable of causing literal microscopic holes in the wall of your gut.

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So what? When those holes occur, bacteria leaks through, lectins leak through, and you get inflammation both in the wall of your gut, but also in you. And if an animal does not feel good, if an animal is not thriving, the animal figures out that this particular food, it shouldn’t eat. The plant wins, the animal wins, and everybody’s happy until humans arrive. When we eat these things, we take antacids, we take pain relievers, we take antidepressants all because the plant is trying to get our attention and we don’t listen. All right. Another nightshade family, peppers, whether it’s a regular pepper, a bell pepper, a jalapeno pepper, they’re all, again, part of the nightshade family. Now, I might add that everything that you see here up until the last one are new world plants. Now, why is that important? All of us here in the United States are not from America.

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We’re either European, African or Asian. Yes, Native Americans were here much longer, so none of us, up until 500 years ago, were ever exposed to a North or South American plant. So we’ve had a very small time period to understand and get used to these new compounds. So all of these peppers are also part of the nightshade. Now, capsaicin, that really hot flavor is actually a warning shot to you that you shouldn’t eat these things. And quite frankly, we’re the only animal that would take a second bite out of a jalapeno pepper for good reason. Bird peppers are called bird peppers because birds cannot taste that spice. And birds would be extremely useful to carry a small pepper, spread the seeds around, and that’s why birds are very good for peppers. Now, paprika and can are usually ground whole, skin seeds and everything. However, Hungarian paprika is a fermented food.

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And interestingly enough, for instance, the Southwest American Indians who lived on peppers always charred their peppers, peeled them, and then deseeded them before they either ate them or ground them into chili powder. So they knew how to handle what was a gut-destroying mischief maker. And again, why do these affect us? Because of the lectins that they contain, primarily in the peel and the seeds.

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All right. What about eggplant? It’s also a nightshade and it has the highest solanine of all the nightshade. Now, solanine is actually how the plant kills insects, which was plants’ first predator. So all of these defense mechanisms were designed to keep insects from bothering them. An eggplant is essentially basically peeling seeds. So this one I can’t save. So it really does not have a place in our diet. Okay, well, what, how about white potatoes? Well, white potatoes are also a nightshade from the Americas, originally from Peru. Now, this one was really, you’d never suspect this lowly potato as being number one a nightshade, but it’s mischievous. So potatoes will actually spike your blood sugar faster than table sugar. Can you detoxify it? Well, yes and no. A lot of the lectins are in the peel. So peeling it will diminish the lectins. You can certainly pressure cook it, and a lot of my patients do.

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You can also cook it, then chill it, and then reheat it, which will actually lower the amount of mischievous sugar in it. You’ll make resistant starches. On the other hand, sweet potatoes, yams, and a purple sweet potato are totally different families of potatoes. They do not have these mischief makers. So do me a favor, just exchange your white potatoes for a yam, a sweet potato, or a purple sweet potato, and leave those off to the side as well. All right. Now, when I was a kid, my parents almost every day tried to get my sister and I to eat green beans and peas, and we would play a game of trying to hide them so that we could get dessert. And we really didn’t like them. Looking back, there was a really good reason because these are part of the legume family, beans and legumes.

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And even a green bean is just a container for the seeds. And we don’t think much about it, but a green bean is a seed pot. And the problem with these are, these are some of the highest lectin containing foods that there are. So just because the seeds are hiding doesn’t mean they’re good for you. And if you undercook them, you’re gonna have even more lectins. So what can you do about it? Well, you can pressure cook your peas. You can pressure cook your green beans, but quite frankly, they aren’t very tasty. Now, I know many of you go, “Oh, but wait a minute. Pea protein, pea protein’s in everything and pea protein is, is a wonderful, healthy plant protein.” Unfortunately, pea protein has lectins. But here’s the good news, as I wrote about in my book, Gut Shit. If you hydrolyze or isolate pea protein or soy protein, the lectins are removed.

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So if you see pea protein, it better say pea protein isolate or pea protein hydrolysate, then it’s safe. But unless you pressure cook these guys, these are not health foods. They contain lectins. All right. How about the gourd family, cucumbers and zucchini? Now, cucumbers were originally from Persia. Zucchini is actually from America, the Americas. So in Europe, we usually see cucumbers peeled and deseeded, and squashes are often peeled and deseeded. Why? Because they also contain lectins and cooking them does not get rid of it. Putting it in zucchini bread makes one of the worst lectin bombs there is. If you ferment a cucumber, you will destroy the lectins, but almost all of our pickles are not fermented anymore. So if you’re thinking, oh, a pickle is fermented, make sure you read the label and it’s got to say fermented, not brined. Same problem here. These are loaded with lectins, and unless you know how to handle them and detoxify them, these are some of the worst foods that you probably got in your refrigerator right now, and it’s best to detoxify them by peeling and deseeding them or moving them out of your kitchen.

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Now it’s time for the question of the week. The question of the week comes from @Jeffer235 on my YouTube video on green bananas. They ask, “I have been finding green kiwi fruit. They are labeled as high in fiber. How does it compare to golden kiwi?” Well, they’re kind of the same thing. Golden Kiwi may have a little bit more fiber than the green, and the golden kiwi are smaller. And as you know, you should really, I think, limit your fruit consumption. So kiwis are great. They do, uh, feed good gut bacteria, and whichever you can find, go ahead and get them, but eat the peel. Now it’s time for the review of the week. The review of the week comes from @veronicacollopi, 8798 on YouTube. They said, “Thanks so much, Dr. Gundry, for your help with my digestive problems and my fatty liver, MASH and fibrosis.

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In six months, I have dropped my cholesterol from 343 to 302. I’ve had high cholesterol since my 30s. I’m 67 now. My triglycerides are still high, 200, but I’m getting better and lost 15 pounds too by eating better, taking your Bio Complete three Lectin Shield, and now going to try your complete liver support. I’m feeling so much better. Well, thanks very much, Veronica. You know, I designed these products based on now over 25 years of seeing patients six days a week, getting blood work every three to six months, and finding out what works and what doesn’t work. I’m glad to hear that even though you’re not my patient, it’s working for you. Thanks for writing.

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That’s a wrap on today’s episode. And before you go, I wanna leave you with one task. If anything you heard today made you think, made you wanna dig deeper, or gave you something you’re going to pass along to someone you care about, please take 15 seconds and leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I know that sounds small, but those reviews are how Apple and Spotify decide which shows to surface to new listeners. And this show only grows when people who’ve never heard of it suddenly find it. That person finding this podcast today could hear something that genuinely improves their life or the life of someone they love, maybe even saves one. Everything I share here comes from my research when writing my next book and my clinics, where I’ve been seeing patients six days a week for over 25 years, working with nutrition and supplements as the primary treatment.

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This is Real World Medicine. Help me get it to more people. And thank you. Truly thank you. I’m Dr. G, and I’m always looking out for you.