Speaker 1: 00:00 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.

Dr. Gundry: 00:14 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. There’s nothing I love more than hearing from my listeners and readers, and boy, have I had a lot of questions about my yes and no list of foods, particularly, as I put out a new book and that list changes. So I get it, one egg replacer that I might have recommended two years ago, I might not recommend now, because believe it or not, formulas change without consulting me. So what I said was a really great egg replacer a year ago, that formula changed, and I no longer recommend that egg replacer, and I do try my best to keep the list updated. I assure you, I am always looking for a new food to add and I’m always looking for when somebody changes something. And if we don’t get to the question, I will try to remind myself to talk about the changes that have been made in quorn products. That’s not corn. It’s Q-U-O-R-N, because I have a lot of patients that ask me about that.

Dr. Gundry: 01:29 So the fundamentals of the yes and no list actually hopefully, never change. Now having said that, you really smart readers, careful readers, may know that in the Dr. Gundry cookbook, the original one, I cited a paper that said pecans might have a lectin in that in some people, attack the pancreas, and that same paper suggested that there is a lectin in seaweed that may be problematic, and it’s well hidden in that book, but every now and then, an alert reader will pick that up. So why haven’t I taken pecans and seaweed off the list? Well, stay tuned, because in my upcoming book, The Energy Paradox, which will be out this coming fall, I have found through multiple food allergy testing in my patients that pecans often, often, often I would say 75% of the time, come up as a food that people are allergic to. So stay tuned, they may be coming off the list.

Dr. Gundry: 02:52 Also, we have found that there is a lectin in spinach that can be problematic for certain individuals, not everybody. And as I get more data from my patients, remember this is not conjecture on my part, this is data-driven from patient blood work. As more data comes in, we may issue a cautionary note on spinach, but for now, don’t throw the spinach away, okay? So there’s always going to be great foods to eat, and there probably will be always foods that you should avoid. Okay, so there’s always exceptions to the rule, and we’re going to talk about some of the exceptions.

Dr. Gundry: 03:41 Okay. Francie asks, “I have a tree nut allergy. So the acceptable flours on the list are out of my range of acceptability. I am also vegetarian, so meats and chicken on the list cannot be eaten. Dairy is one of my protein staples. Any suggestions?” Well, there’s certainly a lot of flours on the list that are not nut-based. For instance, tiger nuts are not a nut at all, they are a tuber. Cassava is a tuber. Millet is a grain without a hull, as is sorghum, and we’re increasingly seeing sorghum and millet flours available on a routine basis. And if worse comes to worse, you can find them on Amazon or on Thrive.

Dr. Gundry: 04:34 So there’s multiple other flours other than almond and coconut flour. Most people don’t react to almond and coconut flour, but I’ll add the proviso, makes sure it’s blanched almond flour, not whole almond flour. For instance, Trader Joe’s does sell a whole ground up almond flour, and you can actually see the flecks of brown. A number of my patients with autoimmune disease do react to the lectin in the peel of almonds. That’s why you actually don’t see almonds on the approved nutless. Marcona almonds, which are peeled almonds, are perfectly acceptable, but in my way of thinking, there’s actually far better nuts to eat than almonds, in terms of feeding gut bacteria, and I’ve written about that in The Longevity Paradox, that there’s better choices.

Dr. Gundry: 05:31 Okay. “Dairy is one of my protein staples.” Well, dairy as a protein, if you find casein A2 milk products, and they are increasingly available, that’s a perfectly acceptable protein source. You can get it from goat’s milk, you can get it from goat’s cheeses, you can get it from sheep cheeses. You can get sheep yogurt, which is absolutely fantastic. Sheep and goat cheeses from Europe, no matter where they come from are safe, and most cows in France, Italy, and Switzerland are A2 two producers, as is Buffalo mozzarella. Makes sure it says Buffalo mozzarella, either from Italy. There’s also a company that we’ve talked about before from Ecuador called BUF, B-U-F, and you can find it in Whole Foods, you can find it in, actually, IN multiple stores now. And a true water Buffalo milk is perfectly safe.

Dr. Gundry: 06:35 Now, having said that, there are a number of people in my practice, who when we do further testing, they do react to all the caseins in milk and even whey protein in milk. So if you notice that even if you’re eating casein A2 two milk products and you still have an issue, whether it’s irritable bowel, whether it’s mucus production, then you’re one of those people where milk is one of your off foods. Always remember, there’s no human need for milk. We’re the only animal that uses some other animal’s milk product. Well, cats like it, but we give it to cats, they don’t go milk a cow.

Dr. Gundry: 07:24 So milk is not essential for your good health. Also remember that while there may be cheeses, aged cheeses, that have a really cool compound called polyamines, which appear to promote longevity, milk in general, a liquid milk has lots of insulin-like growth factor to make baby cows, or baby goats, or baby sheep grow quickly. So I’d much rather you use the finished product of milk, like an aged cheese or even a yogurt, rather than the milk liquid itself. Okay, I hope that helps.

Dr. Gundry: 08:05 Robyn asks, “Can you drink almond milk?” Well, yeah, you can drink almond milk. I find it a little watery and bland. I think there’s actually a lot better products out there on the market now. I’m particularly fond of a combination of macadamia and coconut milks that are available. There’s some really, I think, thick, delicious coconut milks that are available. There are some combinations of almond and coconut milk that give you the thickness you want. And if you want to have some fun, look for several other products that are non-dairy half and half, which are often a mixture of macadamia, or coconut, or almond milks, and you’re going to get more of a thicker texture for those. But yeah, you can drink almond milk.

Dr. Gundry: 09:00 Christiana asks, “What about honey? Is that on the yes or no list?” So you’ll notice in The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook, I do recommend in a few recipes using a little bit of local honey. You got to remember, that honey is sugar, there’s no other way of looking at it. And in general, we have far too much sugar in our diet, period. That being said, if you use local honey, there is some interesting evidence that they contain health benefiting properties, including actually, some interesting probiotics and even prebiotics. So it’s neither on the no or yes list, because when I originally made the list, if I put everything that everybody asked a question about, it would take the entire book just to do the yes and no list. So rather than put it one place or another, it wasn’t a big thing that my patients were demanding, and so I just left it off the list one way or another.

Dr. Gundry: 10:13 But yeah, honey does appear, you’ll notice in several of my recipes, but do try to get local honey and again, support your local beekeeper, support your local farmer’s market and that’s where you’re going to find local honey. And please don’t make the mistake that local honey… So for instance, I live in Palm Springs. My local honey is not from Orange County, it’s from Palm Springs. Same way, if I’m in Santa Barbara at my other home, I buy Santa Barbara honey. Do I use it? Quite frankly, I almost never use honey, except to make one of these recipes.

Dr. Gundry: 10:53 Rose asks, “Am I correct in understanding that much of the no list is perfectly fine if pressure cooked?” She’s specifically looking at squash, quinoa, rice, and lentils. The answer in a general rule is yes, there is evidence that pressure cooking destroys most lectins. The exception to the rule, and they’re listed on the list, is gluten, which is present in wheat, rye, and barley, cannot be destroyed by pressure cooking. It is a really nasty protein that can’t be broken apart by pressure cooking. Having said that, there is a protein in oats that mimics gluten, and so I’ve had a number of my canaries test even pressure cooking oats for an hour, and they still react to oats. So you’ll notice that that’s on the off.

Dr. Gundry: 11:55 I have a number of people who still want to maintain their traditional diet, their family diet, and that includes lentils, and for instance, quinoa, and they do extremely well by pressure cooking their quinoa. In fact, interesting, just this past week, I have a family who have quinoa, and they pressure cook, their quinoa are thriving on that, and they invited their in-laws over to have pressure-cooked quinoa and the in-laws said, “There’s no way we’re coming over. That’s not how you cook quinoa, and you’re going to make some regular stuff for us.” And they actually didn’t, and they fed their family the pressure-cooked quinoa and he said, “You’re not going to believe this. My in-laws actually said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this before? This is so much better than the way we’ve been preparing it.'” So a true story from just this past week.

Dr. Gundry: 13:01 As you know in The Plant Paradox, I write about a woman who immigrated to LA from Peru, and wanted to continue her traditional diet, which included quinoa. She developed some impressive bowel issues and autoimmune disease, and humorously, her mother, two weeks before her appointment with me, flew from Peru and basically said, “You stupid girl, didn’t I tell you you have to pressure cook quinoa?” And she took her to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought her a pressure cooker. And when I met her she said, “My mother would beat you to me,” and ever since she’s been pressure cooking her quinoa, she has resolved her issues.

Dr. Gundry: 13:47 So these are real things. White basmati rice, I personally feel is the safest of the rices. Please pressure cook it, and as you’ve read, even with any of these starches, you’re best off to pressure cook them, put a little coconut oil in the pressure cooker with these starches, but then cool the starch, put it in the refrigerator, and then reheat it the next day. Cooling, will take any of the starches and increase their resistant starch content.

Dr. Gundry: 14:25 What resistant starch means, for those of you who are just kind of getting into this, it is resistant to normal digestion, so it takes a longer to digest, number one, and number two, some of it actually resists our normal digestion, and then is eaten by bacteria in our gut, so it becomes a prebiotic. Now, we can get really nerdy on resist starches, but really nerdy, potatoes, good old white potatoes, can be made a resistant starch, but the starch in potato is actually an R2 starch and it has actually eaten by bad bacteria, rather than good bacteria. So it’s another reason to avoid potatoes, even if you’re going to pressure cook them. Now, I do have some of my patients that have to have their white potatoes and mashed potatoes, and yes, we have them peel the potatoes and pressure cook them, but if you’re looking for a starch that’s good for you, that’s way down the list.

Dr. Gundry: 15:40 Okay, so let’s take a quick break.

Dr. Gundry: 15:44 Hey everybody, it’s Dr. Gundry here, and I’ve got some very exciting news. Right now, you can sign up for Dr. Gundry’s newsletter. As a subscriber, you’ll get updates about new episodes of the Dr. Gundry podcast, where we talk about all things health. Trust me, you won’t want to miss out. I’ll also keep you in the loop of all the things I’m up to, from news, to events, to special appearances. Visit www.doctor gundry.com to sign up.

Dr. Gundry: 16:16 Okay. Sherri asks, “How do you ensure adequate potassium intake on the diet? Bananas are a staple for me to ensure appropriate potassium levels. I know sweet potatoes are a good source, but…” So, one has to remember that the United Fruit Company, who originated bringing bananas to the United States, had to make people adopt to a new foods source. One of the fascinating things about bananas that I hope everyone knows, is that bananas were the original fruit that could be picked green and then shipped across the country, and then ripened with either exposure to air or ripened rapidly with exposure to the gas ethylene oxide. So that was the motivation for making bananas a desired food source.

Dr. Gundry: 17:26 So how do you make people eat bananas when they don’t know anything about it? In the early 1900s, the United Fruit Company paid doctors to tell people that bananas were a great source of potassium that people needed in their diet. It turns out that potassium is not particularly high in bananas. In fact, there are far better foods, including leafy greens, that have far more potassium per ounce than bananas. But it was this marketing plan, over a hundred years ago, that actually made people and doctors to this day, tell people eat bananas for potassium.

Dr. Gundry: 18:15 Incidentally, the United Fruit Company formed with the new founded Kellogg’s Corn Flake company in 1906, to have a coupon for a bunch of Chiquita bananas in every box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and doctors were paid to tell people that the healthy way to start your day was with a bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with a sliced banana. So that’s why you know now why my mom gave me a healthy sliced banana on my Kellogg’s Corn Flakes every day while I was growing up, and while I was getting allergy shots, little did I know, little did she know, that’s because of the power of marketing. And as anyone learns, if you say an untruth often enough and loud enough, it will become the truth. How’s that?

Dr. Gundry: 19:15 Okay. Also, calcium is a concern. So most of the world, two thirds of the world cannot drink milk because of lactose intolerance. They did not inherit the mutated gene that allows most European ancestry to tolerate lactose. Many of us don’t have the particular lactobacilli that can digest lactose easily. Two thirds of the world does not use calcium, does not take calcium as a supplement. The FDA has warned that in general, we should not take calcium in a supplement form, that we should get calcium, which is an essential mineral, from food. And so, it’s incredibly available in all of our green leafy vegetables. It’s actually present in avocados, to a very good amount. It’s present in millet and sorghum.

Dr. Gundry: 20:22 It is present in beans, and people have to understand I have nothing against beans and lentils, as long as you pressure cook them. They are a great source of prebiotic fiber, but just take the time to detoxify the lectins by pressure cooking, and it’s so easy to do. If you don’t want to do that, you can go to your friendly store and pick up Eden brand beans. I have no relationship with them. E-D-E-N, and they are the only bean that I have found that is pressure cooked in the can. It’s pre-soaked, and there is no BPA lining in Eden beans. And believe it or not, I have a shelf full of Eden beans in both of my pantries and I eat them. So whoever puts out on the internet that you know I am totally against beans, it’s not true. I eat them. Maybe I’ll post a video of me eating beans. That’ll be good. Yeah, okay. Look for that.

Dr. Gundry: 21:31 Bottom line, how does one ensure the right vitamin and mineral balance? So if you eat a wide range of different vegetables, different starches, different roots, you will maintain an adequate balance. One of the things that has been noted over, and over, and over again is that our soil, even our organic soil, is terribly depleted of magnesium and selenium. How do you get selenium in your diet? Well, one of the easiest ways is to buy a bag of Brazil nuts and eat three Brazil nuts a day, and that will get you your daily requirement of selenium, and actually, they’re pretty good for you.

Dr. Gundry: 22:19 Magnesium, on the other hand, is really difficult to get by eating food, and I have every one of my patients on a magnesium supplement. I particularly like potassium magnesium aspartate. There are several companies that manufacture it. Look for the most you can get per tablet or a capsule. The labeling is very inconsistent. If you have any issues with cramps in your legs, cramps particularly at night, or if you’re doing a ketogenic diet, you absolutely, positively must supplement with potassium magnesium aspartate, and it’s actually one of the better tolerated combinations of magnesium. At high dose, magnesium will act as a diarrhea or soft stool inducing agent. Milk of magnesia is concentrated magnesium. So those are the two really fundamental minerals that may be lacking in our diet because of our soil depletion.

Dr. Gundry: 23:31 Shelly asks, “I love avocados, but in the last five years or so, I have extreme gut pain when I eat them and have eliminated them from my diet. This diet seems to rely heavily on avocados, so I am wondering why I’m having a problem with them and what other options do I have?” So I have several patients who clearly react to avocados, and some of them actually seem to develop an intolerance for them, the longer they eat them. So I think avocados are one of the greatest fruits there is, and yes, an avocado is a fruit, it’s a single seeded berry. But on the other hand, if you see that there is a food that you react to, it’s like the old doctor joke, “Doctor, whenever I do this, I get a headache” and the answer is, “Well, don’t do that.” And so, if you notice you react to avocados, don’t do it.

Dr. Gundry: 24:31 I can tell you I have a number, particularly women, who get irritable bladder from eating spinach and they notice it universally. And I can tell you, I have purposely overloaded myself on spinach, and I induced irritable bladder in myself. So I believe you when you tell me that. And there are compounds in spinach that are capable of doing that, and that actually brings me to an interesting point. A patient asked me a couple of weeks ago, “The more you kind of stick with this program, when you go off, even with a little cheat, do you notice you’re now realizing that that product, that food, actually bothers you?” And I think that’s actually a great observation, because I notice that in myself, and I notice it in lots of patients. Normally, we are so bombarded with compounds that universally make us feel bad, have brain fog, have bad sleep, have pains. We are so used to that, that when we take all those products away and we finally wake up, when we add that product back, our sensitivity is now heightened to the actual effect that product was having on us.

Dr. Gundry: 26:14 And I’ll give you an example, it’s actually in my new book, but I’ll give you a preface. As a transplant surgeon, both doing kidney transplants and heart transplants, we would have people who were functioning quite well with, basically, horrible kidneys or a horribly pumping heart, and they could do a number of things. When we would put a new kidney in them or a new heart in them, within a day they would go, “Oh my gosh, I forgot what normal felt like. This is what normal feels like.”

Dr. Gundry: 26:59 And it’s so interesting, I’ve been so impressed that we have been so surrounded by food that’s toxic, that’s making us feel bad, having low energy, having fatigue, having brain fog, that we are so used to that, that we think that’s normal. And what really delights me, and it delighted me when it happened to me, is when that lifts, you go, “Oh my gosh, I forgot what normal feels like.” And so, when you add something back that is one of the culprits, it’s wonderful because now your body says, “Hey, you idiot, what’d you do that for?” And you can feel it immediately. So it’s a real thing.

Dr. Gundry: 27:52 Scott from Instagram asks, “Can I drink ciders as a beer alternative?” That is a great question, Scott, because I have a gentleman who’s in his 70s, who has some of the most impressive leaky gut that I’ve come across. He does not absorb protein well. He is skinny as a rail, and his wife is a faithful follower of mine, and he’s actually a faithful follower of mine, except he used to drink a six pack of beer every day. We weaned him down to one to two beers per day, and he still has leaky gut.

Dr. Gundry: 28:43 So I said, “I’ll tell you what, let’s do a really specific leaky gut test on you, and let’s find out your culprit,” knowing full well what I think we thought we’d find, and lo and behold, all of his leaky gut tests came back. And son of a gun, I’ve been telling them this for 10 years, he reacts to wheat. And surprise, he reacts severely to gluten, and gluten is in his beer. No matter what beer he’s drinking, beer has gluten, and his wife hits him over the head with her pocketbook and says, “You see? I told ya! You got to give up the beer.” So what I’m going to do next week when I get back to the Palm Springs office is I’m going to have my staff call and say, I’m going to make a swap for you. Let’s get rid of beer and let’s put in cider, and we’re going to see what happens. Great question.

Dr. Gundry: 29:47 [Yuli 00:29:47] From Instagram asks, “Is teff flour allowed?” Teff is actually a very interesting ancient grain from Africa. It’s really tiny, it grows in incredibly arid, awful places, and it’s a staple of the people I go dig wells for in Ethiopia, and teff is actually a safe grain. It’s another one of those hull-less grain. Try to buy teff. You actually support indigenous farmers.

Dr. Gundry: 30:19 So Hannah from Instagram asks, “For high fat dairy products, how important is it to stick with organic dairy products?” Yes, get organic dairy products, but warning, if it says grass fed but doesn’t tell you the cow breed, most of our cows in the United States are Holstein or they’re Jersey cows. Jerseys are half A1 and half A2, so they do have A1 casein in them. Elsie the cow was a Jersey cow, for those of you who remember Borden fame. You’re better off getting raw cheeses from France, Italy, and Switzerland, which have all been grass fed, and so they’re all organic. You’re just much safer. So to follow up with that, what about cream cheese? Well, cream cheese does not have any casein in it. I mean, there’s a microscopic amount, but it’s really basically unmeasurable. So you’re safe with organic cream cheese as one of the safe cow’s milk product, if you’re going to use cream cheese.

Dr. Gundry: 31:39 So Kristen asks, “What about blue cheese?” So there’s lots of great blue cheeses out there, but I would prefer if you got your blue cheese from particularly France, Italy, or the mountainous areas of Germany and Switzerland, which are all A2 cows. Blue cheese from England, and having lived in England, I love Stilton cheese. It’s the wrong breed of cow, it’s a Holstein. So you’re much better off getting your blue cheeses like Penny and I do, from France. That’s the blue cheeses we use. Or Italy.

Dr. Gundry: 32:18 So A. Goldstein from Instagram asks, “Please recommend a perilla oil to cook with.” Well, there’s actually a number of perilla oils that are available. If you go to an Asian market, perilla oil is the most popular oil for cooking in Korea and parts of China. You can on Amazon and get it. I get mine from a company called Dr. Wonderful, which is easy to find on Amazon. I have no relation. He may be wonderful, for all I know, and I’ve been using that for a number of years. My personal feeling is that longterm, in phase two or beyond, olive oil is your best buddy because it has far more polyphenols than perilla oil. The benefit of perilla oil is it has a lot of what’s called rosmarinic acid, which is one of the secrets to the longevity and good brain health of the Acciaroli, that cute community that is South of Naples, which has the biggest percentage of over a hundred year old people of any community. So rosmarinic acid, which, by the way, is in one of several of my products, is one of the real secrets to longevity.

Dr. Gundry: 33:51 So 303Charlie from Instagram wants to know about mycotoxins in coffee, and chocolate, and other things, and he wants to know are they really as bad as certain people say they are? That’s a great question, and I actually take care of a number of people who come to me with mold exposure or mycotoxin exposure, and including one of the world’s experts on it. And I’ll give you my take on all of this. I don’t test for these things. The fact that you may test positive for IgG to various molds or other fungi, does not mean that those molds and fungi are in you or that you were ever infected with them, it means that you were exposed to them, and you appropriately made a antibody to these.

Dr. Gundry: 34:55 Having said that, your immune system, most of our immune systems, because of leaky gut, and quite frankly I think about a hundred percent of us walking around in America have leaky gut, and your immune system is so hyper on alert that any foreign protein will activate them to attack, not only them, but you. Normally, when your gut is sealed and you have a normal component, a microbiome with lots, and lots, and thousands, and millions of different species, those species literally educate your immune system that, “We’ve got your back. Whatever you’re going to swallow, we’ll take care of, and even if we don’t, they’re not going to bother you, and you guys can just rest and stand down.”

Dr. Gundry: 36:05 I’m a perfect example of that. I got allergy shots for most of my teenage and young adult life. I don’t have any allergies anymore. I was allergic to every mold there was. I could live in a moldy house. I will not have any reaction to mold exposure, because my immune system is different. By the way, the Italian government has issued statements that there are no mycotoxins in espresso, so there are none, because even if there were, the cooking process, the high temperature kills and deactivates any mycotoxin. Same way with chocolate. So if you react to these molds or fungi, it’s because your immune system is hyperreactive, and that’s actually telling you that these guys are not the problem, the problem is you’ve got leaky gut and you’ve got a horribly imbalanced microbiome. We fix that, that problem goes away, as it did with one of the world experts in mycotoxins when we changed her leaky gut.

Dr. Gundry: 37:22 So that’s it for this week from the Dr. Gundry podcast. Please send your questions on in. It’s really fun to get a chance to answer your questions, and send more and we’ll be happy to put me on the firing line, because I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.

Dr. Gundry: 37:43 Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast, you can always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/doctorgundry, because I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.