As I promised you yesterday( HERE), today I will explain you exactly how grains and legumes actually harm your health. Besides that I will tell you “the secret”, how to keep your gut healthy and stay away from the leaky gut syndrome!
The answer is just one and it is as follows- by paying more attention to what you eat! By giving up on the notion of using food as an entertainment and as a mean to bring you pleasure, and by taking food as fuel for your body and as a mean to keep you healthy!
And after all, what happens in the digestive tract, when you eat grains? In the post about “Grains: Why Are They Slowly Killing You” read HERE , I explained you about lectins.
In summary, grains and legumes contain lectins. Lectins are a type of proteins, which are something like a plant’s natural defensive mechanism . This defensive mechanism influences your health, by either making you sick or by not allowing the seeds to be digested completely!
Lectins do not break down in the process of digestion. Why? There are two reasons! The first one is that lectins contain compounds, which interfere with the breakdown of the proteins. Besides that the structure of lectins is such that it is not compatible with the digestive enzymes in our body. The lectins that pass through the digestive tract, are the once which can damage your gut. This happens in a couple ways!
Do you remember the enterocytes, which I told you about yesterday? The layer of cells, which are the connection between the inner and the outer side of the gut. Well, lectins trick enterocytes that they are simple sugars. Enterocytes transport the lectins from the inside of the of the gut, to the outside of the gut. Look on enterocytes as a “bus”, which is supposed to transport “the passengers”- lectins. While the lectins are being transported, they cause damage in the enterocytes, by either killing the cells or making them incapable of doing their job. Like bad passangers, which are breaking the bus! When enterocytes are not able of doing their job, more pathogens leak on the outside.
When lectins are outside of the gut, they cause inflammation which is a response of the immune cells in your body. That leads to the production of antibodies, which are supposed to kill the intruders- the lectins. The problem is that the response of the immune system is not specific, which means that it is not targeted in the lectins, only! Thus, the closest to the “disturber”- the enterocytes are being attacked and killed, which leads to the small holes in the gut lining, which cause the leaky gut syndrome. Something like a villain and the only eyewitness… “the police”- the immune cells, might mistaken the eyewitness for the villain, and the innocent will be killed!
Gluten! It is one of the best well known lectins and besides that it is one of the most damaging for your body! How? Gluten weakens the connection between enterocytes, which once again leads to space between the cells. Through this space more pathogens leak out of the gut. When gluten goes through the layer of enterocytes, it once again stimulates the immune cells to produce antibodies, in a response to the pathogens. The problem with gluten is that it has a structure, which resembles other normal for your body proteins. Here the antibodies once again do not target just the gluten, but there is danger for other proteins in the human body!
I know that by writing this I will get more followers, as well as more opponents. I just want to share for those that will attack my posts, that I haven’t obliged anybody to follow my nutrition advices! I’ve tried a lot of nutrition plans and methods, before I got to where I am today! Back in the days grains were the staple of my diet! But for the last 3 years, I excluded them completely from my diet and I have never felt better and I have never been fitter! The same is true for those, who I coach and those who trusted me enough to follow my recommendations!
Advices like check out the food pyramid and other stuff like it… please save them for somebody else! I think that there are enough sick people, who follow the food pyramid and they don’t improve their health a lot! So I am just sharing my experience and what I’ ve read and learned! You could read more on the topic and then choose for yourself, what sounds authentic or if you are going to keep eating like the average person!
I can’t wait to share with you a project I’ve been working on. It’s called IFS Journal- my FREE online magazine. Go ahead and subscribe for it HERE.
Download my FREE E-Book- 30 Exercises on Becoming a Wonder Woman. Download it HERE.
P.S. Don’t be a stranger and please take a minute to share this post with your friends! I’d greatly appreciate it!
