 Number one it bears repeating whole grains are not health foods. Let me tell you a story from yesterday. Yesterday I got a new patient who's actually the head of a big supplement-selling company and this gentleman was referred to me because in his early fifties now he's had not only coronary bypass but also a couple of stents. In fact he's scheduled for one next week and people in my circle suggested that he might want to see me to see what was up. Well this gentleman is thin and he's absolutely perplexed and he of course is in the health supplement business and so he's really healthy. One problem he has a hemoglobin A1C which you've seen on TV every day. I got my A1C down of 6.1. Now there are many of us who consider 6.0 and above as diabetes. If you don't like that then it's pre-diabetes and like I tell my patients telling you you're a pre-diabetic is like telling a female she's a little bit pregnant and as we know that's impossible. So here's a guy who's healthy as a horse eats healthy and yet he's a diabetic. So we started talking about what he eats. He said well ever since I got my diagnosis of heart disease I gave up milk and I've changed over to oat milk and I have about three glasses of oat milk every day because it's so healthy for me and I go well you know you just drink the oat milk he says oh no I pour it on my organic granola every morning and have that as my breakfast. Why is he a diabetic? Well number one as I've talked about before oat milk may be one of the most poisonous beverages you can put in your mouth for reasons I've mentioned before but it is a whole grain. Oats contain a protein that cross reacts with gluten and gluten as you know is that mischievous lectin in wheat, rye, barley and oats and that healthy granola is made from whole grains notably lots of oats and you probably know that consumer reports tested multiple oat products in the United States and found that all of them contained high levels of glyphosate including several organic granola products. Top that off with the fact that it's basically a giant sugar bomb so imagine that his whole grain breakfast his whole grain oat milk is one of the reasons that he's now seeing me for heart disease please there is no truth to the fact that whole grains are good for you. Now remember a lot of these studies were done in mice and rats and guess what mice and rats eat grains that's so what they like and they have a completely different system of enzymes that break down the proteins like gluten and the other lectins in grains like wheat germa gluten that we don't have so taking a mouse study and giving them whole grains and say hey they do really good you should too has nothing to do with whole grain goodness for you recently people gone well I'm not into whole grains I'm into pseudo grains like quinoa and everybody knows how good quinoa is because the ant Aztecs ate quinoa well yes the Aztecs did eat quinoa but what most people don't know is the Aztecs knew how bad quinoa was for them that they actually fermented their quinoa they let it rot so that the digestion of the lectins in quinoa and it's loaded with lectins was accomplished by the bacteria and only then they cook their quinoa and it's not on the package directions the same way with corn Central American Indians have been eating corn for 10,000 years and look how healthy they were not so fast we know that traditionally corn was always soaked in lime juice to break the hall of corn and turn it into hominy hominy intern had the niacin in corn bound so that it was not lost and it became safe because you removed the hall where most of the problem is that in turn was ground into rits and flour harissa flour and masa harissa was the only way tortillas was made in the good old days now unfortunately Cortes and the other Spaniards did not know this Columbus did not know this and so they brought corn back to the old world intact and as I've talked about before it grew very well in upper Italy near Milan and they changed to a corn culture and for several generations they gave birth to mentally retarded children with very small brains they were called Cretans Cretanism and it was directly related to the corn consumption that had not been treated with lie in fact to this day the eating of corn is banned in France because France abutted Italy and they saw the dire consequences and in France corn is fed to pigs not to people so whole grain goodness is the worst thing for you now there's plenty of healthy alternatives sorghum and millet don't have a hall so you're perfectly safe using sorghum and millet flowers sorghum and millet as an alternative to oatmeal they're perfectly safe you can get pop sorghum which tastes exactly like popcorn so lots of great ways to get your whole seed goodness without the grains all right number two artificial sweeteners the truth is some of the most popular sugar alternatives out there can be even worse for your health than sugar saccharine aspartame sucralose these are poison you might better know them by their brand name sweeten low equal and splendor these all kill gut bacteria in fact one Duke study from a number of years ago showed that one packet of splendor sucralose can kill off 50% of your gut bacteria they actually promote weight gain by fooling your brain that you have actually had sugar and then when sugar doesn't arrive in your brain your brain goes wait a minute I know you tasted sugar I tasted it it didn't arrive you got cheated go back and find some more and when I was a Diet Coke addict drinking eight Diet Cokes a day and 70 pounds overweight I knew that I was constantly hungry and the more Diet Coke I ate the fatter I got and the hungrier I got because my brain kept getting fooled now luckily there's some really good natural alternatives my favorite as you probably know is alulose alulose is a true rare sugar but it has not only no calories but it has the additional benefit that it is a prebiotic fiber so it actually feeds good gut bacteria and there are several studies that show alulose actually lowers your blood sugar so it's a win-win monk fruit is also a very useful sweetener it's not a prebiotic fiber but it also will not kill off your gut bacteria but alulose is a win-win no calories feeds friendly bacteria lowers your blood sugar and that's why I actually now make alulose at Gundry MD and you'll see it appearing in a lot of Gundry MD food products for that reason number three soy and soy products you know soy is getting more and more and more popular in plant-based diets but I'm going to put on my Loma Linda professor hat and take you back to Loma Linda University Medical School the Adventists use as one of their main meat substitutes what's called texturized vegetable protein TVP now TVP is fascinating it is soy that has been heated de-fatted and pressurized to produce this meat-like byproduct and those clever Adventists have taken away two of the biggest problems with soy number one they've taken soy oil which is a really nasty omega-6 fat and taking it out of soy number two with pressure and heat they've destroyed the really nasty lectins and soy and so TVP is actually a remarkably safe meat alternative all thanks to the Adventists the problem is that most soy foods have not had that done so soy milk tofu veggie burgers these are loaded with omega short chain omega-6 fats and they're loaded with lectins and they're even loaded with phytoestrogens which can become estrogen disruptors endocrine disruptors that's probably not a good thing soy and these as endocrine disruptors actually tells your body to store fat soy also contains goiter gins now those are compounds that actually suppress thyroid function and a number of my vegan patients who depend on their soy foods their tofu their veggie burgers have suppressed thyroid function and when we get those products away from them then their thyroid returns to normal the same way with these new exciting burger alternatives like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger they're two meat alternatives that are made from soy so that healthy impossible burger you ordered through the drive-thru maybe just as bad as the meat burger you were replacing in fact in many ways it may actually be worse for you so be cautious when approaching soy number four store-bought salad dressings now you think you're doing yourself a favor by having a salad for lunch not so fast if you're using store-bought salad dressing chances are you're just as better off having french fries instead why most store-bought salad dressings are loaded with hidden sugars unhealthy fats they're made from these corn oils soybean oil cotton seed oil they are omega-6 short chain fatty acids linoleic acid which is really really bad for you and we've talked about the dangers of short chain omega-6 fats but there they are swimming around in your salad dressing other oils you sunflower oil peanut oil again all you're getting is a massive dose not only of omega-6 fats but all of these oils contain health-destroying lectins now don't get me wrong salads are incredibly good for you you simply need to make your own salad dressings at home and it's super easy to do you know I personally love to mix olive oil and balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar or champagne vinegar you name the vinegar it's going to go a long way to help your health along with the benefits of the polyphenols and olive oil as I've written about and unlocking the keto code in my upcoming book gut check vinegars are really one of the best ways to give your gut buddies the precursors they need to make this all important short chain fatty acid called butyrate or butyric acid so you can't go wrong and it's so easy now I have a ton of salad dressing recipes right here on my YouTube channel and in all my books I have everything from creamy ranch dressing to tangy vinaigrettes so there's no reason to ever waste money on store-bought dressing again more amazing episodes just like this one watch now this is organic green bananas you've heard me talk about the benefit of green bananas and now it's available in a pasta the great thing about this is it's loaded with dietary fiber