 Five foods you must avoid and the healthy alternatives Loving the health benefits of a lectin-free diet, but missing some of your favorite foods. I know I've been there The good news is that there are healthy delicious alternatives for just about every lectin rich food I'll start with the one I get asked about the most peanut butter Peanut butter haven't been one of my favorite personal foods before I got on the right path for my diet Now you may love peanut butter and you may think it's healthy But as far as I consume you can call it lectin butter because it's made with one of the most Absolute worst ingredients for your health Peanuts believe it or not peanuts are actually a bean That's right a bean not a nut and as you know legumes are lectin bomb Peanuts are no exception. They're incredibly high in dangerous lectin. In fact 94% of human beings carry a preformed antibody Against the peanut lectin But peanut butter is actually really easy to ditch So swap it out for walnut butter hazelnut butter tahini, which is sesame seed butter Pistachio butter or if you want the closest thing and you're not sensitive to almonds Look for peeled almond butter. You can find it. It's on the internet It's in some grocery stores, but look for the word peeled almond butter Now there are other nut and seed butters out there Cashew butter is a lectin bomb sunflower seed butter is a lectin bomb Just because it has the word nut or seed doesn't make it a safe substitute for peanut butter Now if you want your nut butter to taste a little more Peanuttier just whisk in a couple of drops of coconut Aminos to boost that savory flavor. You won't even miss or remember peanut butter once you switch All right. Next up the regular or diet soda Well, regular soda has a whopping 39 grams of sugar One can of soda increases your risk of having a heart attack by 20% if you have one can a day It's addicting as anybody knows it makes you gain weight like crazy. I I would know Now I know what you're thinking diet soda has to be healthier than regular soda, right? wrong Artificial sweeteners particularly the ones found in diet soda like aspartame and sucralose are Absolutely terrible for your health Duke University showed one packet of Splenda sucralose kills off 50% of the bacteria in your gut gut microbiome They changed this bacteria into bacteria that actually promote weight gain Plus remember diet soda increases your risk of developing diabetes by 67% Why one of the problems with diet soda is you have Sugar you have no sugar taste buds. You have sweet taste buds In the good old days the only way you tasted sugar was if you ate fruit or honey your brain Anticipates sugar arriving in your bloodstream after it tastes sweet and When sugar doesn't arrive in your bloodstream when you use an artificial sweetener your brain assumes you've been cheated and Actually sends you back looking for more That's why when I was drinking eight diet cokes a day, and I was I was Constantly hungry and constantly eating and gaining weight because my brain was telling me to go find the stuff I was lacking Now there's a great alternative that I've made popular It's my healthy soda recipe you take some sand Pellegrino or other sparkling water You take a shot couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar try to get the aged balsamic vinegar and You mix them together squeeze in a fresh lime. You're going to have a fantastic fake coke that will get you through I Think it's great fun when you're out at a restaurant Ask the waiter to bring you some sand Pellegrino or other sparkling water and ask for the balsamic vinegar It's there and amaze your friends by pouring your balsamic vinegar into the sand Pellegrino You watch everybody at the table will ask to do that and they'll go oh my gosh I had no idea how good this one and people in the restaurant will come over and go What are you guys doing? It's it's great fun How about rice and pasta well grains are one of the most inflammatory foods out there Because you guessed it they're loaded with lectins and whole grains are even worse for you than regular grains Grains and starch turn into sugar in your body now. There's some great rice alternatives Millet millet is a wonderful rice alternative Sorghum not the sweetener, but the grain it has no halls neither millet nor sorghum have halls There's a great little millet called for NEO and if you like cream of wheat For NEO makes a great replacement for cream of wheat Cauliflower rice you can get cauliflower rice in most grocery stores now you can get cauliflower rice from Gundry MD and Miracle rice is congex base and it's a great rice alternative now There's plenty of pasta alternatives. There are shirataki noodles Gundry MD makes our own congex shirataki noodles Green big green millet noodles are great Jovial cassava pastas are great, and I'm particularly impressed with Gundry MD sorghum spaghetti It has that mouthfeel that you're looking for in traditional Wheat-based pastas, but none of the lectins and none of the guilt Greek yogurt Unfortunately, Greek yogurt is out of the question Greek yogurt does not come from Greece folks Greek yogurt is merely yogurt that's been allowed the water to drip out so the protein content is higher But the cow's milk yogurt sold in this country as Greek yogurt is made from casein a1 producing cows Casein a1 in most people is a very harmful protein that can seriously damage your gut and Interestingly, most people who think their lactose intolerant are actually intolerant to casein a1 proteins So what if you're just one of those people who craves yogurt for breakfast? What can you do? well go to the regular old Yogurt section in your grocery store and look for goat's milk yogurt Sheep's milk yogurt Buffalo milk yogurt or if you're in the mood for a vegan option coconut yogurt Always look for unsweet Even the vanilla yogurt which doesn't sound like a fruit yogurt has lots of added sugar if you want to Flavor it then get yourself some flavoring drops Get yourself some vanilla extract get yourself some Easy to use drops of flavoring with stevia and you can make any flavor goat sheep or coconut yogurt you want Now you won't have any trouble finding these yogurt substitutes. They're in almost all of our grocery stores Trader Joe's makes a great goat yogurt a lot of my patients love so look for these alternatives Beans beans are incredibly lectin heavy now the good news is with beans It's possible to reduce the lectins by pressure cooking So if you've got a pressure cooker if you've got an Instapot put it to use if not Look for Eden brand or Jovial brand beans. They come in non BPA containers Jovial is an all-glass Eden is in a non BPA can and they're pressure cooked ahead of time So the works take it away But if you're looking for a completely non bean alternative Look no further than pine nuts and you can easily find pine nuts at Trader Joe's You can get a huge bag at Costco Did you know that if you soak pine nuts in a liquid like water or chicken stock? They get a texture similar to beans in fact pine nuts cooked in a traditional chili Have almost the exact same texture and beans. It's really uncanny and Pine nuts will actually give you all these great healthy fats And they're really cool studies that show that pine nut consumption can actually help you lose weight. So Substitute pine nuts whenever you've got that beanie craving and you'll see there's some really good benefits This next one is sure to surprise you Roughly 73% of the US population with public water access is receiving water fortified with fluoride