 So, welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. Well, could certain foods, even ones that are thought of as healthy, be sabotaging your health? Well, what do you think the answer to that's going to be if they contain lectins? The answer is, of course. You probably know that lectins are toxic plant proteins that can unfortunately lead to digestive problems, weight gain, joint pain, brain fog, and almost any other health issue. So, you want to avoid these edible enemies at all costs. And I'll be the first to tell you, eliminating lectins from your diet takes willpower, consistency, and most importantly, commitment. And once you see the difference, though, between your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, most people actually agree that it's worth it. So, we've got a great guest for you today. Her name is Claudia Coricci, but if you look for her name, it's going to be spelled Coricci with an I on the end of it, right? Right. Okay. But you don't pronounce the I. She's living proof of that. Claudia started to see her health decline in her late 30s after relocating the United States from Dubai, where she had lived for about eight years. She actually gained weight, and I want her to tell this story because it's a fascinating story. And no matter what she did, she couldn't lose it. But all that changed when Claudia adapted the plant paradox diet. Now, Claudia, who's studying to be a health coach, she shares recipes and advice and other resources on her Instagram account, which is a must-click. And it's a healthy lifestyle website at all. It's called Creative in My Kitchen, and you probably know it, and if you don't, you should. The art of cooking lectin-free food. So she's my guest today, and Claudia, it's so nice to see you in person. As you know, a big fan of yours almost from day one when you started writing. So tell me about your kind of journey. Get us to Dubai to Dallas, Texas, where you live now, and what happened? Okay, so first thing I'd like to say, thank you for having me. I'm so beyond excited to meet you. So yeah, when we moved from Dubai to Dallas, it was already another big change for me. And I started to gain weight, slowly but surely. Now, let me interject. You had just been newly married recently. Yes, kind of. Your husband was introducing you to? To burgers and some other, not that healthy food, but still I wasn't an unhealthy eater. So I was always taking care of what I eat and choosing the best choices. But I have to say my diet, especially in Dubai, was very high in lectins. Homas, fattush, tomatoes, cucumbers, every single day. And I continued to eat that when I came to Dallas, thinking that's healthy food. Having a salad every day, having a whole wheat bread toast with some peanut butter and some banana. That's a healthy breakfast. Then I changed to oats because I thought, okay, oats, maybe it's better. Goji berries. I tried everything and it would just go up. I was doing yoga every day. And you were telling me that you never got on the scale? I was scared because I saw my sizes going bigger. I didn't want to see the number. But you weren't sitting on the couch watching yoga videos and eating cookies. You were actively exercising and eating a healthy diet. Yes. And the weight just kept going. Just very slowly, but it was going up. And then I like this part of the story. So you finally go see an American doctor and tell everybody basically what he told you. Because I hear this all the time, but it's great coming from you. Yes. So I go to a routine checkup. I'm healthy. I don't have major health issues. But at the routine checkup, for the first time in some time, I had to wake myself. So before I had the appointment, I saw the number and I had like an anxiety attack. I was like, oh my God, this is the heaviest I've ever been. And we had the checkup. I was considered healthy. And the doctor, who is very kind and nice, he asked, do you have any concerns? And I was actually thinking like, yeah, I'm concerned about my weight because it's going up without me being an unhealthy person. And he said, again, very gracious, very kind. He said, you know, you're healthy. There's no problem. It happens with women once they approach forties. There are a lot of hormonal changes. And you know, it's just, it's something natural. You shouldn't be worried. And I don't know. I didn't know what to think. I just felt a little bit like, OK, so from now on, it's only downhill. But I couldn't accept this answer. I felt I was in a search. And that's when I discovered the plant paradox. So how did you find the plant paradox? So while it was two years ago, it was right before my birthday. My birthday is next week. So I'll be 40 next week. Oh, happy birthday. Thank you. So it was the same time when I think we tend to be more reflective around our birthdays. So I was thinking, so what am I doing wrong? What is this? Searching, searching. And then one day, this seems kind of like, but one day on my Facebook feed, an interview with you in Goop came out. And it just caught my attention because it said, the healthy foods, they might make you sick. It was something along these lines. It's like, OK, I know I'm eating healthy foods. What I consider to be healthy. What if this is relevant to me? So I read the article. I ordered the book immediately. The book was lost. It didn't come. So I received a message from Amazon that the book was lost and I was reimbursed for it. So you gave me that one star on Amazon for them losing the book. No. The only one star was you. Actually, I got reimbursed and then the book came. Oh, good. Oh, so you got a free book. So I got the book and I was like, OK, this is meant to be. I felt like it was something like, you know, it just came to me. Then I read it and if you see my book, it's just like, you know, highlighted all the colors and I read it like several times. So you've lost 25 pounds? Yes. Yeah. So I think a lot of people, particularly when we chat and I get emails or questions on Facebook or Instagram, a lot of people say, you know, this is impossible to do. It's an impossible diet. I mean, you weren't sick. You weren't obese. So what was your motivation? How did you do this? There are several things. One of them was that, I mean, weight aside, like if I looked at myself in the mirror, I couldn't recognize myself. Like, I felt like this is not me. You know, I wasn't that much concerned about the weight. I wasn't obese or not even, like, overweight by some standards. But I felt that way. Because, you know, we all know how we normally, like our normal weight or figure or is. So that was one thing. I couldn't, I didn't like myself. And then, you know, with all this, I had, I had other problems that people consider normal in our days, like sinus pain, like painful periods, like I was swollen. So not only is the weight that you're heavy, but I guess there was some water retention and all that stuff. I had harbor and I had to take those chums every night. But those we consider them normal today, right? We think, you know, everyone has that. I also have it, so. And tell me, you're telling me about your sinus conditions and how you kind of had to keep escalating your over-the-counter drugs. Tell me about that. So I never had sinus issues until I moved to Dubai. Something happened. I don't know if it was some change. I mean, of course, the air is different. There's a lot of AC there. There's a lot of dust in the air. So maybe that was something, or maybe it was the God that was changing and that gave me. Anyway, I started to have sinus problems. First, they would go away with Advil, just simple Advil. After a while, I had to change to Advil sinus. Then after a while, that wouldn't work anymore. I had to change to Advil sinus allergy. You know, there's like... And then after I moved to Dallas, even the allergy one wouldn't work. Like there were times when I had this pain on my sinuses. I could take anything. It wouldn't work. Now when I think about it, it was probably food. Yeah, yeah. You know, when I was a college student at Yale, I was always in the Yale infirmary with these, you know, severe what we call, you know, sinus headaches. And, oh, they, you know, they give me antibiotics and they give me decongestants. And I must have been in there every other week. Just, you know, I couldn't. It was just constant headache. And they said, oh, you know, this is your sinuses. And I got actually a funny story. I got allergy testing and, you know, they put all the needles on your back and they actually said, we'll be right back. I'll never forget it. And so a couple of minutes later, I noticed my mouth swelling and then my tongue swelling. And the next thing I know, I said, this is very interesting. I'm a pre-med. And I swear I'm having anaphylactic shock. And just then, you know, the nurse walked in and apparently, you know, took one look at me and, you know, giant blowfish. And she said, oh my gosh. And she got an adrenaline shot. And she said, wow, I've never seen a reaction like that. So I said, oh, you know, these are allergies. And that explains everything. So I was actually on allergy shots for a number of years. I have no allergies anymore, interestingly enough, once I kind of started doing all this. So it was food, you know, that I was reacting to, not just ragweed or, you know, pollen. I want to go back to something. Because I think this is really important. And I've actually written about this but it's a long time since I talked about this. So I was, you know, obese. Even though I was running 30 miles a week and going to the gym every day and eating what I thought was healthy. And interestingly, when I was obese and a lot of obese people think this way, we look in the mirror and we do not see that obese person. We actually have a visual picture of ourselves when we were skinny. And I can tell you, I know exactly the picture I had of myself was when I was 17 years old at the beach in Daytona Beach and I was standing on a surfboard and I was thin and trim, you know. And that is my visual image of me. And even though I was this, you know, big giant, you know, Pillsbury Doughboy, when I, even when I looked at pictures of me, I did not see that Pillsbury Doughboy. I saw this slim, good-looking guy. And I talked to so many obese people who that's part of the problem that they actually don't see that right in front of them. They don't see it. But you at least saw it and I think that's very interesting. So I think that's great. If you see it, then that's pretty good motivation to do something about it. But for, you know, for everybody who's listening, don't beat yourself up because I know and I've researched this that so many overweight and obese people do not see themselves as obese even though, you know, you're falling out of your clothes and you're wearing stretch pants that are too tight. You don't see it. And just, you know, it's okay. But that's what happens. You're not walking around thinking you're obese. Yeah, that's amazing that you saw it. One of the things that I actually recommend people do is get out that old picture of yourself. Almost all of us were thinner than we are at some point. And you may not be the stick figure, you know, that looks like Twiggy or Frank Sinatra, thin, but all of us started at a lower weight. And get out that picture, make a couple of copies, put one on your refrigerator, put one on your bathroom mirror, and then, particularly in your bathroom, just stare at you and stare at that picture and say, you know, I gotta get back to that. And if you've read the longevity paradox, you know that it's never too late to take the step to get back to that. I used to do that a lot. Looking, I like to look at my, not because I like myself or I'm too, but, you know, the old times in Dubai with my friends and I look at my pictures and like, oh my God, like, that's me. Like, look, this is me, this is not me. I think that's how, yeah. Okay, so now you're on the plant paradox and obviously things are happening for the better. So what motivated you to do creative in my kitchen? So I always love to cook. Like, since I was a little girl, like I like to experiment, to take my mom's cookbooks and, you know, surprise my parents with fancy dinners or that kind of stuff. Did your mother encourage you to do this? I mean, did you cook with your mother? Yes, we participated. We participated in the cooking process always. We were helping. We were doing something, whatever she told us to do. But I think I was also like, my sister was not, didn't like it that much. I like it more. So I guess it's also, you know, what, so I always love cooking, but especially after moving to Dubai, you know, it's an environment where you go out a lot and you go to restaurants and I started to use the kitchen less and less and when I moved here, I was curious to try all the restaurants and all the American food and so I didn't use the kitchen that much, but I was still doing cooking at home and I was never a person who follows recipes. I would just make up things or get inspired by something and then make my own thing. I would never measure and I will always forget what I had like the week before. I would want to recreate a dish and I'll be like, oh my God, I forgot what I did. So that motivated me to start keeping a journal and what's best for this than Instagram. Keep a visual journal and a few words about like what I ate and when I started the plant paradox, that was the motivation, okay, that will help me to see what I eat and will take it from me. I wasn't planning to have this big, like my name back then, I had to change it. It was something like that I would even forget it. I would remember it. It was just something weird, but yeah. So that's what motivated me to keep track and to be able to look back and see what I ate and that whole Instagram experience is Blossom, you're coming out with a cookbook in the first quarter of 2020. Right. Got any idea of what the title is so people can be looking for it? Well, for now, a working title is The Living Well Without Late In Cookbook. And then some other, like about 125 recipes. Wow, okay. All right, so you've been busy? Yes, very busy. That's great. Who's the tester? Is your husband the tester? Well, it's a lot of the people that are following on Instagram if I post something and they give me feedback. I have a friend in Dallas, Christie, who always makes my recipes and she always gives me feedback and everything she makes from my website, she makes it better. Like, if she brings me something, like one of my recipes, I'm like, oh my god, this is much better. It looks better and it tastes better so that makes me happy. And she's a vegan, yes? That's actually another friend, well, most of them, but my friend, my friend, Christina, Christie, Christina. See, that's her. Christina, and my husband is Christian. Holy cow. I'm attracted to him. So, yeah. And my husband a little bit, but he still eats his stuff. Oh, no. Yes. All right. So things are going well and you've got this cookbook going, but you've recently had some health challenges and tell me all about that. So about four months ago, one day, before that I was feeling like hyper and I was feeling like I'm a superwoman. Like, I can do anything and I'm like doing all the stuff and super busy. And one day I had, after I ate something that I would always eat, it wasn't anything new. I had a reaction. Like, I started, like, my ears got like blocked and then my nose got stuck and my throat started to like close kind of. So I would say I never had allergies, ever, any kind of allergies. So, but I imagine that that's the kind of reaction you have when you have a food allergy or some environmental allergies. But there was nothing new in my environment. It was just a brand new day, the usual stuff and then this happened. Had moved into a new house, had didn't get a new mattress, new carpet, you didn't go on vacation, you didn't have a weekend off. Completely the same thing. And then it was followed because I didn't know when the reaction was so strong, followed by anxiety, followed by a panic attack. And that was the scariest thing I've ever lived, I have to say, from a health perspective. So, yeah, for a while, I didn't know what it is. I went to emergencies. The second time I had this reaction, I felt like I couldn't breathe. So I went to emergencies. I thought it's pollen allergy because it was kind of the season. But they gave me anxiety and depression medicine. And I didn't want to take that. So I started to... Well, let's stop right there because this is so common, particularly, so you're now basically a 40-year-old female and you're having a panic attack and for what apparently is no good reason. And of course, our thinking about a 40-year-old woman with a panic attack is, this is anxiety and you need antidepressants and you need prescription or at a van or whatever. And it's interesting, I met a young man yesterday in my office who is 23 years old and he's had exactly these sorts of attacks but primarily in his abdomen, stomach, and it feels like a knife is stabbing him and he was told that this is anxiety because they give him some at a van and the pain would go away and that proved that this was anxiety. This is the least anxious person I think I've ever met in my life. He's kind of a typical laid-back 23-year-old kind of a surfer dude sort of. And he's sitting there kind of like this and I said, you know, you don't strike me as an anxious individual. He's a man-dude, no. That's not me. And I said, yeah, but they're drugging you up. He said, yeah, I don't like it. He says, that's just crazy. They take his gallbladder out because they tell him it's his gallbladder. That didn't make the pain go away. So he's been actually going around. He's been to Stanford. They told him it was anxiety because there's nothing wrong with you. And lo and behold, he has markers for an autoimmune disease, lupus that nobody ever bothered to look for. And so they, we've been working with him. I met him for the first time, but my PA, Mitsu, saw him a few months ago. His lupus marker is now turned off by following the plant paradox. But we've still got some issues and we're going to get into that. We've got some really cool leaky gut issues. But so tell me, so tell me about histamine. Right. I had no idea what histamine is. I just knew the word from those pills that people take for allergies or seasonal. But I had no idea what they are. But searching my symptoms and trying to understand what's happening with me, I found out I came across some articles like about histamines and then I was trying to look at what I was eating and it's true, like my diet was, I would say heavy and what is considered high histamine in foods. So tell our listeners what those foods typically are. So, avocados, spinach, mushrooms and leftover animal proteins. And dairy. This is not really necessary, the whole thing, but I gave up dairy, yes. But usually what is aged, let's consider high histamine. So a cheese that is aged. And fermented foods. I love sauerkraut. I grew up with sauerkraut. I would put avocado and sauerkraut on top of each other and I would eat that like for breakfast. So I think those were the foods that for me maybe tip the balance to make it like, no, this is an overload. And maybe combine with some seasonal allergies. I have some pollen, I don't know. I still don't know exactly. So, you know, histamines are trendy things to talk about. So we have a set of cells that are in our skin and our nose and our GI tract that are called mast cells, like the mast on a sailing ship. And these mast cells have little granules that have histamine in them. And if you stimulate mast cells, they will release histamine. And histamine actually, among other things, makes things turn red. Those of you who take niacin or who I've asked you to take niacin know that the niacin flush is actually caused by niacin activating mast cells to release histamine. And sometimes some people are so sensitive to niacin that even a little bit of niacin and a multivitamin will make somebody's nose run. And so histamines will release, actually, a lot of nose running. It can make things swell. But histamine anti-histamines tell mast cells not to release histamine. That's actually how they work. So we're, believe it or not, all allergies, basically, you release histamines because you're actually producing lots of mucus with the idea that you're trapping palind and, oh, by the way, lectins. So lectins in themselves will release histamine. And that's why many of us believe that it's not histamine so much as it is lectins that actually start the problem. So you've taken those foods out of your diet now? Right, yes. And are things better? Yes, I control my symptoms. Without those foods, I still have, like, every time I eat, I feel something. No matter, even if it's low histamine, but it's very light. Like, it doesn't give me that kind of. And then it goes away. So it's like, yeah. I feel like it's getting better and better. Well, it's interesting. I profile a woman in the plant paradox who was deathly allergic to nuts, all tree nuts. And as kind of part of the program, she one day, I think, gosh, maybe a year into the program, she and a friend went out for a salad, a Caesar salad at a restaurant in L.A. And she noticed that her face felt a little full and her tongue felt fuller. But she said, hey, you know, it's probably, you know, pollen in the air, that sort of thing. And she didn't give it any other thought. And her friend called her the next morning, almost in a panic. She said, thank goodness I hear your voice. Are you okay? And she said, yeah, why? She said, well, I just found out the Caesar dressing there is made with walnuts. And you're deathly allergic to walnuts. And she said, walnuts, huh? And so she actually went out and bought some walnuts. And she bit a little piece of walnut off. And she said, well, yeah, there is that kind of feeling. But now she actually has worked herself up to complete tolerance of walnuts just by introducing little bits. You know, there was a woman who unfortunately has passed away. And you probably saw her website, The Histamine Girl. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth looking at. And for years, she was really on a campaign to get histamine out of her diet. And she had low histamine cookbooks. And she actually finally wrote a post. She says, you know, actually, this is all from lectins. And that's the troublemaker. But you bring up a very interesting point. And I mentioned these new, exciting tests. And I don't have a relationship with them there. It's called Viber in America. And I don't know who their PR guy is, but these tests are really stupidly named. They're called zoomers. And there's a wheat zoomer, a corn zoomer, a lectin zoomer, a dairy zoomer, an egg zoomer, and there's even a neuro zoomer. And what they look for is, number one, they'll look for all the usual suspect lectin foods, including gluten, which is a lectin. And then they'll look for leaky gut. But what's been surprising, I see a lot of patients who really toe the line on the plant paradox. They really don't cheat because it's been worth it for them. But things aren't perfect. And they're like yourself. And so we started to get these tests. Unfortunately, insurance doesn't cover them, so there's a cost. So I've been reluctant to use them because I really want people to have health care without incurring too much expense. But I've yet to regret these tests. And what's been fascinating to me, and there won't be a test on this, but there is a very interesting lectin in spinach, potatoes, corn, soybeans, green bell peppers, not red bell peppers. And there's one other one, and I think I said potatoes, that it's the wildest thing. There's little pores in plants that open and close so that plants can breathe. They can actually breathe out water vapor. And if it's really hot in Dallas, Texas, they close these pores so that they can serve water. That's actually what they do. It turns out that you and I have these same little pore control things in the lining of our gut. And we have them in the lining of our brain, the blood-brain barrier. And the plant aquaporin lectin looks virtually identical to the aquaporin that sits in our gut and sits in our brain. And three of my female patients now who swear on a stack of bibles that they're perfect, they react vigorously to the spinach lectin. I had another woman who was gluten-free who reacts vigorously to the corn and potato aquaporin lectins. So I've actually, probably in my next book, I'm going to stop recommending spinach to people. Because it's... And I've seen several people with what looks like pseudo-Parkinsonism or brain fog that they react to these aquaporins and they have a leaky brain. And we can measure it. So, scary stuff. So, and I'm so glad that... I'm not glad that this has happened to you, but I'm so glad that you started looking for, okay, what is this? I'm doing everything right. And one of the reasons I keep seeing patients, not a day goes by that people say, you don't need to see patients. You've done all that. You're famous, blah, blah, blah. Every day, I learn something. And if I hadn't had patients come, boy, I'm a saint. I'm doing everything right, but things aren't right. And I go, boy, we've got to look into this. And now with these new tests, I see people who not only react to KCNA, one melt, but darn it, they react to KCNA2, or they react away. So, you know, their quest bars have got to go. And their goat cheese has got to go, and their sheep cheese has got to go. Or I have some people who react to the white of egg, believe it or not, the egg white is far more antigenic than the egg yolk, but I have some people that will react to both. And the other thing that shocks me, and I'm not saying this is happening to you, I have yet to see an individual who swears that they are gluten-free, who doesn't take test positive for gluten in their bloodstream and the components. Many of them are women or men who are married, and their spouse or significant other doesn't eat that way. And they bring gluten into the house or it exists in the house, and even kissing your husband will contaminate you, in one case. I have another woman who is so allergic, she literally can't leave her house, she came in to visit me completely gloved, and her husband has a whole wheat English muffin every morning, and she makes it for him and puts it on the plate. And she, when we tested her for leaky gut, I mean, she was like a sieve, and there's gluten in whole wheat, gluten in all in her blood, and she's just shocked, she said, that's impossible, you know, I don't eat gluten. I said, you have a husband who does, and you gave him, you know, his English muffin. So I've been so impressed with these tests, you know, kind of getting through, I do everything right, and why did this happen to me? And I would be willing to bet, if we did the test on you, that we would find you still have leaky gut. That's what my, the doctor, I had to go to a doctor because I was desperate, and we took blood tests and everything, and that's exactly what he suspects. I mean, he's the main issues, they don't really come unless you have a leaky gut. That's correct. Like, so I think now if I look back, I wish, and that's maybe something I would not recommend, but just from my experience, I wish I took those blood tests when I started the plan paradox. So I go hand in hand, and I target specific issues. I had heavy metals in my blood, like very high. I had to do a liver detox because of that. And other imbalances, then normally we don't know unless, you know, we have the numbers and the tests. So I wish I started that a bit earlier. Yeah, it's, again, I think when, particularly when things aren't making sense, I think the new batteries of tests that are becoming available really do find the answer. And I'm going to bring up one more example. I just gave a lecture on this this week. There's a 75-year-old woman who came to me in Santa Barbara who has been told she has celiac. And so she's been eating gluten-free for years. And she still had horrible bowel issues. And her doctors, her husband tell her, well, you're just crazy, you're anxious, and it's all in your head. So we actually did these set of leaky gut tests. And sure enough, she's got gluten all over the place. She's got leaky gut. And she said, but that's impossible. You know, I don't eat gluten. I said, do you dine out? And she said, yes. And I said, well, by dining out, you are eating gluten. And I have many restaurateurs and chefs who are my friends. And to a person, they say, you cannot eat gluten-free in a restaurant no matter what anybody tells you. I could give a lecture about that, but you can't. And she was eating corn as her primary gluten-free food. Corn chips, corn muffins, corn everything. And there's a test. There's a protein in corn that looks exactly like gluten. And she had this crossover so that every time she ate corn, her immune system thought she was eating gluten. And so when we started working with her, it actually took us about seven, eight months to get her leaky gut done. Now when we do her tests, everything's green instead of bright red or yellow. And I keep telling particularly women, please visit a doctor who will keep you in mind, who will believe you and not give up until you find a reason for this. Yeah. And getting back to the low histamine girl, the root cause of histamine reactions is the leaky gut. Because your immune system, and the root cause of allergies is the leaky gut. And your immune system just goes crazy and it looks for anything that might otherwise not bother you. So let me ask you, what preparations are you using as anti-histamines to help you out? Any supplements? Ah, yes. I mean, I've been through like a process. First I started with something just emergency, like, you know, helping to get through the like really difficult time at the beginning, which was some anti-anxiety, but just supplements. I did a liver detox protocol for a month. Tell me about that, because I can, yeah, tell me about that before I open my mouth. Okay, so it's, can I mention the brand, what I did? Like, it's Quicksilver Scientific. They have a black box, that's what it's called. I didn't do it by myself, recommended by my doctor. So I did that for a month. Everything tasted terrible. Like, ah, that was really bad experience. I had to do it in the morning and in the evening. And I did feel better after. You know, it was a process and with the time I felt better. I don't know if it was that or if it was something else, but at the same time I was, you know, I gave up dairy. I gave up animal protein, which is very small exceptions. I ate all the greens, you know, dandelion greens and all the stuff that's supposed to help us. I kept it whole foods, vegetables, organic, local, like the best I could do. So that was something, yeah, I took everything out, but I tried not to, because at that point at the beginning I was feeling better when I didn't eat, to be honest. So I kept it for a while, just one meal a day, but I just felt like, okay, I also have to eat. I was losing a lot of weight. So I started with two meals a day and then eat all the colors, all the good veggies. And I started to reintroduce little things, but I didn't do dairy at all. Like it's out of my... And how about eggs? Every now and then I have one whole egg and maybe one yolk, but not every day. It's just to add a little bit more extra. I know egg yolks have to be well-cooked. Egg whites have to be well-cooked. They're quite high histamine, but I did a little bit of beef liver, because again, because apparently it's a good... Well, so as you know, elimination diets are popular and one of the latest crazes is the carnivore diet. And this got, I think, a real push by Jordan Peterson, who claims that he now is intolerant to any food except beef. He cannot eat anything without getting a major reaction to it. Nothing else. And in a way, I've listened to some of his interviews and he feels trapped, because every time he tries to add something, he can't. So I'm... But the carnivore diet is an elimination diet. And all plants have lectins. They all have toxins. They don't want to be eaten. But I think there's better ways to do that than the carnivore diet. We've had a carnivore diet expert on the podcast. Yeah, and everyone got a little bit confused. So what do we do now? Well, I like to give people the benefit of hearing them out. But I think carnivore diet people don't understand. There's a new paper out sounding the alarm. And I write about this in all my books. There's a molecule in beef, lamb, and pork, sugar molecule called Nu5GC. We don't have that. We have Nu5AC lining our blood vessels, lining our gut. And the new article confirms that if you eat Nu5GC food, it will produce an antibody against your own blood vessel lining and against your own gut lining that will eventually do you in with at least heart disease and probably cancer. So as a long-term idea, the carnivore diet, we were not... Unfortunately, it's a genetic mutation. We were not designed to interact with beef, lamb, or pork. So when somebody tells me I'm a carnivore, and that was what I was designed to eat, well, genetically, guess what? You were not designed to eat that stuff. And we're probably going to pay for it. So have you tried Cursatin and Rosemary? No to Rosemary, but Cursatin, yes. I even took it this morning before I came. Yeah, so you not only have to take Cursatin twice a day, about 500 milligrams, but Rosemary, Rosemarine Acid is far more antihistamine than even Cursatin or Curecetin. Either way is correct. So get yourself some high-quality Rosemary extract or look for the words Rosemarine Acid. Incidentally, Perilla Oil, one of my favorite oils, is full of Rosemary Acid. Very hard to find. Oh, it's on Amazon. Really? Yeah. And it's easy to find. Okay. So other than losing weight, how did going lectin-free benefit you? In many ways. Firstly, I didn't have to take an Advil or any other type of medication for the past two years for anything. So no pain, no aches, no harbor, nothing. So I'm very grateful for that. Something I wanted to actually say, I know it's a topic that a lot of, especially women, they don't want to talk too much about it, but their menstrual health, it's two weeks after I started a lectin-free diet, I got the first period of my life without pain. In 30, like, eight years of life, of course. So I think this is amazing. No one ever told me that you can just change what you eat and you will not have that pain that was absolutely, it was terrible, every month, terrible. So this for me sold me like two weeks after I started. Yeah, it's interesting, I even have a gynecologist who sees a lot of women with endometriosis and she's been shocked that if she can convince them to do the plant paradox and go lectin-free that their endometriosis pain goes away. And she said, I think you're on to something and thank you for bringing that up. I think it's all related. So everybody says this is hard to do. Give us some tips. How do you get started doing this? I think first people need to find their motivation because if you don't have that, then you're not able to stick to it. So find your why, write it down on a paper and put it somewhere where you can see it every day, every morning. And once you have that figure out, just make up your mind that this is a commitment, you don't have to think it's a lifelong, but think three months I'm going to stick to it. And then write down what the benefits are and then put them against how you felt before and decide is it worth it or is it not worth it. I think it will be worth it for everyone. And then, of course, you have to cook if you're going on a lectin-free diet. So just try to enjoy cooking, experiment with the new ingredients. Good resources? Like creative in my kitchen, for instance? Sure, I have over 150 recipes on my website for anyone like from vegan to vegetarian to... For beginners? For beginners for the three-day cleanse. And there are also a lot of other lectin-free bloggers that share their ideas, what they eat every day, just follow them. And you will get inspiration. Okay. All right. So audience questions. Normally, as you know, folks, we have audience questions. But today, Claudia is the audience. So let me have it. So a question I wanted to ask you, especially now that I had to give up animal protein myself, if we are on a vegetarian diet, do we have enough protein? Especially if we can have nuts or other... If we eat only produce, is that enough? Well, as I tell my patients, a horse and a gorilla only eat produce. And they don't eat beans. They don't eat grains. They don't eat nuts as a source of protein. So they do very well. They have more muscle mass than we could ever imagine. In fact, all the largest animals on earth are vegetarians or vegans. And they do extremely well. Do you have to eat a lot of vegetables? Yes, the answer is a gorilla eats 16 pounds of leaves every day. But they're a whole lot bigger than we are. So it's perfectly capable of getting all your protein needs by eating plants. And if you're really worried, then, for instance, hemp protein is a great source of protein. Or hemp seeds or hemp hearts. That's an easy way to do it. I'm a big fan of mushrooms as a protein source. I like the corn products. They do have a little tiny bit of egg white in them. Now, most corn products are off the list. They're all sorts of mischievous stuff, particularly the vegan corn products. But, for instance, corn grounds are a great replacement that most people do very well with. But no, you do not have to have animal protein for health. Okay. Next question. I wanted to ask your opinion about liver detox. Is that necessary? How does that work? How can I support my liver? And I see a lot, speaking of protein, I see a lot of medical information that we need protein to support the liver detoxification. What do you think? So the liver is designed to detoxify multiple compounds daily. And there are phase one and phase two detoxification enzymes. Some people do have a defect in one or more of these, but in general, things like milk thistle, a compound called D-lemonine, which is in orange peel, and curcetin actually really boosts the phase one and phase two liver detoxing enzyme. So that's number one. Number two, the fallacy of a liver detox is, and this was actually shown, and I write about this, by Ray Wolford, who was a pathologist at UCLA, was a member of the Biosphere II, the failed experiment in the Arizona desert years ago, where the biospherians were locked in geodesic domes, simulating a mission to Mars and they were supposed to grow all their food and generate all their oxygen by themselves. And it was a horrible failure. They had to pump oxygen in and these people lost a third of their body weight in six months. And Ray Wolford was actually the father of calorie restriction. In fact, Walter Longo, Ray Wolford was his mentor, so Walter Longo is his student. Ray Wolford studied heavy metals in the biospherians and as they lost a third of their body weight, their heavy metals went up just huge and it took a year for their heavy metals to go down. Why? Because our heavy metals like any other animal are stored in our fat and quite frankly they're harmless in our fat. That's why a swordfish or a giant tuna can go swimming across the sea perfectly healthy with toxic levels of mercury in them because it's all in their fat. What most people don't know about a liver detox is the liver has absolutely positively no ability to detoxify heavy metals. None. The liver instead takes the heavy metals and says, gee, I can't do anything with these guys so I'm going to get rid of them and put them in the bile and it'll flow out into the intestines and we'll be rid of it. Only one problem. Our intestines rapidly absorb the heavy metals. So you may take mercury or lead or cadmium out of your blood into your liver but your liver will squirt it into your intestines and then you'll suck it right back up and that's why it took over a year eating organic food in biosphere too to get heavy metals out of the blood. So what you have to do is you have to aid liver excretion of these and there's compounds to do it but you also have to capture those heavy metals and I use high dose chlorella and I use activated charcoal. And knock on wood. I haven't had anybody whose mercury levels and lead levels and cadmium levels we can't get down to normal by just having them add some phase two and phase one liver enzyme and chlorella and activated charcoal. But the idea that your liver is somehow going to detox these things is one of the great myths and it will not happen and that was proven by Ray Wohlford years ago. Right. Okay. And also like a little bit related like the genetic testing I just did mine. I didn't get the results but I just sent my samples but I had a little bit like it took me about two months to decide to do it. What do you think? Well I think it's useful to find out your apoE status see where you carry the four allele which is unfortunately called the Alzheimer's gene and about 30% of us do and there are things to do about that. I have recently last week saw my 99 year old gentleman who carries the apoE4 he runs his company and his daughters, three daughters do not want him to retire and he's 99 and has the Alzheimer's gene and I can assure you he does not have Alzheimer's. So having this gene doesn't mean you're going to get it but there's steps to do to prevent it from being mischievous. Since more than half of people carry one or more of the MTHFR mutations I don't think you need to be tested for that. Just take methylfolate and methyl B12 and you'll be fine. On the internet everyone wants to blame everything that's ever happened to them on these mutations, the MTHFR genes. And I'm sorry it's not going to work. Actually I discovered after my last blood test I have an MTHFR mutation. Yeah most people do. And believe it or not if you have a double mutation it usually means you probably have some degree of ADHD. I have never met a successful person, successful business person, successful entrepreneur who usually doesn't have one or more copies of the MTHFR mutation. I think it's actually good for you. Okay. Alright so that wraps it up. Claudia, where can people find you if they don't already know of you, you famous W? Well they can find me on Instagram at creativeinmykitchen, my website creativeinmykitchen.com I also have a Facebook group. Also search creativeinmykitchen, the plan paradox and then you'll find it. And that's pretty much all at the moment. Pinterest, you know all the social media. Okay and your book will be out first quarter we think? Quarter of 2020. Right. And it'll be on Amazon. It'll be on Amazon and all the bookstores. Barnes and Noble. Yes. Great. And we always need more lectin-limited, lectin-free recipes and thank you so much again for everything you're doing. Thank you for having me and for everything you've done for all of us. Pleasure. Pleasure. Keep up to good work. Very helpful. We're all in this together. So if you want to hear more, please leave comments on if you like the podcast. What you want to hear next because we're always looking for something that you are going to like. And hope we entertain you today and we'll see you next week on 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 because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you.