 Why you should never have avocado toast for breakfast? Well, as you probably know avocado toast has become one of the trendiest meals across the globe, especially when it comes to breakfast. And if you're like most people you've probably convinced avocado toast is a healthy option. Well, sorry to disappoint, but that's certainly not the case. In fact, one of my patients actually went on an avocado toast kick. And I can tell you with this patient who we do monitor their levels of leaky gut. And we had pretty much cleared his leaky gut completely by following our program. But when he went on the avocado toast kick, his leaky gut returned with a vengeance. So what in the heck is happening? Well, don't get me wrong. Avocados are great. You have heard me say on this podcast, avocados are probably the best fruit you can eat. But when it comes to avocado toast, there are several reasons I stay far away. The most obvious is the bread. Unfortunately, bread is loaded with lectins. Lectins, as you know, are those plant proteins that are particularly common in wheat rye barley that are one of the main causes of leaky gut intestinal permeability. They're incredibly inflammatory. But interestingly enough, whole grains, whole wheat, whole oats, whole rye, brown rice are loaded with wheat germ agglutinum, which is a little tiny lectin that can actually cause major inflammation in your blood vessels. And you don't even have to have leaky gut for it to happen. This opens the door for actually fat cells to store fat. So WGA actually hits on to insulin receptors in fat cells and actually tells fat cells, no matter what you're eating, to please store more fat, not the sort of thing you want from your food. Plus, bread is loaded with sugar. There are actually four teaspoons of sugar in every slice of bread. And as you know, sugar is one of, if not the worst thing for your health. So if you're having two slices of avocado toast, you're actually having eight teaspoons of sugar, which is actually more than you're going to get in the typical candy bar. And I'd be willing to bet that most of you would rather have a candy bar for breakfast than avocado toast. And this sugar is going to make you gain weight like crazy. Remember, these are refined carbohydrates that instantly turn into sugar in your blood. OK, well, that doesn't sound very good. But what if you have gluten free bread? Surely that's the answer. Well, as you know, gluten is one of the most common lectins and it's present in wheat, rye, barley. A gluten like molecule is present in oats and wheat germ and gluten is also present in brown rice. There are thousands of other lectins besides gluten. So gluten free bread is a no go eat also. Plus, almost all gluten free breads have more sugar added to make up for the lack of texture in gluten free breads. Unfortunately, as many of you have listened to me, gluten free breads are often made with corn, rice and oats or other lectin loaded grain products. Now, there are a couple of safe bread options out there. I personally love the brand Uprising Foods. And you can find a link in my new book, Unlocking the Keto Code. Barely bread or bread seriously is also a great option. But bread users beware in general, whatever you're going to put your avocado on is likely to contain a lot of sugar. Now, it's not just the bread that I have an issue with. Most people order or make their avocado toast with a poached egg or two poached eggs. That seems healthy, right? Well, not so fast. First of all, most commercial eggs, even if they say cage free or free rage are anything but most commercial eggs come from chickens that are kept in a warehouse that are fed corn and soybeans. And those are lectin moms that in fact get transferred into the egg. So you're actually eating what the chicken ate. You are what you eat, but you are what the thing you're eating. Now, if you're going to eat eggs, please look for pastured eggs or omega three eggs. These are chickens that, in the case of pastured eggs, actually went out and ate bugs, which is what they're supposed to do. In the case of omega three eggs, they're usually fed flaxseed or algae or a combination of the both. So you are going to get some short chain omega three fats in the eggs. Now, recently, as you know, I've been looking at food sensitivities in my patients with autoimmune disease and leaky gut. And surprisingly, I find that some of my toughest autoimmune patients are sensitive to both the proteins in egg white and the proteins in egg yolk, regardless of the source of the egg. So be careful with eggs, particularly if you think you have leaky gut, if you have irritable bowel syndrome, or if you have a diagnosed autoimmune disease. Eggs are probably not your best friend, at least initially. Now, my final issue with avocado toast, the problem is, is it's typically eaten for breakfast? First thing in the morning. Now, breakfast, as you know, I hope by now, is the least important meal of the day. So eating a complete meal like an avocado toast that has one beneficial ingredient, and that's the avocado, the rest of it, you're still eating, which breaks your fast. And anything we can do to prolong the period of time where we're not eating, beginning with finishing dinner and then the next meal break fast. The farther we can push that out into the mid morning, the late morning or even noon lunch, the better you're going to be for multiple reasons. First of all, more and more studies, both in humans and in animals, show that time restricted eating, limiting the time period that we eat food to about six to eight hours per day has huge health benefits, not only on longevity, but also on health span, the number of years we actually have good health. And quite frankly, it's not all that important with how long you live. It's actually how important with how long you live well. It's one thing to be actively sailing your sailboat that my uncle, who just turned 95, active sailor and quite a different thing from someone who's 95 and in a nursing home and doesn't remember their kids or other grandkids name. So it's a health span that's important. And one of the best ways as you learn from unlocking the keto code to activate health span is to compress your eating window. And the easiest way for most people to do that is to skip breakfast or at the very least push breakfast out later and later in the morning. Now, if you've got to have breakfast, there's better things to have for breakfast that can actually continue to activate ketosis. And that is MCT containing goat or sheep yogurts, goat or sheep cheeses or even MCT creamers in your coffee. There's a number of MCT based bars that are also available that are primarily medium chain triglycerides. And if you've read anything or followed me, you know that medium chain triglycerides are a totally different form of fat that actually turn into ketones in your liver when you eat them. And the exciting thing about that is that you could have an MCT based meal as breakfast and it won't interrupt your ketosis. In other words, it will not count against you. So you can, I hate to use the word, have your cake and eat it too. So if you're going to break your fast, you're much better off with something that's going to continue your ketosis than something that will absolutely stop it like avocado toast. Finally, if you really want an avocado for breakfast, please have an avocado for breakfast. Scoop it out, mash it up, put a tablespoon of MCT oil in your avocado, put some salt and pepper. That's the way to have your avocado for breakfast. Don't put it on the toast. And preferably, unless you know where that chicken, what it ate and where it got its food that made the egg, you're better off for now avoiding eggs on your avocado toast. Last but not least, if you're out and you want to order avocado toast, be my guest. Scrape the avocado off, eat the avocado and you'll be fine. You're definitely going to want to see this one. It turns out that great apes suffered a genetic mutation that allowed them to convert the sugar and fruit fructose into fat.