 Hey, Dr. Gundry here. I got a question for you. What would happen if you stopped eating bread for 30 days? You know bread is a big no-no on the Plant Paradox program. It's loaded with not only lectins but sugar and it contains little to no nutritional value, absolutely none. But I know for most people it's a comfort food that goes with just about anything. And don't get me wrong, it's delicious. I love the stuff. But it's absolutely not worth any of the negative health effects. In fact, even if you stopped eating bread for just one month you would notice some remarkable changes to your health. For starters, you would start to lose weight. Why? Because there are actually four teaspoons of sugar in every slice of bread. That means your simple healthy sandwich has eight teaspoons of sugar even though it's not on the label. Sugar is empty calories, which means fat gain. Eight teaspoons of sugar just in the bread of the sandwich. Bread can send your glycemic index soaring. Believe it or not, bagels can spike your blood sugar levels faster than a candy bar. Honest. And eating bread makes it very, very difficult to lose weight. Let me give you an example. I have a patient who is a very thin woman. She has rheumatoid arthritis. She got rid of her rheumatoid arthritis. Her markers for rheumatoid factor became negative but she and her husband felt correctly that she needed to gain some weight. And so I speak with them. I see them every three months. In the last three months she's done a remarkable job of gaining weight. She's actually gained about 10 pounds which for her is a lot of weight. And she looks better in terms of her weight than she did before. She was very thin. And how did she do it? She started eating bread. Now that's the good side of the story. The bad side of the story is that her rheumatoid arthritis has now flared dramatically. And her rheumatoid markers are sky high again. Why? Because she wanted to gain weight and she knew that bread would do it for her. The side effect of the bread was all those lectins caused leaky gut and it reactivated her rheumatoid arthritis. Now don't despair. We've got a plan that we can keep the weight on but get her rheumatoid arthritis gone. But that's to get rid of the lectin in bread. And I'll give you some alternatives in a minute. One of the biggest benefits of cutting bread from your diet has to do with the fact that you're dodging tons of lectins. Now gluten is the most famous of the lectins in wheat, rye, barley and oats. But there are other offenders that are just as mischievous. In fact if you're eating whole grains or all wheat bread then you're getting a really nasty guy called wheat germ agglutinant or WGA. This actually can get through the wall of your gut even if your gut is not leaky. And WGA actually attaches to insulin receptors on fat cells and opens the door to allow sugars into fat cells without any problem and it just keeps the door open. So it's almost every time you eat whole wheat you're just opening the door on fat cells to store fat. That's not a great idea. Now the other thing that you'll notice is that when you eliminate the lectins in wheat, rye, barley and oats in these breads you will actually notice that your brain works much better. And that's because leaky gut actually causes leaky brain. And we can measure this in people's blood work. We can actually see the leaky gut leading to leaky brain. And you actually have your immune system attacking your own brain. So getting rid of lectins, less leaky gut, less brain fog and less weight gain. Now I know it's easier said than done but there are a few alternatives that could keep you on track even through the worst cravings. And I'm not talking about gluten-free bread. Gluten-free bread is loaded with other lectins. In fact one of the most famous studies in celiac disease, which is the extreme form of gluten intolerant, took people with biopsy-proven celiac disease. They were put on a gluten-free diet for a year and a half that included gluten-free foods and breads. At the end of a year and a half they were re-biopsy. 70% of people on a gluten-free diet still had celiac disease, still had celiac even though they were gluten-free. Why? Because their gluten-free foods had other lectins that were still causing the gut damage. So if you see the words gluten-free, don't say, oh that's fine for me, that's just as big a problem. The second problem with gluten-free foods is they actually add more sugar than the original product to make it palatable. And as anyone who's tried a lot of gluten-free foods can tell you is that for the most part these don't taste very good. Now the good news is really because of the plant paradox and its acceptance and the results that people have had, companies are producing breads and pasta products that are not only tasty but are actually good for you. For instance, jillian bakery bread, please read the labels. California country gal, bread seriously, all make lectin-free options which are really great tasting. Or you can make your own bread and I have an episode all about it right here on my YouTube channel. And if you're craving other grain-based things like chips and crackers, cassava flour or coconut flour are great alternatives and we have recipes in all the books on how to make these crackers. Brands like jillian bakery make crackers. Love crackers are perfectly fine. Flacker crackers are perfectly fine and uprising food crackers. These are just a few to name many. And you can start finding these in grocery stores. You can start finding these in thrive market at Whole Foods. You can find them on Amazon. Just take the time to look for these alternatives. There are more and more pasta alternatives. Capellos, which uses almond flour, it was one of the originals. You can find that in the frozen food sections of many grocery stores now, certainly at Whole Foods. There are a variety of shirataki noodles which use a konjac root fiber. Miracle noodles is one of the most famous ones. Jovial, cassava pasta. Jovial, like a happy person, have a variety of dried pastas which have fantastic mouthfeel that you're looking for. So these are great alternatives that are now available. So you're not going to suffer by giving up bread. You're going to prosper by giving up bread. So do the challenge for me. Give up bread and bread products for a month and watch what happens. You'll be absolutely delighted and your body will thank you for it. That's it for today. We'll see you next time because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Make sure to check out the next one here. So let's start with flour, plain old wheat flour. It's in everything so it's got to be good for you, right? Flour is loaded with lectins.