The major problem with HEALTH and it’s study from the dietary aspect…it covers so many disciplines…thats why, invariably, so many, so often, just get it so wrong! Feel fortunate that in my career have spanned nutrition, biochemistry, evolution, biology, botany, even history, and host of academic disciplines involving medicine…BUT only obliquely, in the past, met up with LECTINS… but result of history of Americas discovery by Europeans! Christopher Columbus singularly responsible for the crossover and mark in time of initiation massive global upheaval…and incidentally Spanish fascination and exploitation of gold to a half millennium of superpower status. But at huge human sacrifice and price! Also the foods of the Americas were new and discoveries! Example: tomatoes…really interesting, and singularly makes a fundamental statement…Italians refused to eat that plant, (look at them today!) as they considered tomatoes poisonous, and persisted for some 200 years in absolute avoidance! Even today, Italian culinary aficionados have adapted from that knowledge of trial and error…they peel the skins and avoid the seeds! Now why? Short answer: Lectins ARE Health Puzzle!
Although Americas populated… and some local adaption to actual successful handling of these uniquely American plants! Adaptation was in preparation… to neutralize negative effects…Adaptation not from within the human consumer. Even entrenched indigenous populations, were still a relative recent (in terms of evolution hardly a blip!) ‘transplant’ from Asia! But for Europeans the plants were new then…from an evolutionary aspect still new today yet now they are ubiquitous and transposed…thanks to massive communication and transportation, all over the world! The sudden ability to mass produce agriculturally legumes, which includes all beans.
The North American agricultural ‘bean machine’…prodigious production of peanuts, cashews, and soy. Add ‘nightshade‘ vegetables, including eggplant, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes. Seeds such: pumpkin, sunflower, and then superimpose all wheat and seeds of the grass families, such as barley, corn, millet, oats, and rye. Although grasses also developed in Europe and rice in Asia…Then dairy products…but primarily problems stemming from grain fed or corn fed animals…apart from consequences serious toxins, pesticides, poisons, plastics, metals, glyphosates, antibioitics and nightmares of CAFOs …means availability in bulk to our world. But that in turn means transferring all problems in bulk! Lectins ARE Health Puzzle!
Plants hate being eaten! They have the disadvantage of being sessile…so after some hundreds of millions of years of initial and non interference and flourishment…along arrives hungry evolved insects, then followed by a whole world of creatures! Plants’ answer: to ward off using chemical warfare…and thus the concept and inception of fascination world of Lectins…became part of our human makeup! Mainly through the unique development of our intestinal biome and the fascinating symbiosis of billions of non human organisms. The last 15,000 years of civilization, but a speck in evolution…hence a serious and real issue with adaptation in our gut to effectively handle grains and beans. Raw beans can kill, and some do in milliseconds…example ricin! The key as we will explore…how to avoid the impact of Lectins, and why this is so important to our second brain…our microbiome? Short answer…that all those bacteria, viruses, fungi, even parasites and worms, contribute symbiotically to our uniquely human adaptation of actually becoming human…In fact it’s those non-human inhabitants, by the billions, that have adapted us…not our own DNA….as a consequence, they really have an overwhelming stake, and say, in our health! Lectins ARE Serious Health Puzzle!
