Heard about lectins? There’s seems to be some serious scare-mongering going on, making people afraid to eat legumes, wholegrains, nuts and even many types of fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n
A recent review suggested a lectin-free diet could be come the next ‘food fashion’\u2026 Although thankfully Covid-19 seems to have squashed that potential trend, with everyone making the most of store cupboard ingredients (many of which are claimed to be ladened with lectins), I’ve had a concerning number of questions around whether we should be worried about lectins.<\/p>\n
The short answer? No.<\/strong><\/p>\n As long as your food is prepared appropriately, i.e. cooking legumes and wholegrains. Essentially, just don’t eat dried beans or raw potatoes. They’ll be really hard and won’t taste good either…<\/p>\n It\u2019s a type of protein and all raw plants are thought to contain some lectins. Foods higher in lectins include beans, peanuts, lentils, tomatoes, potatoes, aubergine\/eggplant, wheat and other grains – so essentially, many foods that have actually been linked with health benefits! (That’s the first alarm bell as to the validity of the diet).<\/p>\n Like most trends, there is a little bit of science, that’s just been twisted. Yes there is evidence to suggest certain types lectins could be harmful when eaten in excess, but there’s much more to it.<\/p>\n The vast majority of ‘bad’ lectins are removed when you cook food – even reducing the lectin content to less than 0.1%, as one study showed in beans.<\/p>\n There are zero studies in humans suggesting these have any negative effects, in fact some types of dietary lectins may actually be beneficial, at least according to test tube studies.<\/p>\n Keep up your plant-based diversity and unless there are human studies that suggest otherwise (I’ll be sure to let you know) don’t let lectin-fuelled thoughts get in the way of reaching your 30 this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Heard about lectins? There’s seems to be some serious scare-mongering going on, making people afraid to eat legumes, wholegrains, nuts and even many types of fruit and vegetables. A recent review suggested a lectin-free diet could be come the next ‘food fashion’\u2026 Although thankfully Covid-19 seems to have squashed that potential trend, with everyone making…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-or-nutrition","category-myth-busting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat are lectins?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
So where did this diet come from?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
So what about the foods you don’t cook? <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Take home message:<\/strong><\/h3>\n