A book purported to expose “hidden dangers” in healthy foods doesn’t even pass the whiff test. I started getting emails about The Plant Paradox, a book purporting to expose “the hidden dangers in ‘healthy’ foods that cause disease and weight gain”—foods like beans, whole grains, and tomatoes. Hidden dangers? The author’s talking about lectins in…
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How should we properly cook beans? In the 1800s, a compound was discovered in castor beans, which we would come to know as the first of a class of lectin proteins, natural compounds found throughout the food supply, but concentrated in beans, whole grains, and certain fruits and vegetables. Every decade or two, a question…
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Might lectins help explain why those who eat more beans and whole grains have less cancer? Lectins are to blame for the great “white kidney bean incident” of 2006 in Japan. One Saturday evening, a TV program introduced a new method to lose weight. The method was simple: toast some dry, raw, white kidney beans…
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What happened when turmeric curcumin was put to the test to see if it could reverse DNA damage caused by arsenic exposure? Arsenic is a carcinogenic heavy metal, and the major mechanism of arsenic-related damage appears to be oxidative stress. It’s the arsenic-induced accumulation of free radicals that can kill off cells and damage our…
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I’m excited to share a recipe from The How Not to Diet Cookbook. If you’ve already made this dish, please leave us a comment on the recipe page or the Instagram post. I’d love to know what you thought about it! Ribollita with White Beans and Kale Ribollita is a rustic Italian soup that, like…
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