Sugar-free, gluten-free, cholesterol-free and now comes Lectin-free food that seems to be highly effective in fixing digestion issues. Once digestion is properly working, you can also see a remarkable difference in your obesity level.
What Exactly is Lectin?
Lectins are basically a type of protein found in almost all plant based foods. What? Does it mean that plant based food are harmful? It is not that simple, there is a catch. When lectin enters our body, it can bind sugar and carbohydrates. It can reduce our ability to absorb nutrients from highly nutritious food. Absorption of iron, calcium, zinc and many other nutrients can be reduced, IF WE CONSUME LECTIN IN EXCESSS QUANTITY. Here the catch is in excess quantity. If your intake is balanced, and you eat lectin in small quantities, it is beneficial.
Can Lectin Be Eliminated from Diet?
That is what lectin-free diet is. But is it really practical and possible ? There is no enough data that suggests that completely eliminating lectin from our diet is good for our health. Eating in large quantities is of course harmful. So what are those food items that contain a lot of lectin and is it possible to eliminate them?
Tomato
Tomato contains a lot of lectin, but keeping in mind the Asian or Indian diet in particular, eliminating tomato completely from our food is next to impossible. What we can do is reduce the amount of raw tomato from our diet or salad. Cooking at high temperature, which we do anyway, works wonders for reducing the lectin content of Tomato.
Potato
Personally, for me it is impossible to eliminate potato from my diet. Give it a try, if you can. Potato is rich in lectin, in raw form. Do we eat it in raw form? I think we don’t, therefore we are safe. Fully cooked potato is almost lectin free. So don’t go for its semi-cooked version in any form.
Kidney Beans
In India, kidney beans, grams and many other sprouts are soaked in water overnight. There is a reason behind it. Soaking reduces the lectin content in them and then if is beneficial. If you don’t soak it, then probably you are consuming lectin with kidney beans based food.
Soybean
Again, semi-cooked version of soybean is full of lectin. Start cooking it at high temperature before consuming. There you go, you have started lectin-free diet with a simple twist. Give it try, if you eat soybean often.
Peanuts
Do you eat peanuts raw, semi cooked or half baked? That is the culprit. Stop eating half cooked peanuts for a while. Eat peanuts in cooked form or in roasted form. See the results in the form your improved digestion.