food
No dinner party can survive uncertainty, and there is nothing so relentless as dinnertime, which must be renewed every day, even multiple times a day; no credit is given for the success of the dinner the night before, which might as well have been ten years ago (View Highlight)
You are all responsible for the death of my art
The reason that wheat became the grain of choice in northern climates is thanks to a uniquely small lectin in wheat, known as wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), which is responsible for wheat’s weight-gaining propensity. (Location 341)
Yes, cows develop heartburn from these lectins, just as you do. To keep their beasts eating more of this fattening food, farmers dose them with calcium carbonate, the active ingredient in Tums.11 In fact, half of the world’s production of this compound is added to cattle feed to stop the heartburn, ensuring that cows continue to eat their unnatural diet of corn and soybeans. (Location 358)
We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. (Location 1291)
Ten thousand years ago wheat was just a wild grass, one of many, confined to a small range in the Middle East. Suddenly, within just a few short millennia, it was growing all over the world. (Location 1275)
Fast-forward five thousand years or so. Thanks to its granaries full of wheat, ancient Egypt was able to feed its people, including the slaves who built its pyramids, enabling its rise to a great kingdom. However, analysis of thousands of Egyptian mummified remains has revealed the health status of those wheat eaters, and it wasn’t good. They died overweight, with clogged arteries. Their teeth were also decayed from a diet high in grains, which are full of simple sugars, and worn down to the gums from grinding the grains.3 The mummified remains of Queen Nefertiti suggest that she most likely had diabetes. (Location 564)
In this case, green means “stop” and red (and orange and yellow) means “go.” Red, orange, and yellow signal sweetness and desirability to your brain, a concept that food marketers have long known about and employed. Next time you are in the snack food aisle in the supermarket, check out the packaging and signage and you’ll see that both forms of marketing are dominated by these warm colors. (Location 266)
We do not picture spirits dancing among brightly-lit supermarket aisles, no matter how bountiful the fruit is there. The fluorescent glow of warehouse lights and repetitive linoleum floors do not seem a good match (View Highlight)
When I do eat bread in the United States, it makes me feel bloated, but I have no such reaction with white bread made with yeast when I am in Europe. That’s because yeast ferments and destroys the lectins in wheat, taming their effects. And guess what? In France and Italy, where bread is produced by traditional yeast-rising techniques, almost all the bread is white, not whole wheat. It contains gluten, which has been digested by the yeast, but no WGA. Would it surprise you then to learn that sourdough bread, made by fermenting wheat with bacteria and yeast, consistently ranks as one of the safest and least injurious breads, in terms of blood sugar spikes? The bacteria and yeast together “eat” the lectins and a good deal of the sugars! (Location 860)
Remember this story when you peruse the sell-by date of any commercial bread or cracker or snack product. If the date isn’t the day it was manufactured, then the product for sure contains BHT or another similar deadly preservative. There are many reasons you want to avoid BHT—among (Location 881)
Because their initial predators were insects, plants developed some lectins that would paralyze any unfortunate bug that tried to dine on them. Obviously, there is a quantum size difference between insects and mammals, but both are subject to the same effects. (If you are suffering from neuropathy, take notice!) Clearly, most of you won’t be paralyzed by a plant compound within minutes of eating it, although a single peanut (a lectin) certainly has the potential to kill certain people. But we are not immune to the long-term effects of eating certain plant compounds. Because of the huge number of cells we mammals have, we may not see the damaging results of consuming such compounds for years. And even if this is happening to you, you don’t know it yet. (Location 214)
…quantum size difference between insects and mammals
These days maybe, look at the fossil record of dragonflies though 202301032147
…single peanut (a lectin) certainly has the potential to kill certain people
are all plant allergens lectins?
THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE is the mucus in your nose and saliva in your mouth, collectively called mucopolysaccharides (meaning many sugars). Guess what those sugars are there for? To trap lectins. Remember, lectins like to bind to sugars. The next time your nose runs after eating spicy foods, you’ll know that you’ve just eaten some lectins. That extra dose of mucus not only traps the lectins you just ate but also adds an additional coating to your esophagus as your meal works its way down. (Location 415)