960 You'd Be Shocked to Find That These Foods Are Killing You

On today's 5-Minute Friday, Lewis revisits one of his most impactful interviews with health expert Dr. Steven Gundry, who has carefully studied what we put into our bodies. Believe it or not, some of the foods we consider healthy might actually be incredibly damaging. For more School of Greatness, visit lewishowes.com/960. And text Lewis at 614-350-3960 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  Over the past few years, I've been lucky enough to interview renowned health expert Dr. Steven Gundry three times. Every time I speak with him, I learn critical new information about how to approach nutrition to get the most out of my body and mind. And our conversation from April of this year is a must-listen. But I keep coming back to our first podcast back in 2017, when he enlightened me on the foods you need to avoid to live longer. If you've heard this before, it's definitely worth a re-listen. If this is your first time, enjoy and go check out the full interview when we're done.

• 0:48Steven Gundry?

  Up until 10,000 years ago, we lived primarily on the leaves of trees and we ate tubers that grew in the ground, like a sweet potato for a yam.

• 0:58Lewis Howes?

  Love those.

• 0:59Steven Gundry?

  12,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, we switched over to things that we had never eaten before, and those were the grains of grasses and beans. Now, the reason we'd never eaten them before is, number one, we didn't need to. There's never been a documentation of an ape eating grass or grains. Beans are so lethal that five raw kidney beans will kill a human being in five minutes by coagulating their blood.

• 1:31Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 1:32Steven Gundry?

  Five raw kidney beans.

• 1:33Lewis Howes?

  Raw kidney beans.

• 1:34Steven Gundry?

  In fact, you know, most people have heard of the poison ricin. So ricin is the lectin of the castor bean, and we'll talk about lectins next. A lectin is the plant defense system. These are proteins that are designed to basically kill us in one way or another. And so ricin, so powerful that about four molecules of ricin will kill a human being instantaneously. So No beans. No beans. Zero beans. Unless you use a pressure. Pinto black beans. None of that. We shouldn't be eating it. Shouldn't be eating it. You weren't designed to eat it. You have no defense system against it. If you pressure cook, pressure cook it, it's fine. Pressure cooker. The modern pressure cooker is as easy as a rice cooker. Got it.

• 2:19Steven Gundry?

  It's one touch. It's not your grandmother's pressure cooker that blew up in the kitchen and So then it's okay to eat. Yeah. So you can pressure cook beans. Now, the other thing, we weren't designed to eat grains. For instance, everybody heard about gluten. Yes. All right. So gluten is a lectin. And again, a lectin is a plant's defense system. It's a protein that actually is designed to act like incoming guided missile attacks Wow. on the inside wall of our gut. And these things actually pry open the lining of our gut and actually break through the border. Really? Yeah, they really do. That's what causes eczema and causes breakouts.

• 2:59Steven Gundry?

  Yeah, exactly. Acne, brain fog, irritable bowel. This is actually all part of that process. Wow. And so it's fascinating to see people who either have come to see me or have even read the book and then write on Amazon, oh, my gosh, you know, I had this horrible eczema and now a month later, it's all gone and all I did was, you know, take grains and beans and nightshades away from my diet and everything got better. So that brings us to the second kind of group of things we shouldn't eat. All of us are not from the United States,

• 3:41Steven Gundry?

  America. We're actually from Europe, Asia, or Africa, every one of us. Yeah. So even our Native Americans are actually not Native Americans. They're from Asia. You know, get over it. Right. So none of us were exposed to an American plant until 500 years ago when Columbus started trade. So getting to know a new plant, a new lectin in 500 years is speed dating.

• 4:12Steven Gundry?

  In evolution, I just don't think it'd be done. For instance, the Italians refused to eat tomatoes for 200 years after their native son Columbus brought them back because they knew how dangerous they were. They were part of the deadly nightshade family. Really? And they, when they started eating them, they always peeled and de-seeded their tomatoes because the peels and the seeds actually have the vast majority of the lectins. And it's interesting, years ago, I was, did my fellowship in children's heart surgery in London, England, and I had a house officer from Italy. And he invited me up for pasta and tomato sauce. Yes.

• 4:57Steven Gundry?

  So I, I brought, you know, it'd be nice if I bought a couple of cans of canned tomatoes, you know, help out. Sure. And he looks at it, he says, "Why did you bring me this? We can't use this." So I said, "What do you mean, canned tomatoes?" He says, "It's got peels and seeds. You can't make sauce with peels and seeds." He says, "Oh, mamma mia, what am I gonna do with you?" He says, "You can't use peels and seeds." And I said, "Why?" He says, "They're deadly." And I said, "Really?" And he says, "Yeah, everybody knows that." Now, there's two American beans that everyone should stay away from. Peanuts are not a nut, they're a bean. God, it's so good, though. 94% of human beings carry a preformed antibody against the peanut lectin.

• 5:42Steven Gundry?

  We can take rhesus monkeys, our cousins, give them peanut oil, and they will develop atherosclerosis, heart disease. Really? If we take the lectin out of the peanut oil and then give them the peanut oil, they will not develop heart disease. So if you get lectin-free peanut butter? There is no such thing. Dang it. Okay. So get almond butter instead. It's much safer. No peanut butter? No, stay away from it. You should eliminate it 100% from your system. Absolutely. We can take, and this has been done, men, feed them peanuts, take their bowel movements,

• 6:21Steven Gundry?

  feed them to rats, and you will grow cancerous cells in the rat colon because they've been exposed to the peanut lectin.

• 6:32Steven Gundry?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Lewis Howes?

  Love peanut butter though.

• 6:33Steven Gundry?

  Oh, you know.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  So I can have as much olive butter as I want.

• 6:36Steven Gundry?

  And I went to medical school in Georgia, you know, Jimmy Carter, you know, man, peanuts are everything.

• 6:41Lewis Howes?

  Peanut butter sandwiches, you know?

• 6:42Steven Gundry?

  Yeah, nope, sorry.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  So eliminate it.

• 6:44Steven Gundry?

  Go on.

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening and I hope you've enjoyed this Five Minute Friday. As always, check out LewisHouse.com for more School of Greatness inspiration and find me on social media at Lewis House. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.