What Foods Seem “Healthy” but Should Be Avoided for Gut Health?
15 Dec 2025 · 6 min
Podcast episode from JJ Virgin's "Ask the Health Expert" where a listener question about foods that appear healthy but harm gut health is posed. The episode includes several sponsor ad reads (Earth Breeze, Wayfair, Ray-Ban/Meta Glasses, Monarch, University of Phoenix) and features Dr. Steven Gundry, who warns about lectins in whole grains and legumes, recommends avoiding whole (unprocessed) grains for gut health, and describes traditional preparation methods (soaking, long cooking, pressure cooking, refining hulls/using white rice) to reduce lectin content.
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What foods seem healthy but should be.
Avoided for gut Health?
This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Stella from Twitter asks which foods seem healthy but should be avoided for gut health? Hey, it's JJ and today I have Dr. Steven Gundry with me to answer this question. Now, you may know him from his New York Times bestselling books the Plant Paradox and the Longevity Paradox. And next up, the Energy Paradox. He's a cardiothoracic surgeon who retired to focus on helping patients not need him by using nutrition and lifestyle strategies. Plus, he loves dogs. A man after my own heart and swears that owning a dog and walking a dog is one of the key aspects to longevity. We'll be right back with the answer, so stay with me.
Foreign.
Hey JJ Virgin here.
Okay, real talk.
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Who spent what and where?
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Well, I talked about this in the Plant Paradox and certainly we reprise the lectins in food as one of the seven deadly energy disruptors. And I really can't say enough about how our switch over to a healthy whole grain diet has been one of the biggest energy depleting things that we've done in the last 50 years. Cultures have traditionally tried to limit or eliminate the lectins in whole grains by refining them, getting rid of the hull. 4 billion people use white rice rather than brown rice because white rice has far less lectins than brown rice and 4 billion people can't be wrong. So we look at cultures who have through the years, eaten a healthy diet and they found ways to detoxify lectins. For instance, soaking beans for extended periods of time and pouring off the water every four to six hours. And long cooking of beans, which is traditional in traditional diets, vastly reduces lectin content, as does pressure cooking. It's fascinating to me going around the world finding so many cultures that depend on pressure cooking for beans or corn as a way of detoxifying, both in India and in South America. So please, please, please get whole, healthy grains out of your diet as one way of getting great gut health back.
This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.
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