{"id":14061,"date":"2020-09-05T00:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T04:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=14061"},"modified":"2020-09-10T10:38:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T14:38:01","slug":"sources-of-lectins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/sources-of-lectins\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources of Lectins and Why You Can’t Escape Them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Where do lectins come from? What are the major sources of lectins?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of sources of lectins around us. You can find lectins in plant-based sources, animal sources, and man-made substances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about the sources of lectins below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Where Do Lectins Come From?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lectins are large proteins contained in the seeds, grains, skins, rinds, and leaves of most plants, as well as in the meat, milk, and eggs of grain- and soy-fed chickens, cows, pigs, and seafood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For millennia, humans\u2019 immune systems have adapted to their changing diet, but relatively recently, humans\u2019 diets have changed drastically and exposed our gut bacteria to new compounds that it hasn\u2019t yet evolved to tolerate.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources of Lectins Became More Influential<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are four factors that brought about this major change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The Agricultural Revolution<\/a> not only introduced grain and beans into the human diet for the first time, but it also made them the primary food source; this was a shift from a diet of mainly leaves, tubers (like sweet potatoes), and some animal fat and proteins. This meant that one of the sources of lectins were now a dietary staple.<\/li>
  2. A mutation in Northern European cows caused them to produce a different kind of protein in their milk, called casein A-1; during digestion, casein A-1 turns into a protein similar to lectin that causes your immune system to attack your pancreas.<\/li>
  3. When Europeans landed in the Americas, they brought foreign food from the New World back with them that people in Europe, Asia, and Africa had never before been exposed to and, thus, hadn\u2019t adapted to tolerate. These included