Why Do I Feel Sick and Bloated After I Eat Beans?

Watch Out For Bad Lectins!

Lectins can bind with certain kinds of proteins that are present in our cell membranes. They are attracted to sugar, binding to sugar becoming the glycol part of glycoconjugates on the cell membrane. Lectins are like a magnet, which attract certain kinds of molecules, which stick together that does not stimulate the immune system and interacts with cell-cell interaction.

Dietary lectins are in raw legumes, grains, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and peppers to list a few. But lectins are everywhere in our food chain, part of a seed that becomes a leaf when from a sprouting plant called the cotyledon is in all the seeds and grains we like to eat. Also, the seed coat is high in lectin. When I read this, I thought of all the whole wheat; I used to eat whole wheat bread which includes the seed hull. Lectin is also in nuts, seeds, and many vegetables.

Lectins protect the plants against insects, pests, and microorganisms. The coating on a seed which is made up of lectin helps the seed pass through an animals digestive system as a form of seed dispersal. Most lectins are resistant to heat and digestive acids, and they can enter our bloodstream unchanged.

Why am I writing this article about lectins? Because I have fibromyalgia, which is means I have a dysfunctional immune system. Certain kinds of lectins are harmful to our immune system. However there are many kinds of lectins, and they play a role in immune function, body fat regulation, cell death, and growth.

Many dietary lectins trigger antibody production because they pass through our digestive system. We all have antibodies floating around our body from lectins. Lectins we used to be able to tolerate may become toxic because of a change in our immune system, GI-track injuries, or other sources like medication. Because we don’t digest lectins, we often produce antibodies to them. Some lectins are toxic like raw or sprouted kidney beans. Kidney beans have phytohemagglutinin, which can poison us, triggering an immune response if we only eat a half dozen sprouted or raw beans.

Raw kidney beans can contain as much as 70,00 lectin unites. When thoroughly cooking kidney beans reduces lectin content to around 400 units, which reduces the irritation to our intestinal lining.

Good lectins can decrease certain diseases, help the bodies essential functions, like cell adherence, inflammatory modulation, and programmed cell death.

Everyone needs to know that what they are eating may affect their health and I had no clue eating raw beans could poison me but what I didn’t realize cooking doesn’t always remove lectins toxicity. If you do eat raw kidney beans, which I don’t know anyone who would want to but maybe undercooked beans may be a problem. You will experience nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. So cook your beans thoroughly! I am writing this paper because I have fibromyalgia. Lectin cause GI distress and will damage my weak intestinal lining.

As food passes through our intestinal tract, it causes some damage, however when you have a healthy digestive tract damage is repaired without stressing the body. That’s why I like intermittent fasting. Only eating during a small window of the day gives my gut time to heal after eating. The purpose of our intestinal lining is to contain things that could hurt the body while absorbing the nutrition we need for our body to function correctly.

Lectins cause a lot of damage to our intestinal walls. As they pass through our digestive system, they produce a lot of damage, which takes a long time to repair. The damage caused by lectins leave our intestinal lining wall porous; this is called a leaky gut. A leaky gut allows molecules that would usually pass through our body access to our bodies sensitive systems. Also, a leaky gut inhibits our ability to absorb nutrition, like vitamins and minerals we need.

When too many lectins are eaten at one time, our gut will go into emergency and dump its load. That’s why when many people eat certain foods they experience explosive gabs, cramping, vomiting, and diarrhea. Intestinal wall damage happens when we drink too much alcohol, which also damages the GI lining and causes it to dump its load in a very unpleasant way.

Once a lectin has escaped our gut barrier it causes an immune system response, and the body moves in its defenses for the attack. Lectins that have broken through our gut defenses can cause skin rashes, joint pain, and generalized inflammation. There are chronic disorders that are correlated with leaky gut. Many researchers have noticed children with autism have "leaky gut syndrome" and removing harmful dietary lectins improves their overall health and improves their cognitive abilities.

People who suffer from Crohn’s disease and irritable body syndrome have been found to be extremely sensitive to lectins. Researchers have found those who suffer from Crohn’s disease have a high level of immature cells in their gut lining. Immature cells can't protect themselves from lectins.

Lectins pass through the body quickly, eating a variety of fruits, live-culture fermented foods, vegetables can reduce inflammatory issues. From what I understand eating one kind of food high in lectin is like picking at your skin until you have had a wound and you keep poking at the injury rather than leaving it alone to heal.

Unrefined grains have more nutrition but they also contain more lectins and other anti-nutrients. In our past this wasn’t a problem, grain is difficult to grow and collect in large quantities in our pre-industrial past. Now with machines we can grow large quantities of grain and most of our food has some kind of grain involved, like bread, pasta, rice, quinoa, kamut, amaranth, oats, barley, and of course our snack foods. We can walk or drive to the market and within minutes find yummy grain products like cookies and chips.

Our body hasn’t evolved to handle a high grain diet. In the past, our ancestors found a way to get around upsetting their digestive system when eating high lectin containing foods. They soaked, sprouted, and fermented before cooking high lectin containing food. Lectin content in foods can vary from year to year, and genetic modification can cause changes in lectin content.

Peanuts, soybean, grain, cereal, and dairy are the most common culprits when people complain of digestive pain. You know the dreaded smelly farts and bloating. Seafood and legumes have the most lectins.

How to avoid lectin levels, sprouting seeds, and beans, sprouting removes most seed shells. Soaking and cooking your beans. I was taught to soak my beans overnight and rinse often while soaking. Also I read long ago adding baking soda while soaking is helpful. That doesn’t help my sensitive daughter; she can’t eat beans of any kind even fermented soybean products.

Fermentation removes much of the lectin content, the bacteria can eat lectin. Also sourdough bread is fermented and of course beer. I can’t handle alcohol so beer and whisky are out of my diet.

Fermentation allows beneficial bacteria to digest and convert many of the harmful substances. I found the paleo type diet does work for my gut issues. I also avoid the nightshade family. Most of my nutrients come from fermented veggies, fruit and vegetables that don’t have a high lectin content. I’ve read that some some seaweeds and mucilaginous vegetable bind to lectins and they pass through our gut without damaging it.

There is the blood type diet, which is based on how our blood type reacts to lectins. There are blood type groups of people that respond to lectins differently. Some researchers have found urinary tract infections, and anemia can be caused by a high lectin diet.

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Graphs Taken From DIETARY LECTINS: BLOOD TYPES & FOOD ALLERGIES by Laura Power, Ph.D.

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