Long before I returned to school to formally study nutrition, I was already deeply interested in food, health, and the way our choices shape our wellbeing.
Around that time, I experienced a sudden allergic reaction that was eventually labeled as atopic dermatitis. I visited an allergist but never received a particularly satisfying explanation. Then, roughly six months later, it happened again.
At the same time, I was also dealing with migraines and Raynaud’s. Like many people looking for answers, I found myself wondering whether there was something I was missing.
That was when I started hearing Dr. Steven Gundry everywhere.
He wasn’t just another wellness influencer. He was a physician, a former cardiac surgeon, and someone with credentials that naturally commanded attention. His message was compelling. Many common foods contain compounds called lectins that may contribute to inflammation, digestive issues, and autoimmune problems. According to Gundry, removing or reducing these foods could dramatically improve health.
The ideas resonated with me.
Part of that was timing. Discussions around gut permeability were becoming more common, and Gundry’s explanation felt different from the standard anti-nutrient arguments I had heard before. As someone interested in plant-based nutrition, I was intrigued by the possibility that foods widely considered healthy might affect people differently than we assumed.
There was no single moment that convinced me.
It was the accumulation of ideas that seemed to make sense.
Looking back, I can also see the power of social proof. Gundry had built a large following, and once I entered that ecosystem, I encountered countless people repeating the same success stories, conclusions, and explanations. It created a sense of confirmation that felt stronger than it really was.
So I bought the book.
And I decided to try it for myself.
The Experiment
For roughly five months, I followed most of the recommendations.
My diet became a modified version of what many people would recognize as a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic approach. Foods I had eaten regularly were suddenly restricted. Rice became cauliflower rice. Bread and roti disappeared. I ate green bananas and green papaya instead of ripe versions. Beans required pressure cooking. Lectins became something I paid attention to every day.
This was not a casual experiment.
I committed to it seriously.
To my surprise, some things improved.
My digestion was excellent. Looking back, it may have been some of the best digestive health I had experienced. I felt lighter after meals, and my digestion seemed remarkably efficient.
But there were tradeoffs.
The restrictions made it difficult for me to maintain my calorie intake. As someone whose diet had always relied heavily on carbohydrates, I found myself gradually losing more weight than I intended.
More importantly, the symptoms that motivated me to try the diet in the first place never meaningfully improved.
The migraines remained.
The Raynaud’s remained.
The unexplained allergic reactions never provided a clear answer.
If anything, being leaner made me feel colder.
What made the experience difficult to evaluate was that it wasn’t a complete success, but it wasn’t a complete failure either.
Eventually, I let the experiment go.
What I Think Now
Looking back, I don’t regret trying it.
That’s probably not the conclusion most people expect.
The experience didn’t solve the problems I hoped it would solve. Yet I still consider it valuable.
For several months, I paid close attention to what I was eating and how my body responded. Some things genuinely improved. Other things didn’t.
Eventually I had to ask a question that nutrition has forced me to ask many times since:
Is something working because the theory is correct, or because one part of the intervention happened to help?
At the time, I didn’t know enough to answer that question well.
I was always skeptical.
But I was less skeptical and had less knowledge than I do now.
Years later, after studying nutrition more formally, I see the experience differently.
I don’t think Gundry was entirely wrong.
Many of the broad recommendations align with advice supported by a substantial body of evidence: eat more fiber, rely less on highly processed foods, and build meals around whole foods.
Those are ideas I still agree with today.
Where I became more skeptical was the confidence surrounding some of the specific claims.
The farther I looked, the harder it became to find strong evidence that lectins were a major problem for most healthy people. There are certainly individuals with sensitivities, digestive disorders, or unique medical conditions who may respond differently to certain foods. But that’s very different from concluding that a wide range of common foods are broadly harmful.
The experience taught me something that no textbook could:
A compelling explanation is not the same thing as compelling evidence.
The Real Lesson
The biggest lesson I took from Gundry had very little to do with lectins.
What stayed with me was something else.
A good question can be valuable even when the answer turns out to be incomplete.
Gundry asked questions that many people weren’t asking.
Could certain foods affect people differently?
Are individual responses more important than averages?
Do some people benefit from approaches that wouldn’t make sense for everyone?
Those are worthwhile questions.
The mistake is assuming that an interesting question automatically guarantees a correct answer.
Nutrition education did not make me cynical.
It made me more demanding.
I no longer see foods as universally good or universally bad. I no longer assume that a plausible mechanism automatically translates into meaningful outcomes. And I am much more cautious about broad recommendations that apply equally to everyone regardless of context.
The more I learn, the more I find myself separating what is interesting from what is convincing.
Those are not the same thing.
Online content, podcasts, books, and videos can be excellent sources of ideas. They can introduce questions worth exploring and perspectives worth considering.
But ideas are only the beginning.
The harder work is determining whether those ideas hold up when examined closely.
Looking Back
If I encountered the same book today, I would approach it differently.
Not because I have become closed-minded.
Because I have become more demanding.
I would want to know what the broader body of evidence says. I would want to understand how much of the theory has been demonstrated in humans. I would want to know where reasonable experts disagree and why.
Most importantly, I would want to separate what is interesting from what is convincing.
That’s a distinction I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.
Now, I think it may be one of the most important skills a nutrition professional can develop.
The answers didn’t change my life.
The habit of questioning assumptions did.