Page 18 - Spring2010

Plants Bite Back!

The Surprising, All-Natural Anti-Nutrients

and Toxins in Plant Foods

By Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN

at food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That’s
Michael Pollan’s response to the question of what

Ewe should eat, and few people doubt that answer
today. Whether it’s Whole Foods Market’s recent decision

to downplay animal products or vegan actresses touting
“kind diets,”it sometimes seems as though every educated

man, woman and child in the United States believes that
plant-based diets hold the key to personal and planetary

health.

Mother Nature puts anti-nutritional factors and toxins in grains, nuts,
seeds and beans for a variety of reasons. Phytates, for example, block seeds
from sprouting prematurely. Protease inhibitors, saponins, lectins and phy-
toestrogens harm insectsm animals and other predators that would otherwise
eat too many of them. If evolutionary theories are correct, wounded plants
produce extra inhibitors and other anti-nutrients to save the plant species.
The idea is to cause predators—including plant-eating humans—to experi-
ence slowed growth and diminished reproductive ability. Although it might
1-4
sound like a “rotten idea,” squirrels are smart to bury nuts in the ground,
then dig them up and eat them weeks and months later. Similarly, people in
traditional cultures all over the world process their grains, nuts, seeds and
beans by a process akin to pre-digestion before cooking and eating them.
18 Wise Traditions SPRING 2010