Are Antinutrients Impairing Your Gut Health?
Our ancestors knew how to prepare otherwise-nutritious foods to reduce their antinutrient contents, knowledge that has been largely forgotten in the modern age of industrial food manufacturing and fast food. Grains, seeds, beans and nuts were soaked, sprouted, fermented and long-boiled to make them as digestible as possible, practices that are rarely followed in the modern diet. Lack of proper food preparation could be a major cause of the inflammation, G.I. disturbances and food intolerances we’re seeing more and more, so if you have symptoms of impaired gut health, read on for a few simple rules to reduce antinutrients in your foods.
What Are Antinutrients?
Antinutrients are compounds in foods that interfere with the absorption or function of nutrients in the body. They include saponins, lectins, phytates, goitrogens, oxalates and amylase-trypsin inhibitors (ATIs) and they’re found in a variety of plant foods such as grains, beans, nuts, seeds and certain vegetables. Plants produce them to inhibit digestion and gut function in insects and herbivores that eat them, so that they can’t eat too much before needing to move on and snack on something else. Other antinutrients protect seeds from sprouting too early.
What Do Antinutrients Do in the Body?
Some antinutrients like oxalates and phytates bind to minerals, including calcium, iron and zinc, in your intestines, so they can’t be absorbed, and others like lectins, ATIs, and again oxalates, cause inflammation in your gut lining so that nutrient absorption is impaired. In fact, ATIs may actually be responsible for many cases of non-celiac wheat sensitivity (Geisslitz et al., 2022). Oxalates, in those who are susceptible, can also cause joint pain, gout and calcium oxalate kidney stones (Ermer et al., 2023). Goitrogens interfere with your thyroid function or iodine availability, and saponins and tannins reduce absorption by changing the actions of the gut lining. ATIs also inhibit digestive enzymes, amylase and trypsin, from being able to break down polysaccharides and proteins. Undigested food particles feed microbes in the gut, causing dysbiosis or SIBO, and may cause bloating, gas or diarrhea (Junker et al., 2012). Phytates also inhibit protein and polysaccharide digestion, along with lipid digestion, which can actually have beneficial effects on blood glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol levels in some studies. However, decreased mineral absorption, specifically calcium, can have detrimental effects on bone and kidney health in those who have a high-phytate, low-calcium diet (Kim et al., 2020).
What Foods Contain Antinutrients?
Cereal grains, including wheat, barley, rye, corn/maize, oats, millet and rice contain ATIs, lectins, saponins and phytates. Legumes (beans, soy, peanuts, peas and green beans) are the second-biggest culprits, containing lectins, saponins and phytates. Pseudograins (technically seeds) like quinoa, amaranth and millet contain phytates and saponins, and buckwheat contains lectins and oxalates. Pumpkin and chia seeds also contain lectins. Nuts have varying amounts of phytates, and cashews and almonds have lectins and oxalates. Nightshade plants like tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, peppers and cucumbers contain lectins. Finally, oxalates are found in a variety of foods, including spinach, Swiss chard, beets and beet greens, rhubarb, soy, turmeric, sweet potatoes, rice and wheat bran, cacao and potatoes.
How Do You Reduce Antinutrients?
Oxalates leach out in water, so soak or boil these foods, then throw away the water. Always boil or steam high-oxalate vegetables, and avoid baking, roasting, sauteing or eating them raw. Buy sprouted tofu and switch from soy to other non-dairy milks. Use curcumin rather than turmeric supplements. Soak nuts and remove their skins.
Lectins are broken down in water and heat, so soak grains, beans and pseudograins for at least an hour then boil them for at least 10 minutes. Sprouting and fermenting also greatly reduce lectins. Peel and deseed nightshades to remove the high-lectin parts.
Enzymes that break down phytates are activated in water and acidity, so while you’re soaking grains, beans and pseudograins, add some lemon juice or vinegar, or ferment them so beneficial bacteria increase the acidity. Plants use phytate to ensure their seeds won’t sprout too early, so sprouting means the phytates are degraded.
Finally, saponins make a foamy layer on top of the water when simmering grains, beans and pseudograins, so skim it off with a spoon as you cook them.
Join Alimental’s Gut-Skin Axis Restoration Program for a PDF list of antinutrient foods and how to prepare them, along with a healing food plan and six steps to restore your gut health here.
References
Ermer, T., Nazzal, L., Tio, M. C., Waikar, S., Aronson, P. S., & Knauf, F. (2023).
Oxalate homeostasis. Nature Reviews. Nephrology, 19(2), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-022-00643-3
Geisslitz, S., Weegels, P., Shewry, P., Zevallos, V., Masci, S., Sorrells, M.,
Gregorini, A., Colomba, M., Jonkers, D., Huang, X., De Giorgio, R., Caio, G. P., D'Amico, S., Larré, C., & Brouns, F. (2022). Wheat amylase/trypsin inhibitors (ATIs): Occurrence, function and health aspects. European Journal of Nutrition, 61(6), 2873–2880. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-022-02841-y
Junker, Y., Zeissig, S., Kim, S. J., Barisani, D., Wieser, H., Leffler, D. A., Zevallos,
V., Libermann, T. A., Dillon, S., Freitag, T. L., Kelly, C. P., & Schuppan, D. (2012). Wheat amylase trypsin inhibitors drive intestinal inflammation via activation of toll-like receptor 4. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 209(13), 2395–2408. https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20102660
Kim, O. H., Booth, C. J., Choi, H. S., Lee, J., Kang, J., Hur, J., Jung, W. J., Jung, Y.
S., Choi, H. J., Kim, H., Auh, J. H., Kim, J. W., Cha, J. Y., Lee, Y. J., Lee, C. S., Choi, C., Jung, Y. J., Yang, J. Y., Im, S. S., Lee, D. H., … Oh, B. C. (2020). High-phytate/low-calcium diet is a risk factor for crystal nephropathies, renal phosphate wasting, and bone loss. eLife, 9, e52709. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.52709
