Eating Right, But Gaining Weight? Here’s Why. | EP 393.C

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: Eating Right, But Gaining Weight? Here’s Why.
Host: Dr. Steven Gundry
Date: March 6, 2026
Podcast: The Dr. Gundry Podcast, Episode 393.C

In this episode, Dr. Gundry tackles a pervasive health conundrum: why people may find themselves gaining weight even while eating so-called “healthy” vegetables. Focusing on five starchy vegetables commonly mistaken as diet-friendly, he breaks down how their composition, processing, and preparation can secretly contribute to weight gain, high blood sugar, and unwanted health effects. Dr. Gundry also answers listener questions and shares practical alternatives for smarter eating.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Five “Healthy” Vegetables That Cause Weight Gain

1. Corn ([00:00]–[04:40])

• Corn's Role in Weight Gain: Dr. Gundry explains that corn is predominantly starch and sugar, and is used to fatten livestock because of its ability to trigger weight gain.

• Genetically Modified, Glyphosate, and Lectins: Most US corn is genetically modified and sprayed with glyphosate, which Dr. Gundry warns can contribute to leaky gut and further weight gain.

• Cultural Preparation Makes a Difference: Traditional cultures processed corn with lye to create hominy (for masa flour), reducing toxins and lectins. Modern preparations often omit these steps.

• Recommendations: Avoid corn, or at least opt for products made from masa flour. Better yet, substitute with raw carrots, celery, or jicama.

  "Corn is a high starch, high sugar food. Now, sadly, 95% of all corn in the United States is genetically modified."
  — Dr. Gundry [00:26]

  "Traditional, ancient people always knew how to detoxify potentially bad things. So for now, stay away from corn."
  — Dr. Gundry [03:50]

2. Potatoes ([04:41]–[07:00])

• High Glycemic Index: Potatoes, particularly fluffy Idaho bakers and mashed potatoes, rapidly break down into sugar.

• Toppings Compound the Problem: Serving potatoes with butter, sour cream, or cheese adds calories but doesn’t mitigate starch impact.

• Better Options: Substitute white potatoes with yams, purple sweet potatoes (not purple potatoes), or regular sweet potatoes to lower lectin content.

  "Potatoes, unfortunately, the more you make the potato light and fluffy... you have an instant sugar bomb."
  — Dr. Gundry [05:11]

3. Starchy Vegetable Chips (Cassava, Plantain, Sweet Potato Chips) ([07:55])

• Food Processing Pitfall: Even healthy starchy veggies become unhealthy when processed into chips; their sugars become highly accessible, leading to quick spikes in blood sugar.

• Whole vs. Processed: Whole foods are harder to digest, limiting sugar absorption, and feed beneficial gut bacteria.

• Modern Diet Mistake: Many patients gain weight snacking on “healthy” chips that didn’t exist for previous generations.

  "...you can take a perfectly safe starch like cassava and turn it into a chip... and all of a sudden you’ve got something that now will rapidly be broken down... and turn into sugar."
  — Dr. Gundry [08:30]

4. Green Peas ([09:45])

• Unexpected Carb Bomb: A cup of peas contains more carbs and sugar than a cup of pasta, plus toxic lectins.

• Healthy Swap: Replace peas with pressure-cooked lentils or beans for more fiber and satiety.

  "A cup of peas actually has more carbs and sugar than a cup of pasta. Yeah, that’s right."
  — Dr. Gundry [10:07]

5. Cooked Beets and Carrots ([10:47])

• Sugar When Cooked: Cooking beets and carrots makes their sugars readily available, contributing to weight gain; raw versions are a different story.

• Best Use: Consume these vegetables raw—shaved on salads for color and nutrients without the sugar load.

  "Now, if you eat beets raw... they’re perfectly safe. But when you cook them once again, you make those starches readily available and they turn to sugar."
  — Dr. Gundry [11:08]

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Processed Foods and Weight Gain

Why Whole Foods Matter ([07:55]–[12:49])

• Eating foods in their whole, minimally processed form requires more digestive work, lowers sugar absorption, and supports gut health.

• Even healthy foods—when made into processed snacks—lose their benefits and may contribute to insulin resistance, high triglycerides, and weight gain.

  "Our great great grandparents did not have access to these sorts of foods... They ate foods whole. And always keep that in mind."
  — Dr. Gundry [08:17]

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Listener Q&A

Toothpaste and Oral Health ([12:49]–[13:41])

• Question: About ingredients in toothpaste that harm oral bacteria.

  • Fluoride may impact oral flora.
  • Antibacterial agents like triclosan and artificial sweeteners (saccharin, sucralose, aspartame) disrupt oral microbiome.

• Advice: Check toothpaste labels for these ingredients and avoid them if possible.

  "...the antibacterial agents in many toothpaste... particularly a agent called tricosan, just does a number on your bacterial flora."
  — Dr. Gundry [13:19]

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Community Feedback

Listener Review ([13:41]–[14:29])

• Dr. Gundry shares appreciation for a longtime follower, highlighting how his patient “Big Ed” inspired his deeper dive into cutting-edge health truths.

• Emphasizes that common medical advice may be outdated—not from malice, but historical momentum.

  "You know, Big Ed certainly changed the trajectory of my life and I hope Big Ed’s story at least gets your attention, that maybe we’ve not been exactly getting the best information from our healthcare providers."
  — Dr. Gundry [13:56]

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Memorable Quotes

• “Corn is a high starch, high sugar food. Now, sadly, 95% of all corn in the United States is genetically modified.” — Dr. Gundry [00:26]
• “The good news is you can substitute white potatoes with yams, purple sweet potatoes, or regular sweet potatoes and really reduce the lectin content. But buyer beware... purple potato is not a purple sweet potato.” — Dr. Gundry [05:34]
• “If you eat beets raw... they’re perfectly safe. But when you cook them once again, you make those starches readily available and they turn to sugar.” — Dr. Gundry [11:08]
• “A cup of peas actually has more carbs and sugar than a cup of pasta. Yeah, that’s right.” — Dr. Gundry [10:07]

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Key Takeaways & Recommendations

• Many starchy vegetables commonly considered healthy can trigger weight gain—especially when processed or cooked.
• Traditional food prep methods (like making hominy from corn) can reduce health risks.
• Always prefer whole, minimally processed foods for better digestion and gut health.
• Watch for hidden sugars and lectins, and swap problematic veggies for smarter alternatives (e.g., raw carrots, pressure-cooked lentils).
• Modern snacks—even from healthy ingredients—are not always what they seem.
• Be mindful of hidden unhealthy ingredients in non-food products like toothpaste.

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For in-depth advice and additional health insights, visit the Dr. Gundry Podcast channel on YouTube.

Transcript

[Dr. Steven Gundry]

Five vegetables that cause weight gain. All right, let's start with enemy number one. Corn. Now, I come from Omaha, Nebraska and we learned very early on that if you want to fatten a cow for slaughter, you feed them corn. Corn fed beef. Where do you think all that wonderful marbling came from in your steak? It came from feeding the cows. Corn.

Corn.

Corn is a high starch, high sugar food. Now, sadly, 95% of all corn in the United States is genetically modified.

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Now here's the deal. Even if you see the words organic corn, it's more than likely genetically modified. It just wasn't sprayed with glyphosate. But the sad thing is, most corn in the United States is genetically modified because it is sprayed with glyphosate. And glyphosate, that wonderful herbicide, is one of the best ways that I know of to cause leaky gut and weight gain. And corn is a great way to get glyphosate in your diet. Now the other part of corn is it is loaded with lectins. Remember, corn is not a modern food. Corn was introduced to Africa, Asia and Europe only 500 years ago. When Columbus brought it back, most of the Native Americans knew how to handle corn to make it less toxic. Corn was always traditionally treated with lye to make the hull non toxic and to bind the nitrogen binding compound so that nitrogen vitamin B3 was not taken out of your body. That's called hominy. And hominy or pozole is actually the safest way to eat corn if you're going to eat it. Fun fact, masa flour is actually made from hominy. And so if by any chance you're going to have a tortilla, make sure it's made from masa flour rather than corn tortillas. And interestingly enough, if you look at traditional cultures, they always make their tortillas but out of masa flour because they have treated the corn with lye to turn it into hominy. And the lectin content and the toxins are far diminished with that treatment. Traditional, ancient people always knew how to detoxify potentially bad things. So for now, stay away from corn. What do you use as an alternative? Hey, get yourself some raw carrots. Get yourself some celery. Personally, I like to munch on jicama. Jicama is easy to prepare, but if you even don't want to slice it up, a lot of the stores now carry prepackaged jicama. Take it home, use it as sticks, dip it in guacamole that doesn't have any tomatoes in it, and you'll be great. All right. Potatoes. Now, like corn, potatoes, unfortunately have a very high glycemic index. The glycemic index indicates how fast something turns into sugar, but they're often treated like a vegetable, even though they're a tuber. Now, potatoes, unfortunately, the more you make the potato light and fluffy, for instance, like an Idaho baker has a much higher glycemic index than a wax potato, which is much harder to break down. Take an Idaho baker, mash it up, fluff it up with air, break down all those starch granules, and you have an instant sugar bomb. But that's not enough. What do we do with a baked

potato or even mashed potatoes?

We serve it with butter, sour cream or cheese. And despite all that, there's still lectin bombs. Now, the good news is you can substitute white potatoes with yams, purple sweet potatoes, or regular sweet potatoes and really reduce the lectin content. But buyer beware. A purple potato is not a purple sweet potato. And I see so many of my patients make that mistake and wonder why they're not doing well. Because they're eating purple potatoes like I told them to. No purple sweet potato. Not the purple potato that you now see in the stores.

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Now, if you're trying to lose weight, any of these starchy vegetables are really not a good option and I'll explain why in just a second when we get to their components. Actually, I'll do it now. So when you eat a food whole, it takes a lot of time for your digestive enzymes to break that whole food apart and to get the starches, which are long sugar molecules all bound together, glucose molecules all interchange. The harder it is to break down that whole food, the less likely that you're going to get to absorb that sugar. And a lot of those starches will arrive down in your colon for your gut buddies to enjoy. But you can take a perfectly safe starch like cassava and turn it into a chip, like a plantain and turn it into a chip or a sweet potato and turn it into a chip and all of a sudden you've got something that now will rapidly be broken down by your digestive enzymes and turn into sugar. Now these don't have lectins, which is a great thing, but I have so many of my patients, well meaning patients who are gaining weight or at least not losing weight, or are getting more insulin resistance or having a higher blood sugar or Even having high cholesterols from high triglycerides. And we look at what they're eating, and they're eating these healthy stuff snacks, thinking that they're different than the whole food. And just remember, our great great grandparents did not have access to these sorts of foods. They did not exist. They ate foods whole. And always keep that in mind. All right, Green peas. Now, this may come as a shocker, but a cup of peas actually has more carbs and sugar than a cup of pasta. Yeah, that's right. Peas have more sugar than pasta. Once again, peas are loaded with toxic lectins. So if you gotta have this form of starch, please swap them out for pressure cooked lentils or beans instead. Now, beans, particularly lentils, can probably help with weight loss because they're loaded with soluble fiber that gives your good gut bacteria what they want to eat. And quite frankly, they make most people very full, sometimes uncomfortably full. And hopefully, if you're uncomfortably full, you're not going to go looking for that next meal or even that next snack. All right, Cooked beets and carrots. Now, beets have some amazing compounds, but they don't call beets sugar beets for nothing. They have a very high sugar content. Now, if you eat beets raw, which I do on occasion, and I have them over in Italy, sliced and served with olive oil and some goat cheese, they're perfectly safe. But when you cook them once again, you make those starches readily available and they turn to sugar. And if you slice beets and then cook them, it gets even worse. Same with carrots. A raw carrot is difficult to break down all those starch molecules. But when you cook them and turn them into cooked carrots, you once again have produced a sugary food that you don't want. So what do you do? Raw beets and raw carrots are perfectly safe. Shave beets onto your salad. Shave carrots onto your salad. They give gorgeous color. They're loaded with polyphenols, but you won't absorb the sugar. These guys, even though they're wolves in sheep's clothing. Yes. They don't contain lectins. Yes. The original product was really healthy. Plantains are great for you. Cassava is great for you. Sweet potatoes are great for you. But we've taken all these healthy foods, deep fried them, usually in a horrible oil, and then made all of these sugars readily accessible. Please try to avoid these. If you're going to use these, use them not to munch on, because you won't just eat one, but use them as a dipping chip to get tahini in your mouth, to get guacamole in your mouth, to get some other wonderful food in your mouth. But don't just munch these things. I see it over and over again. We've taken a really good idea and bastardized it into something that's not healthy for us anymore.

Now a question from billid4128 over on YouTube. On my episode about the new epidemic, they ask and you mention types of ingredients in the toothpaste that kills good bacteria in the mouth. Well, first of all, more than likely fluoride does have an effect on oral fluoro. But the antibacterial agents in many toothpaste toothpaste, particularly a agent called tricosan, just does a number on your bacterial flora. Plus any of the artificial sweeteners that are put in these toothpaste, particularly saccharin and sucralose and aspartame also change your oral flora. So look for those ingredients next time

you're picking up some toothpaste.

Now a review from Paul Wingfield, 6381 over on YouTube. He said, thank you Dr. Gundry, for looking out for us and giving us real truth. Health Nutrition information. I have been following you since I first heard about Big Ed seven years ago. Well, thank you very much. You know, Big Ed certainly changed the trajectory of my life and I hope Big Ed's story at least gets your attention, that maybe we've not been exactly getting the best information from our healthcare providers. Many not because it's their fault. It's just the way we were all trained. So thanks for writing in.

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