A Closer Look at Antinutrients in Food: A Matter of Absorption

By Karlien Bester, MASc(Nutr)

The evidence is clear, a whole foods diet nourishes, protects, and satisfies the human body. It provides intact nutrients, fiber, antioxidants, and phytochemicals essential for optimal health. But there’s more to this optimal eating lifestyle than meets the eye. A Closer Look at Antinutrients in Food lets the reader discover how whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and vegetables are also capable of wreaking havoc in the human body. Discover what antinutrients are, and how they function to potentially cause damage, nutritional imbalances, and deficiencies among other adverse health effects in the body of animals and humans. Whether you are a parent, student, healthcare provider, or into personal health, everyone should learn how to best deal with whole nutritious foods through easily applied kitchen rituals and home processing methods that minimizes antinutrients present in food to safely consume them in the diet daily.

Reap the benefits of optimizing nutrient absorption and palatability through these traditional food preparation practices and learn how to select optimal whole food products to bring out the best in whole foods nature has to offer to us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685627904

Karlien Bester, MASc(Nutr)

Karlien Bester, MASc(Nutr), NNCP received her Master’s of Applied Science in Nutrition with First Class Honors from the Edison Institute of Nutrition (EIN). Her passion for holistic nutrition and health was nurtured early on by thirst and curiosity in the field of nutrition and wellness. She is a strong advocate of optimum health starting at the root cause by way of diet and nutrition individually assessed to each person’s unique make-up and requirements.

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About the Author

Karlien Bester, MASc(Nutr), NNCP received her Master’s of Applied Science in Nutrition with First Class Honors from the Edison Institute of Nutrition (EIN). Her passion for holistic nutrition and health was nurtured early on by thirst and curiosity in the field of nutrition and wellness. She is a strong advocate of optimum health starting at the root cause by way of diet and nutrition individually assessed to each person’s unique make-up and requirements.

Dedication

To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art. – La Rochefoucauld

Copyright Information ©

Karlien Bester, MASc(Nutr) 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information

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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Bester, MASc(Nutr), Karlien

A Closer Look at Antinutrients in Food

ISBN 9781685626860 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685627904 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908351

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street,33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

Thank you to my husband, Anton; and our children, Ludwig and Aneke. Your love, guidance, support, and encouragement are precious and inspiring!

Thank you to Lynne Hinton, Director of EIN, whose suggestion planted the seed for this book.

To Sally Fallon, researcher of nutrition and author of Nourishing Traditions, and founder of The Weston A. Price Foundation, for supporting my vision to get this information published.

To my friends whose love and support in my field inspired my passion to follow my dreams.

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

A Closer Look at Antinutrients in Food

Even though plants and their seeds provide valuable nutrients, they are also loaded with antinutrients needed for survival. Plants and their seeds cannot defend themselves physically, and thus have to ward off predators biochemically. They produce secondary metabolites, collectively known as antinutrients, which also enable them to preserve their genetic material until the time is ripe for the seed to germinate. These biologically active compounds have their place in nature, and also, to some extent, in our diet. In small amounts, they help ward off diseases in the human body, as they fight cancer and fungal, bacterial, and viral infections, and they protect against diabetes and cardiovascular disease. High-quality plant foods that are rich in fiber – such as nuts, seeds, cereals, pulses and legumes – provide the body with essential gut health factors that are key in good immunity against infectious diseases, and play a crucial role in the diversity of the microbiome and ultimately the health of the whole body. When consumed in large amounts, however, they can potentially disturb the biochemical balance and cause many ill effects in the body, such as mineral deficiencies, malnutrition, digestive disorders, and intestinal damage. These harmful effects can potentially lead to numerous disease conditions or food allergies in genetically susceptible individuals.

Traditional kitchen rituals, such as biological food processing that involve soaking, germination, and fermentation, are practical, adaptive, and essentially predigestive techniques practiced by traditional cultures around the world as useful and efficient methods for reducing antinutrients in many foods. Traditional food preparation methods also increase the nutritional value of foods, by increasing the level of macro- and micronutrients, and increasing their bioavailability. Palatability is also enhanced. Given the importance of a varied diet as a source of both macro- and micronutrients, it is necessary to avoid restrictive diets that make the human body more susceptible to the downsides of our foods and their antinutritional content.

Antinutrients or antinutritional factors (ANFs) are endogenous compounds or substances that act to reduce nutrient intake, digestion, absorption, and utilization from food – all of which may interfere with the function of certain organs and hinder human physical growth (Champ 2002).

Familiar plant sources contain in their whole, natural state a wide variety of ANFs that are potentially toxic and detrimental; they can cause adverse effects in humans, either inhibiting the digestion of specific nutrients or else binding with them during digestion to prevent uptake. At low concentrations, however, antinutrients form an essential aspect of the human diet, exerting beneficial health effects through a hormesis mechanism, whereby generally favorable biological responses occur at low exposures to toxins and other stressors (Shahidi 1997). Some examples toward their positive health effects in the human body include protection against inflammation, obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and a variety of cancers.

Antinutrients occur as plant secondary compounds (PSC) and serve as an essential part of the process of life. The natural world requires them to perform many important tasks, including protection against insects or attack by animals, maintenance of seed freshness for germination, and protection against mold and fungus. More than one hundred years of research has demonstrated a diverse range of biological activity and showed many effects relevant to human (and animal) health, welfare, and nutrition.

Methods to neutralize, reduce, or eliminate antinutrients include biological food processing that uses traditional practices of soaking, germination, and fermentation, in many instances in conjunction with boiling/cooking (Enneking and Wink 2000). These old-time methods can be practiced from our kitchens, can lower the concentrations of antinutritional compounds in plant sources to eliminate their deleterious effects, and can simultaneously exert their protective effects (Enneking and Wink 2006).

Antinutritional compounds vary within species of plants, their type, and levels, and also within the local variety of the species. These antinutritional compounds, classified as antiproteins and antiminerals, can exert their adverse effects on the health of humans by their toxic effects (lectins), unpalatability (bitter saponins and tannins), growth reduction (phytates, oxalates), and interference with digestion (lectins, enzyme inhibitors), among others (Enneking and Wink 2006).

Diet has a profound effect on our health and wellbeing, making this a challenging and interesting field of discovery. Antinutritional factors that are widely distributed in nature and in the foods common to us have proven protective properties, but their potential harmful effects cannot be ignored. This book focuses attention on the complexity of a whole-foods diet, and serves to broaden our understanding of how to nourish instead of deplete the body by making intelligent food choices and considering the ways in which we prepare these foods. This book discusses nutrition and methods of preparation of high-nutrient foods for better health.

Takeaways

At low concentrations, antinutrients form an essential aspect of the human diet, exerting beneficial health effects through a hormesis mechanism, whereby generally favorable biological responses occur at low exposures to toxins and other stressors. Their positive health effects in the human body include protection against inflammation, obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and a variety of cancers.

Methods to neutralize, reduce, or eliminate antinutrients include biological food processing that uses traditional practices of soaking, germination, and fermentation, in many instances in conjunction with boiling/cooking.

This book focuses attention on the complexity of a whole-foods diet, and serves to broaden our understanding of how to nourish instead of deplete the body by making intelligent food choices and considering the ways in which we prepare these foods.

Chapter 1

What Are Antiproteins?

Antiproteins are substances that interrupt digestion, absorption, or utilization of proteins. Their adverse effect on protein availability and use can result in protein deficiency, particularly in combination with a lack of dietary micronutrients commonly found in many developing countries (Dewey and Brown 2003). Antiproteins, including lectins and enzyme inhibitors, are widespread, serving as Mother Nature’s defense mechanism against microorganisms, pests, and insects, and preventing pregermination of the seed (Delatorre et al., 2007). In fact, antiproteins can use their highly resistant properties toward proteolytic degradation to pass through the digestive tract of humans and animals, allowing the seed to escape digestion completely.

Lectins

Discovered by microbiologist Peter Stillmark in 1888 in castor beans, lectins (or hemagglutinins) differ from common protein molecules. Lectins play a role as communication proteins that typically involve interactions between cells for recognition and binding sites, due to their ability to recognize and bind to carbohydrate structures without any chemical modification. They also have an unusual ability to agglutinate red blood cells, hence the term hemagglutinins. Researchers found that a specific group of individuals within the ABO blood group system were affected by hemagglutinins, whereas others were not – a discovery that led to the term lectin (Latin: legere to select) (Etzler 1985). Lectins are not a product of the immune system and at most do not possess enzymatic activity, and thus are not immune system products, such as antibodies for example, but they can agglutinate red blood cells (De Hoff et al., 2009).

Lectins are abundant throughout the plant kingdom, acting as chemical-defense proteins against insects, fungi, and microbial pathogens. In combination with other secondary plant metabolites, lectins contribute to the survival of plants during unfavorable conditions in a harsh environment (De Hoff et al., 2009). They function to help bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen into the roots of plants, creating green manure in support of plant growth, and when the plants die making them useful as fertilizers (Lord 1985).

The first indication that lectins might play a significant role as antinutrients became evident when experiments with chicks showed that a diet of underprocessed soybean lectin reduced the availability of nutrients that caused inhibition of growth in these young fowl (Pusztai 1991).

The role of lectins as agents for biological recognition became apparent when research unexpectedly found that hepatic lectin recognized and bound terminal galactose residues on serum glycoproteins (Sharon and Lis 2004). This characteristic allows lectins to function as both allergens and hemagglutinins (Nachbar and Oppenheim 1980). Glycoproteins on the surface of the small intestinal cells function as receptors for hormones and cytokines, which enable them to influence cell-to-cell interaction. When lectins bind to these membrane-integrated glycoproteins, they can trigger cells to divide, grow, mature, or die. Their ability to bind to glycoproteins on the surface of intestinal cells is dependent on the carbohydrate specificity of the lectin (Delatorre et al, 2007).

Studies on specific plant lectins – such as soybean agglutinin (SBA), wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), and kidney bean lectin (PHA) – indicate a strong