Lectin plant and comprises two protein domains. Abrin from the jequirity pea is similar: Lectins are ubiquitous in nature and many foods contain the proteins. Because some lectins can be harmful if poorly cooked or consumed in great quantities, "lectin-free" fad diets have been proposed, most based on the writing of Steven Gundry. A typical lectin-free diet excludes a range of foods, including most grains, pulses and legumes, as well as eggs, seafood and many staple fruits and vegetables. These foods do not contain harmful levels of lectins when properly cooked, and there is no health benefit to following these diets
Lectin their particular high specificity for foreign glycoconjugates (e.g. those of fungi, invertebrates, and animals) and used in biomedicine for blood cell testing and in biochemistry for fractionation. Although they were first discovered more than 100 years ago in plants, now lectins are known to be present throughout nature. It is generally believed that the earliest description of a lectin was given by Peter Hermann Stillmark in his doctoral thesis presented in 1888 to the University of Dorpat. Stillmark isolated ricin, an extremely toxic hemagglutinin, from seeds of the castor plant ("Ricinus communis"). The first lectin to be purified on a