When you have MTHFR you should know if you don’t already that eating a healthy diet is very important, but what many people won’t tell you is that there are some foods, even those considered healthy, that can be especially bad for those who have MTHFR and poor methylation.

If your methylation is poor due to low MTHFR enzyme, the last thing you need is to be eating foods that cause methylation to speed up leading you to burn out of your essential nutrients quicker than normal. If you have recently taken the mthfr gene mutation test and found that your having trouble with methylation, staying away from the following foods can be a big help at least until you doing a lot better.

There are several foods that make our “Bad foods for mthfr & poor methylation” list, the first one is probably the one that most good mthfr practitioners will warn you about and for good reason.

The Bad Foods for MTHFR List

Folic acid and added folate

All foods (including supplements) that contain “folic acid” or have added “folate”, these are man made substitutes for the real folate that is found in leafy greens. Those with MTHFR must avoid these added folates and folic acids which prevent their natural folate metabolism from working properly. You can read more about the difference between folate and folic acid here.

Other common foods bad for mthfr

beans (black)

apricots

araica(dried)

alfalfa sprouts

beans (great northern)

black olives (canned)

chaparral (dried)

beans (navy)

beans (red kidney)

limes

beans (mung)

butternut squash peel carrots

broccoli

chocolate

ginger root skin

grape jam, commercial

green zucchini (dark)

Kombo (seaweed)

beans (lima)

mangos (large, small yellow)

Nori seaweed, packaged onions (purple)

oranges, all kinds

papaya (Mexican)

parsnips

passion fruit

persimmons (Fuji, regular)

radish (daikon)

red skin of peanuts

Tamari soy sauce

tomatoes

turnips, rutabaga

wheat grass

Now, I know what your thinking or at least most people see this list and think, that looks like a good list of healthy foods and it is. The point is that all of these foods are high in substances that are known powerful enzyme & metabolic inhibitors, the consequences of which means reduced ATP or your energy production is reduced. This also means you also make fewer amino acids and can’t make as much protein as you should. This leads to lower immunity by reducing glutathione which is one of the bodies most important antioxidants involved in the homocysteine cycle.

How these foods affect people with mthfr

Enzyme & metabolic inhibitors affect everyone, even those that don’t have mthfr gene mutations, the problem is that people with the gene problem have a hard enough time trying to keep good levels of energy, enzymes and metabolic processes going so these foods just slow everything down, they are so powerful in fact that they can bring your energy to a halt.

Here is the various ways that the above foods can make life much harder for somebody with mthfr:

Here is the various ways

Inhibits uptake of glycine and alanine

May chelate iron so it can’t be incorporated into hemoglobin.

Inhibits healing

Drops the resting potential of muscle

Causes air hunger (dyspnea)

Can deplete zinc and magnesium needed for methylation

Depletion of NADP

Inactivation of NADH

Causes oxidation of NADH and cytochromes

Reduces oxygen uptake

Raises cholesterol

Can pick up an amino group from glutamine, thereby destroying it

Depresses the reduction of GSSG to glutathione

Inhibits protoporphyrin formation by 32% affecting blood formation and utilization of zinc and magnesium.

Inhibits insulin stimulation of muscle respiration

Can cause systemic acidosis

Inhibits phosphate entry into cells

Potassium transport into cells is inhibited

Inhibits acetylcholine synthesis

Inhibits pyruvate oxidation

Causes increased utilization of glucose due to the Pasteur effect of a blocked Krebs cycle

The lactic acid formation is increased

Much less glucose goes to form amino acids and proteins

Diverts fatty acid metabolism to acetoacetate

Increases the formation of fatty acids up to 10-fold

Inhibitor of urinary acidification

Reduce the concentration of magnesium and calcium to 25% or 50%

Inhibits oxidation of fatty acids

Depresses renal function

Can deplete the system of coenzyme A. (Coenzyme A has a nucleic acid base, adenine, plus pantothenic acid and sulfur in its makeup. You will have an increased need for these nutrients.)

As you can see there are many ways that this common healthy food can affect those with mthfr. The only way the body has to remove the offending substances that are contained in these unsuspecting foods is methylation which means consuming these foods is much more costly to the body’s resources requiring larger amounts of vitamin B12, metabolized folate (MTHF), methionine, betaine, glycine, taurine, cysteine, choline, inositol and vitamin C.

People who are symptomatic with mthfr should avoid these foods to help restore metabolic processes.