Sugar vs Starch in Vegetables page

[MalPaz]

skimming the PHD site, Paul said this:
The result is that eating vegetables isn’t an effective way to meet the body’s glucose needs. Several pounds of vegetables might add 30 glucose calories net, which is small compared to the 600 we need daily. I don’t think it’s worth the trouble to count them.
Most of the vegetables deliver carbs as sugars rather than as starch.

Is this why people advocate potatoes over rutabagas, winter squash etc. Also, would eating root vegetables like this vs potatoes mean your getting fructose vs getting starch?

trying to understand... mostly because it seems people do well when they add 'starch' like potatores/rice and dont do as well when they add roots like rutabaga or butternut squash

[yodiewan]

I was under the impression that most of the carbs in winter squash (including butternut) were from starch. NutritionData doesn't break it down totally, but only shows 4g/21.5g as sugar. I know that the carbs in non-starchy vegetables like lettuce are mostly from sugar. Maybe that's what Paul is referring to. Also, I'm not sure if the sugar in vegetables is fructose or what.... just checked ND again. Romaine lettuce has 390mg glucose and 800mg fructose (+2.1g fiber) per 100g (which is a LOT of lettuce). So yeah, I guess veggies do provide more fructose than glucose in general... probably, heh.

[MalPaz]

so for glucose go to potatoes and for fructose go to vegetables>?

[peril]

Glucose and starch, which breaks down to glucose, are preferable to fructose and anything containing fructose, such as sucrose and HFCS, because of the metabolic damage wrought by fructose.

Root vegetables are mostly starch. Winter squash and other vegetables which are actually fruits contain varying amounts of starch, glucose, sucrose and fructose. Winter squashes (we call them all pumpkins) get a rough time on this site but they are only about 20% carb, most of which is starch. Unless you're doing VLC there should be plenty of room in your diet for pumpkin. There is in mine.

If you want fructose (why?), go for the traditional fruits. Anything sweet enough to be commonly called a fruit has plenty of fructose. The fruits that aren't that sweet are usually called vegetables and have little fructose

[MalPaz]

well i wasnt curious about fruit, IMO its all junk, but i was curious of the distinction in fructose content between like rutabagas and 'pumpkins'(winter squash) vs potatoes

[Bushrat]

skimming the PHD site, Paul said this:
The result is that eating vegetables isn’t an effective way to meet the body’s glucose needs. Several pounds of vegetables might add 30 glucose calories net, which is small compared to the 600 we need daily. I don’t think it’s worth the trouble to count them.
Most of the vegetables deliver carbs as sugars rather than as starch.

Is this why people advocate potatoes over rutabagas, winter squash etc. Also, would eating root vegetables like this vs potatoes mean your getting fructose vs getting starch?

trying to understand... mostly because it seems people do well when they add 'starch' like potatores/rice and dont do as well when they add roots like rutabaga or butternut squash

What about protein to glucose?

[FairyRae]

I wrote to Paul Jaminet from PHD about this a little bit ago. Here is what I asked:

"Would parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, celeriac and other root vegetables count as 'safe
starches'? What about winter squash? I'm just interested to learn if there
are any safe starches besides tapioca, white rice, potatoes and sweet
potatoes."

This was his response:

All of those root vegetables are healthy and nutritious foods and we
recommend them. However, many of them don't have a lot of calories, or have
calories mostly in the form of sugars rather than starches. So we don't
usually call them "safe starches." But they're great to eat!

You might want to check calorie levels at nutritiondata.com for your
favorite foods. If you rely on those root vegetables for carbs you might
find you're not getting very many calories.

Interesting stuff...

[dwkdnvr]

This is interesting - I have been meaning to follow up on this basic idea after seeing a post on the PHD site where he shows that the sugar content of sweet potatoes is actually very high - the sugar:starch ratio is actually much better in regular white potatoes. Given how sweet potatoes seem to be the generally recommended 'good starch source' this surprised me a bit; maybe it shouldn't have since it says 'sweet' right there in the name :-)

[confused_monkey]

Coincidentally, I can't handle sweet potatoes but I could handle regular potatoes.

[MalPaz]

Coincidentally, I can't handle sweet potatoes but I could handle regular potatoes.

+1!!!!!!!!