Safe Starch? Experts chime in. page

[otzi]

From: Is There Any Such Thing As ‘Safe Starches’ On A Low-Carb Diet? « Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low Carb Blog

Due to recent talk of adding so-called safe starches into a paleo diet, dozens of paleo and nutritional experts gave their opinions, including Dr. Jack Kruse and Mark Sisson.

Exerpts:

Mark Sisson - Overall, I see how closely aligned we are. As we evolve in this way of thinking, the one truth that emerges is that our avoiding grains, HFCS, and seed oils will have a far greater impact on health than agonizing over dialing in all the rest of the minutiae. That’s where the n=1 starts to become valuable.

Jack Kruse - I read Kurt and Jaminet’s take. I think these recommendations are madness based upon the totality of the data we have today. I think avoiding anything that stimulates the IGF1 pathway is “smart” based upon current knowledge and i think using a ketogenic diet is also prudent.

[ChocoTaco369]

Low-toxicity, glucose-based starches are NOT unhealthy and can be enjoyed in copious amounts by people with healthy metabolisms without fear of weight gain. In fact, substantial amounts of people lose weight better on a lower fat, higher carb diet than a higher fat, lower carb diet. I am one of them. It is a HUGE misconception in the Paleo/Primal community that humans evolved eating a low carbohydrate diet. The fact is, life mostly began in the equatorial regions where copious amounts of fruits and vegetables were eaten all the time. Fruits and vegetables don't run away, everyone. Many of our ancestors ate a diet rich in glucose. Many have postulated that people that don't handle low carbohydrate well descended from these sorts of tribes, while people that work better on lower carbohydrate descended from tribes found in cooler locations where much of their diets consisted of animal fats.

Lower carb = cold weather people and people with damaged metabolisms and sedentary lifestyles.
Higher carb = warm weather people with healthy metabolisms and regular exercise.

[Hedonist]

Kurt Harris' reply to Jimmy Moore

[iniQuity]

Lower carb = cold weather people and people with damaged metabolisms and sedentary lifestyles.
Higher carb = warm weather people with healthy metabolisms and regular exercise.

This is nice if you have a rather "linear" ancestry. I don't suppose many Americans do though.

Myself, born in Peru to Peruvian parents.

Mom: Her mother is black, which in Peru means my grandma has heavily mixed blood, both her parents are also 'black'. Mom's dad is very white, but he wasn't present in her life or mine at all. In the only picture of him I've seen he was very fair skinned, unusual for a Peruvian, leading me to believe he was of European descent.

Dad: My dad is basically 'white' his dad is from Spain, his mother Italian. I'm not sure of my grandpa's lineage, meaning not sure if ALL his family is from Spain, but I do know that my grandma's parents are Italian so I think it safe to assume so were their parents and so on.

What does that really tell me though? not sure, honestly.

I think everyone needs to just give it all a fair try. I went VLC, ZC and didn't like it. Physically I didn't feel bad, but psychologically I missed eating potatoes, fruit, etc. I'm now on a moderate "if it's primal, eat it" approach. I don't eat a 'faileo' diet (I don't make breads, or make anything at all except heating up dead animals and plants) and I find that I'm happier because I get to eat what I like and confident that I derive nutrition from it.

I certainly agree with you that carbs shouldn't be feared by ALL and that unless you just really don't LIKE to eat starchy vegs, or fruits or whatever, subscribing to a chronically low carb diet is far from a necessity.

More on topic: Take something like white rice. It's basically nothing. It's neither beneficial nor detrimental from a nutritional standpoint. You can however "use" it to your advantage (via carb refeeds) or feel okay including it in recipes. Personally, it allows me to sit with my family and eat without having to make myself a side of veggies or something like that. Most other starches are actually beneficial nutritionally, so even more of a reason to eat those and incorporate them into your life.

[ChocoTaco369]

This is nice if you have a rather "linear" ancestry. I don't suppose many Americans do though.

You're absolutely right. The best thing to do is always experiment. Try everything you can - high fat/low carb, low fat/high carb, moderate fat/moderate carb, try potatoes, try white rice, try yams, try soaked/fermented beans - you may bloat horribly on white rice but love white potatoes. I'm a huge fan of experimentation, and the only way to find out your personal formula is to experiment. Just know that there is nothing inherently evil about starch.

[JPA]

Sweet potatoes, taro, cassava and even regular potatoes and white rice are all safe starches for me. I particularly like taro as they are more filling than potatoes or sweet potatoes (and cassava even fills you up more).

[Leida]

Funny, I always thought that cold weather is better for higher carb/lower fat diet, because you want to eat hot foods, like soups and stews and chilis, basically water-based and having a fair bit of startch to compensate for calories unavailable from regional fresh fruit and vegetables and seasonal meat supply. Basically, in a cold climate what you can preserve in a traditional way are root vegetables and pickled vegetables, and dried/salted/sugared everything else. In the warm climates you can get away with a BAS every day of the year. Try pushing imported tasteless 'winter' fresh veggies past your icy-blue lips when its -30 oitside in February....

[Chaohinon]

For a long time, we had falsely believed that carbohydrate was our best energy source because it neither was greasy nor caused us fat, and that we could not live without it. Now, we know that carbohydrate can harm our health and develop diseases such as morbid obesity, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and many more.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I could very easily claim that "fat" is an agent of disease, and I would be 100% correct, as long as I made no effort to differentiate between naturally occurring fats, and hydrogenated & oxidized ones, and those from plants that shouldn't even be consumed in the first place (cotton).

The fact remains that there really is no such thing as "carbohydrate". There is sugar, a wide variety of starches (some highly toxic, some slightly toxic, some not at all), resistant starch, soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, etc. All of which behave so wildly different that it's intellectually dishonest to classify them in the same macronutrient group. And this kind of idiocy is the result; people making claims like, "starch is toxic", that fruits are superior to tubers because they "don't spike insulin,", that insulin makes you fat, and living in fear of the metabolic reign of terror that lentils and quinoa have wreaked on human civilization.

Just from reading the comments, it's pretty clear which group shows more intellectual curiosity. The low-carbers just come across as defensive, and most of them are just blatantly chanting slogans without addressing the debate.

[gojirama]

I'm a higher carb paleo. I try to stick to potatoes and fruit..I crave fruit in the summer, and lots of mashed potatoes in the winter.

[Chaohinon]

oh I didn't even catch these

So is the claim that carbs that come from vegetables “don’t count” because they are a “fiber (and therefore a fat) source.” What kind of hooey is that? 4 cups of fresh spinach — enough for a nice big salad — have 4 grams of carb, three of them fiber, and only the merest trace of fat. Going with a carbier vegetable, the average onion has 9 grams of carb with 2 grams of fiber, and still only a trace of fat. That this guy somehow equates vegetable fiber with fat is sufficient to make me question anything else he has to say.

For comparison I did the same tests on some Ice-Cream and a high protein/fat meal. I recovered far faster from a full pint of Ben and Jerry (something I do not consider healthy), than the supposed healthy safe starch of a sweet potato. Note that my normal typical meal of something like eggs and liver did not show a significant change in blood sugar. The ice-cream is some 50% fat and the 100g of sugar I suspect are primary monosaccharides, which my body seemed to deal with pretty quickly.