Peat Eating As A Potato-Centered Diet

[aarfai]

I think boiling for a long time is best.

how long?

 

[cyclops]

They usually done after 20 minutes depending on size but go even longer maybe 45 min so you really break them down. But not so much so there is nothing left.

 

[tara]

If you want to remove the starch, look up the thread on potato protein soup. It involves juicing and straining or decanting to remove teh remaining starch particles, then cooking the juice. I don't do this.

But if you want to gelatinise the starch to make it more digestible, then long boiling should do it. Peel first, and eat/drink the water too.
I also bake or chip spuds for variety, but don't know if that does it as well.

 

[PATB]

Recently I have been making potatoes almost daily because I have been stocking up massive quantities of food and they will eventually go bad, unlike the rest. What I do is cut up the potatoes into chunks, soak them in water to remove some of the starch on the outside, put a bit of coconut oil and beef broth in a metal container, mix it all together with seasonings, and put it in the oven at 450 F for an hour or so. Sometimes they are mushy and other times they soak up the broth well. Often times I will just turn off the oven after an hour and let it sit there for longer to harden them up more.

I used to make a lot of shepherd's pie (or cottage pie, the one with beef instead of lamb):
- ground beef (with some gelatin powder added)
- mixed vegetables
- topped with cheesy mashed potatoes
and all roasted in the oven. I would take this and slice it into 4 separate squares and place them in separate containers to microwave for breakfast.

I have about dozens of pounds of ground beef in my freezer and probably 25+ lbs of potatoes (not including the 5 or so boxes of dehydrated potatoes I purchased in the past month or so). Unfortunately, I do not have a large enough pan to make this cottage/shepherds pie recipe properly.

I also for a while was dicing up potatoes, mixing them with coconut oil and seasoning, and microwaving them (I forget how long, something like 8-10 minutes if I recall correctly) in plastic containers.

Recently for breakfast (I am always rushed and force-feed because of work on the weekdays) I have been eating rice + ground beef (recently some other beef cuts as well) + grated cheese + lettuce (if I have any). I have something like 60 or 80 lbs of rice, don't feel like checking right now. I combine this with a can of cola (really, the first thing I do when I wake up is crack open a can of cola and start microwaving my breakfast.

On the weekends I do not force-feed and my breakfasts are more diverse, but I always drink the cola first thing in the morning. I might eat instead some cheese, OJ gelatin, and various other things that aren't so peaty (like pork sausage). I might start including the microwaved diced potatoes as well since I have so many pounds of potatoes and it's a lot quicker and less messy than the first recipe I mentioned.

 

[damngoodcoffee]

I love potatoes. I just can't grow tired of them. They're tasty, cheap, nutritious, cute and one of the best digesting foods ever for me.

 

[michael94]

For me, even boiling them for an hour plus still feels like a lot of endotoxin. IF you have very vital digestive system though, I am sure its fine. I prefer to gelatinize them as "fries" in the microwave with coconut oil and actually enjoy those ( but only works for small quantities ).

Edit: Even a regular Baked Potato feels better to me than Boiled. I know Baked potatoes are not ideal just mentioning for completeness.

 

[PATB]

...
Warning: this post is a mix of on-topic info, semi-relevant rambling, info about my personal life, and is "somewhat" disorganized to say the least,

My bowel movements have improved since I have been upping my potato intake (first recipe in my previous post). I can't say for certain the two are related, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
I have some Irish DNA (possibly 1/4 or more) so maybe there's something in my genes that makes me tolerate potatoes better than others. Based on my parents' DNA ancestry tests, I am a mish-mash of various White/European ethnicities with no majority.
Some people say I look Irish, others say I look German, and still others say I look British. My college buddies called me a "Nord" and I also have Scandinavian ancestry, along with the other 3 ethnicities listed. I have reddish, dirty-blond head hair and a reddish tint my beard. I am also a 5'6" / 1.68m tall male, but my older brother is 6'4" with orange/copper hair, younger is dirty blond and a few inches taller than me (probably 5'9) - he's also mid 20s so he's not getting any taller I'm sure.
I'm the shortest male in my family. Cousins, uncles, grandparents, all of them. But for most of my adolescence, I was chronically sleep-deprived due to waking up absurdly early for school, I also ate very poorly (skipping breakfast, no ruminant intake, no gelatin, margarine & PUFA oils, long-distance running/chronic cardio as a sport, wheat as a primary staple of my diet, etc) at least some of which could contribute to stunted growth. When I was a kid at my parents house I also had horrible allergies and a constantly running nose. It was blamed on dust mites and I was getting the allergy shots every month until I became 18 and went off to college. Every time I go back to visit, the itchy eyes, runny nose, etc return and linger for a few days after.
I've lived in 15+ apartments (virtually all very low quality poor student housing) and not one ever had that same effect on me. My parents even keep the place extremely clean and have a cleaning lady who comes every 2 weeks.

Where I live now, I vacuumed my floor a few weeks ago and there was an enormous amount of dust, I had to clean the vacuum container three times. Now, my allergies are just 2-3% of what they were back then, the less I sleep the worse they get.


Anyway, back to the topic:

For me, even boiling them for an hour plus still feels like a lot of endotoxin. IF you have very vital digestive system though, I am sure its fine. I prefer to gelatinize them as "fries" in the microwave with coconut oil and actually enjoy those ( but only works for small quantities ).

I forgot to mention in my previous post that when I made my potatoes in the microwave with coconut oil, afterward I added cheese on top of the freshly microwaved potato chunks and closed the lid so it melted on top.

I vaguely remember reading something in the "peatosphere" (not sure if it was RP himself) saying that the dairy fats (such as butter and cheese) are better than CO for digestion when it comes to potatoes, presumably due to the cholesterol.

How To Eat Nightshades Without Being Poisoned
@BigYellowLemon - the OP of that thread - made some posts which I will quote partially here, along with my own comments. I recommend reading it in its entirety though.

From the OP of the thread:
"All commonly consumed nightshades, but most relevantly potatoes and tomatoes, are poisonous and can cause allergies because of their glycoalkaloids. The main glycoalkaloids are solanine, chaconine, and tomatine... Because these glycoalkaloids bind to cholesterol, when cholesterol is eaten alongside them, they are bound to cholesterol and excreted..."

I will interject to point out here that coconut oil has no cholesterol, unlike butter and cheese. Cholesterol is found in animal fats (really, it's in all of the cells of your body). You all probably already knew this but I reierate it just in case.

The OP continues (my bold):
"So, eat potatoes or tomatoes with high cholesterol foods and basically all harm would be avoided. You wouldn't need much cholesterol either.
Glycoalkaloids already have low absorption, but with cholesterol eaten alongside them I see none getting in."

But in a subsequent post by the OP (again, my bold):
"So when glycoaklaloids bind to cholesterol and cannot be hydrolized, and cannot be absorbed. If they aren't bound to cholesterol, they are hydrolized to a form that cannot be bound to cholesterol, and which can be absorbed and hurt the body.
This still means having cholesterol with nightshades should remove their allergenicity. Nightshades problems seem to stem primarily from their glycoalkaloids, and if enough cholesterol is consumed with them, then there shouldn't be any glycoalkaloud left that can be hydrolyzed, and thus no glycoalkaloud will be absorbed.
So yeah, cholesterol should still fix them.
In potatoes, this should fix basically all problems. If enough cholesterol is taken with the potato, even the skins could be eaten (but I don't recommend). Not a lot of cholesterol would be needed either. The glycoalkaloid binds to the cholesterol in a 1:1 ratio, and usually there is only around 4mg glycoalkaloid in a kg of normal potatoes, IIRC. I won't calculate the exact molecular weight of cholesterol to get the exact amount, but basically any amount of food that contains cholesterol should completely bind all of the glycoalkalouds in potatoes. Potatoes with cheese, eggs, meat, will absorb all glycoalkaloids. Potato chips with soda, no."

And in another post lower in the thread (again, my bold):
"Also, just to add something, I am not sure if eating nightshades with cholesterol containing foods will make a difference. Let me explain. The glycoalkaloids bind to cholesterol and are passed without being absorbed, but this is only in free cholesterol if I understand correctly. From what I know, most cholesterol in normal food is in a phospholipids or other lipid structures. And thus the cholesterol wouldn't bind to the glycoalkaloid until the phospholipid has been broken down, and the window between being broken down and absorbed is probably small, and the area the broken down cholesterol would be at would be far from any glycoalkaoid.
The theory behind glycoalkaloids binding to cholesterol in membranes is probably from tests showing free cholesterol binds to glycoalkaloids in a test tube. But bound cholesterol in phospholipids might very well not bind to glycoalkaloids.
I will have to see how free cholesterol is in food. Cholesterol powder, if free, would very well work, but I'd like a source from food rather than from supplementation (unless supplement is cheap)."

A bit confused as well? Join the club.

Edit: Even a regular Baked Potato feels better to me than Boiled. I know Baked potatoes are not ideal just mentioning for completeness.

I personally think baked potatoes are the worst form; I just scoop the inside out, add salt and cheese, and mash it up myself.
That's what my parents would usually cook for dinner when it came to potatoes: baked in the oven. The other recipe they chose was mashed potatoes with, of course, margarine or some liquid soybean-oil based fake butter. My parents are convinced butter is "artery clogging" and if it says "vegetable oil" then it must be healthie because vegetables are healthy or something, I've sent them copious amounts of research on the subject but every time I go home to see them they're still using margarine or the soybean-oil fake butter. I'd have to go to med school for them to change their mind on this, they will do pretty much anything a doctor says and consider them infallible.

Back to cheese: Personally I love cheese and I eat it on a near-daily basis. I could probably eat mac and cheese (not the boxed crap with powdered cheese obviously) every day and not get tired of it. All I need is salt, but I wouldn't be opposed to a bit of garlic added. Pasta + cheese is my favorite food if judged in terms of taste alone, but I recognize that wheat is bad news and that I'd probably become obese if I ate it. From memory again: compared to refined wheat/pasta, potatoes are 2.5 to 3 times as satiating. See: The Satiety Index List

For me, I see it as a treat and it is a rare occurrence that I eat it, usually only as a side dish at a restaurant. Back when I was unemployed and lifting weights at the gym I would sometimes make some pasta + cheese + salt after, it was a great motivator since I never enjoyed exercising. There are opioid peptides in cheese (casomorphins) which may contribute to my love for this dish. This post is getting bit off-topic though as we are talking about potatoes, so I will just end this post with a photo that is almost pornographic for me. Hopefully someone else experiences athe same feeling of please I get just from seeing this image. I apologize in advance if this causes anyone go out of their way to eat this fattening food, resulting in feelings of guilt or some digestive issues.

I will never understand why a person wouldn't try to do something correctly (or at least half-way decent) when it's something they do every day, multiple times a day. If you're going to be eating every day for the rest of your life, why not spend a few hours a week researching nutrition?

Unfortunately, diet/nutrition is perhaps the most corrupt industry imaginable; since everyone wants to be healthy, the market is huge. The government's advice is terrible also. I really wish that the president or some world leader would order an open, televised debate on the diabesity crisis in their country including specialists from various camps. Then again, I feel like the specialists who are more peat-friendly wouldn't be invited at all. It really is that corrupt. Now with the COVID situation going on, it's definitely not going to happen.

Even though:
"...obesity is associated with a higher risk of developing severe symptoms and complications of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), independent of other illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease." Latest evidence on obesity and COVID-19

 

[johnwester130]

I was reading Dr. Peats article on Breast Cancer just now and found this about potatoes.

"Some studies show that dietary starch, rather than fat, is associated with breast cancer. Starch strongly stimulates insulin secretion, and insulin stimulates the formation of estrogen." -Ray Peat

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=241

???

he literally reccomends potatoes in the sentence before

"Estrogenic influences can be significantly reduced by avoiding foods such as soy products and unsaturated fats, by eating enough protein to optimize the liver’s elimination of estrogen, and by using things such as bulk-forming foods (raw carrots, potatoes, and milk, for example) that stimulate bowel action and prevent reabsorption of estrogens from the intestine. Avoiding hypothyroidism is essential for preventing chronic retention or formation of too much estrogen."