Anyone Else Feel A Bit Guilty And Indulgent For Eating This Way

[Runenight201]

No, I work bloody hard and owe nothing to anyone, I will eat whatever I can afford.

Where were you raised? Who taught you? Who raised you? You wouldn’t be alive and successful if it were not for someone at some point nurturing you, feeding you, and teaching you. You are a complex product worked on by multiple different people, institutions, and ultimately society. To think anything different is short-sighted and selfish.

 

[Peater]

Where were you raised? Who taught you? Who raised you? You wouldn’t be alive and successful if it were not for someone at some point nurturing you, feeding you, and teaching you. You are a complex product worked on by multiple different people, institutions, and ultimately society.

Thanks but I've spent most of my life now trying to undo what muh society has told me is The Right Thing.

 

[Runenight201]

Thanks but I've spent most of my life now trying to undo what muh society has told me is The Right Thing.

But you can read. And socialize. And use a computer. Imagine not having those skills

 

[ExCarniv]

Sugar doesn’t fatigue. It energizes for sure. It’s just not consistent energy. It doesn’t last. Sugar + starch, that’s how you get lasting energy.

This is true in my case, I play 11v11 soccer, and I feel more energized when the day before and matchday I combine starch (potatoes/rice) with sugar (orange juice, fruits, sugared skim milk) than using one or the other.

 

[Runenight201]

This is true in my case, I play 11v11 soccer, and I feel more energized when the day before and matchday I combine starch (potatoes/rice) with sugar (orange juice, fruits, sugared skim milk) than using one or the other.

Athletics has been very helpful in me determining correct food decisions. If we weren’t able to perform at a high level for extended periods of time we wouldn’t have been successful hunters/animals. I think anyone who engages in such activities will find starch a necessary part of the diet for top performance.

I certainly agree though that too much starch is problematic. It’s all about finding the correct amount to consume, and today I found that it’s best consumed with some meat and fat, for optimal digestibility and energy extraction.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

Sugar doesn’t fatigue. It energizes for sure. It’s just not consistent energy. It doesn’t last. Sugar + starch, that’s how you get lasting energy.

I think most people need to learn how to cook properly. White rice, or plain potatoes, provides waaaay different energy and digests much different compared to rice with cooked mushrooms, onions, tomato, lemon, spinach, etc... these foods certainly cause problems raw, but when cooked and prepared properly, are very rewarding and taste delicious. Even peat recommends the cooked mushrooms!

I do agree that, for most people nowadays, starch is pretty much necessary, because most people have broken metabolisms, so depending on sucrose when your cells can't extract energy from it is a bad idea. I consumed starch for a long time before I tapered it down, and it surely helped me when I needed it. I think that, as the metabolism improves, sugar tends to be preferred over starch.

Yes, cooking is very useful at deactivating toxins in foods. Mushrooms can certainly help a lot with bacterial overgrowth in the intestines, and combined with thyroid supplementation, it's a great way to keep the gut clean, but I don't think one needs to eat much of them or even eat them everyday to reap the benefits.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

Well some of the longest living populations in the world ate 70% or more of their calories from starch. it may not be ideal, as in sugar may be better calorie for calorie, but humans can live a long life on almost any real food. this has been proved. PUFA, added iron, soy, the millions of environmental toxins, and plastics are the reasons why people are so sick today. the sugar vs starch debate is only a debate if one is trying to determine what’s 100% most optimal, but 99% of humans don’t really care about that, and are just trying to survive. And without “real poverty food” like rice beans potatoes and grains, most of the world would die from starvation. but the ultimate point is one should never feel guilty for what they eat, rather they should recognize the greed and financial profit through government subsidies which allows monsanto and pufa oil companies to destroy our food and vote/donate to companies which oppose these (such as organic food companies, etc.)

That's true, people can live very long eating many different diets, as long it's a natural food, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't live longer if they improved their eating habits in one way or another. I understand that, many times, people do the best they can do in a certain environment, and, as long as they avoid the main negative things, which you listed( I would include everyday stress in that list as well), then they can live relatively healthy for many decades.

Grains and legumes can be used as a the base of a diet for a while, and they can keep people alive when anything else is too expensive, so they have their use.

Yeah, supporting local farmers and buying local meats and fruits and produce is a great way to both get very high quality food and not feed the big corporations.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

This is true in my case, I play 11v11 soccer, and I feel more energized when the day before and matchday I combine starch (potatoes/rice) with sugar (orange juice, fruits, sugared skim milk) than using one or the other.

Athletics has been very helpful in me determining correct food decisions. If we weren’t able to perform at a high level for extended periods of time we wouldn’t have been successful hunters/animals. I think anyone who engages in such activities will find starch a necessary part of the diet for top performance.

I certainly agree though that too much starch is problematic. It’s all about finding the correct amount to consume, and today I found that it’s best consumed with some meat and fat, for optimal digestibility and energy extraction.

I think that regarding long endurance exercise, such as soccer, less sugar and more starch is a good strategy because it's much easier to slip into fat burning after eating starch than after eating sugar. Although in the short term, sucrose will make you perform better, due to more carbohydrate oxidation, you will burn through your glycogen stores too quickly and you'll probably have to ingest huge amounts of sucrose to keep yourself in carb burning mode. Doable, but it doesn't jive with the fat burning nature of long exercises.

The issue I take with using sports and athletic performances to determine how regular people should eat is that sports are usually stressful by nature, which means they stimulate fat oxidation more than carbohydrate oxidation, especially endurance sports. As Ray has said, youthful metabolism is carbohydrate based, so by that definition, burning a lot of fat isn't ideal, therefore what is good for an endurance athlete isn't necessarily good for someone who is searching for health. The fact that endurance athletes tend to go bald, accumulate abdominal fat as they age and lose teeth means that health and athleticism don't always go hand in hand.

 

[Runenight201]

I think that regarding long endurance exercise, such as soccer, less sugar and more starch is a good strategy because it's much easier to slip into fat burning after eating starch than after eating sugar. Although in the short term, sucrose will make you perform better, due to more carbohydrate oxidation, you will burn through your glycogen stores too quickly and you'll probably have to ingest huge amounts of sucrose to keep yourself in carb burning mode. Doable, but it doesn't jive with the fat burning nature of long exercises.

The issue I take with using sports and athletic performances to determine how regular people should eat is that sports are usually stressful by nature, which means they stimulate fat oxidation more than carbohydrate oxidation, especially endurance sports. As Ray has said, youthful metabolism is carbohydrate based, so by that definition, burning a lot of fat isn't ideal, therefore what is good for an endurance athlete isn't necessarily good for someone who is searching for health. The fact that endurance athletes tend to go bald, accumulate abdominal fat as they age and lose teeth means that health and athleticism don't always go hand in hand.

There’s a point in exercise when one is able to perceive that the available energy has been exhausted, and further continual of the exercise is possible but requires a large amount of mental fortitude. This “wall” is when exercise should always be stopped, and indicates the ceiling on optimal performance in my opinion.

What often happens is with the toxic mind over matter mentality, one can push themselves through the wall, but this is very stressful and not pleasant at all. This is where exercise becomes more harmful.

Proper exercises safely pushes when that wall is hit, which if I am remembering correctly also corresponds with higher mitochondria counts in the body, which definitely is a good thing. I have to read up more about exercise physiology but i know that if done correctly exercise is a net benefit to the individual and had the capacity to greatly increase quality of life. Better hormonal health, better energy, better intelligence, higher stress resiliency, etc... Any sport can be safely enjoyed and used to the benefit of the indivifual so long as they don’t push themselves past that wall.

 

[BingDing]

Good thread, I tend to agree with this:

No, I work bloody hard and owe nothing to anyone, I will eat whatever I can afford.

I acknowledge that I'm lucky to have some disposable income every month, but that's what it is; disposable. I buy beef from White Oak Pastures in Georgia, USA because it is produced about as ethically as possible and because they will freeze it immediately, minimizing (presumably) the production of biogenic amines. I even pay $25 for them to cut the roasts into 1/2 lb portions so I don't have to defrost 3 lbs at a time, much more than I eat in a week. So about $150 USD lasts me around three months.

When I eat commercial beef at a restaurant I can taste the cadaverine and putrescine, it is pretty much inedible for me at this point.

I maintain that orthorexia is a psychiatric term which, like almost all of psychiatry, should be vigorously ignored. If the Inuit have 46 words for snow the world should have a lot more words for eating what is good for you, without reference to the degenerate ideology of psychiatry.

 

[corvetteseeker]

I love the conversation ...

I find that there is a direct correlation to my insulin sensitivity and how I do with starch. For example, if I am super active, I can feel good after a starch meal. Or longer fasts produce the same result. But if I am sedentary, sucrose or fructose take the day.

 

[Broken man]

Africans americans are eating alot of vegetables, starches and even pufa and are doing good, you can say that They seems to be stupid but its because of lack of training during childhood. How is that possible?

 

[GreekDemiGod]

@Broken man Carnivore seem to be doing good too, at least from Instagram posts and FB groups posts. Survivorship bias at play.
Dig closer in those groups and you can find some cases of folks having heart attacks after 3 years on Keto/CV. Found a few myself.

 

[ExCarniv]

Africans americans are eating alot of vegetables, starches and even pufa and are doing good, you can say that They seems to be stupid but its because of lack of training during childhood. How is that possible?

African Americans population have a very large % of obesity. High pufa, high gluten diets.

 

[methylenewhite]

95%+ of poor are fat, numb and dumb. But not because of poverty, because of the way they think, especially about food. The only criteria for them is taste. Should taste great, it means MSG and other poison. I've never seen ANY poor person read ingridients. All that matters is great taste. You never see poor in diet foods section in your supermarket. Not because they can't afford it, but because it does not satisfy them. Suddenly all those beggers are fat, obese. They say "oh I'm starving" but they never had even 6 hours without eating. And they never develop connection between their food and their state. What ever you say about harmful effects of X, they say some bull**** like "we all die" "everything is harmful" and etc. I have spent all my life in developing countries, India, Russia, Vietnam, Brazil, to mention some. I don't remember seeing skinny begger. And I was born in terminally obese poor as rat family.

 

[Broken man]

@Broken man Carnivore seem to be doing good too, at least from Instagram posts and FB groups posts. Survivorship bias at play.
Dig closer in those groups and you can find some cases of folks having heart attacks after 3 years on Keto/CV. Found a few myself.

Its shown by studies.

 

[Broken man]

African Americans population have a very large % of obesity. High pufa, high gluten diets.

Still most of them Is doing good.

 

[ExCarniv]

Still most of them Is doing good.

I wouldn't say anyone that is obese is doing good.

 

[Broken man]

I wouldn't say anyone that is obese is doing good.

Obesity could be protective

 

[dreamcatcher]

Max effort sprinting is anaerobic in nature. It’s why lactic acid builds up and one feels sore afterwards. Aerobic would be running below the lactic acid threshold, which I think is around 70%-80% of maximum effort

Im confused why you keep bringing up the carnivore/vegan dichotomy? Both are clearly unoptimal diets and we should know better than to follow either of them. The Inuits aged rapidly, which peat talks about in his news article, and the Masai aren’t truly carnivores, as they include ample milk in their diets.

I was making a comment specifically in relation to OP’s concern, in which he includes zero starch in his diet and complains of getting fatigued easily, which I also noted when I had a zero starch diet. I could not compete at high levels of performance in my sports before getting tired and overly stressed. With starch, I can push myself hard, to a very high heart rate, but feel no stress. In fact, it’s a pleasurable sensation. And I’ve felt stress from over exertion in athletics, in fact most of my life that’s what I did, as I had an incorrect mind over matter mentality.

I bring up soccer and basketball, because those are both endurance sports but require explosive movements, which can only properly be accomplished with ample carbohydrates. Fighting would be similar, in that it requires lots of explosive movements as well as endurance. You won’t see a starch free athlete in any of these sports, because it’s critical for optimal performance and not fatiguing rapidly. Most of these athletes would benefit from some sugar in their diet on top of the starch they eat, but I guarantee you their performance would suffer hard with just sugar and no starch.

I also had fatigue issues in the past when eating large amounts of fruits mainly, for carbohydrates. I couldn't walk longer than 20 mins.

Athletics has been very helpful in me determining correct food decisions. If we weren’t able to perform at a high level for extended periods of time we wouldn’t have been successful hunters/animals. I think anyone who engages in such activities will find starch a necessary part of the diet for top performance.

I certainly agree though that too much starch is problematic. It’s all about finding the correct amount to consume, and today I found that it’s best consumed with some meat and fat, for optimal digestibility and energy extraction.

Yup. I found this out myself a few months ago. I started to get misled by various forum members saying starch is better than sugar, so I went pure starch, and I started gaining weight on less calories than ever before, and my metabolism crashed even harder. Ray peat is right about sugar vs. starch. I get it, people love starch and don't wanna accept it, but he's right. Period. Now, if you still want to eat starch in spite of that, that's your choice, but Ray is right. Heck I still am eating some starch myself in denial, partly because potatoes do have some good nutrition, but I'm definitely like half the intake I used to do.

I again go back to Peat: "For those with suboptimal digestion, Starch should be zero". Even nutritious ones like potato. Which means I'm probably gonna ditch them soon so I can really make weight loss progress.

Whenever I use this, you come into my mind