Is Ray Peat Wrong On Starches Or I Am Missing Something?

[Westside PUFAs]

It's not only the bacteria...
Real reasons why starch is on the naughty list.

That is just Rob Turner's biased compilation which is three years old. He should update that list with Peat's recent comments in the clips I posted above, the "if a person has healthy digestion" clip and also the clip about "getting as much sugar and starch in the diet".

He also left these ones out:

"Until your metabolic rate is higher, 80 to 100 grams would be better. Replacing it with sugar, or very well cooked starch, would support thyroid function."

"Potatoes are the only vegetable protein which is of quality equal to egg yolk. It's actually a little higher in quality because it contains precursors to the essential amino acids; it has more protein in effect than it actually has in substance. And people misjudge potatoes because they are given as 2 to 4%, because wet potatoes are measured, where beans are measured in the dry state and have 40% protein, but...you have to divide the bean protein by 10 to make it equivalent to potatoes."

“Two pounds of well-cooked mashed potato has the protein value similar to a liter of milk, about 33 grams of protein. A person would be able to live for a long time on two or three liters of either milk or 4-6 pounds of potatoes per day. The milk drinker would eventually need to supplement iron, the potato eaters would need to supplement vitamin A, possibly B12, but both of them are nearly perfect foods.”

Narouz asks: "How many grams of cooked starchy food(old potatoes,plantains) do you think is safe in the diet?"

"There isn't enough information to judge, but a fair part of the carbohydrate should be in the form of sucrose, fructose, and/or lactose. If it's well cooked, and eaten with butter, it's probably safe for many people."

"If you don't get much sunlight, and during the winter, a vitamin D supplement is necessary to use the calcium effectively. Plain white rice, well cooked, with butter is o.k. The calcium, vitamin D and vitamin A will greatly improve your immunity,the colostrum wouldn't be necessary."

"Masa harina (best), white rice or oats, and brown rice. The phytic acid in the oats block absorption of much of the calcium; cooking the oats much longer than usual might improve its nutritional value."

tca300 asks: "I'm going to be moving to an area that doesn't have any good animal proteins, do you think replacing animal protein with potatoes would work because of their keto acid content? Thank you very much!"

"Yes, people in New Guinea who eat nothing but potatoes for 51 weeks of the year (and pork the other week) have been studied and found to be healthy with no signs of protein deficiency."

_

I understand the point of Rob's article. The point is "concerns with starches" but it would be better named "potential concerns." It's too one way and doesn't emphasize the individual context enough. It's biased because in #3 on that list it focuses on painting starch as fattening because of insulin but not also mentioning the effects of dietary fat and not emphasizing the insulinogenic effect of protein as well. Like this quote on milk from one of the EastWest shows, Peat says "if you're gaining inches instead of muscle," (meaning inches on your waist as in your belly is getting bigger), "then you're probably eating too much fat and overall calories." He didn't say "you're probably eating too much starch." And he then goes on to say the "I've mentioned at times quote." So in that context he's not talking about pufa fat, he's talking about dairy fat. Not to mention the numerous other quotes on butter and cream I've posted. Saturated fat can be fattening too. It's all about context, right? Well don't forget the fat and assume that everyone is eating low fat, which is a crazy assumption. What I mean by that is don't just assume that a fat person who has insulin problems is only in that state because of starch.

It's also unscientific to use raw starch and animals that do not naturally cook starch in their native diet and do not secrete as much amylase as us as evidence for well cooked (which is really just normally cooked because no one eats raw starch) causing problems in humans. I know Peat wrote about those experiments about raw starch but to take those writings and apply them to a cooked human context is odd.

Rob also writes a lot about the negative effects of a "vegetarian" diet while ignoring that Peat's own personal diet is vegetarian by definition: “Daily - milk, fruit (mainly orange juice), eggs, butter, cheese, and coffee.” The occasional liver, oxtail, and pork rinds, are occasional. And those are unique foods. They're not muscle meats. The traditional term vegetarian originally meant one who consumes a diet based on milk, cheese, and fruit. Not a "vegetable" eater. The context here is that someone like Ray sees the intelligence in not eating meat, as in muscle meat, everyday, as opposed to the masses who think that one must eat muscle meats 3 times a day. They are inflammatory, contain too much iron, and cause too many problems when over consumed. Ray has said that muscle meats "turn off the thyroid gland." That's not to say they offer nothing. One may very well need the heme iron from red meat. No, we are not herbivores and we do not have a rumen, but we are also not carnivores, we're omnivores who cook our food and that food includes cooked starch and cooked plants and cooked meat. We cook meat not just to kill bacteria but to make it more digestible, contrary to what raw meat eaters claim. There is evidence that the protein in eggs is better absorbed from cooked eggs. So it's biased to love cooked meat and cooked eggs but hate cooked starch and cooked leaves and blame the cooked versions instead of solely the raw versions. No s*it they have to be cooked, that's obivous. So does meat and so do eggs. Fruit is really the only true raw food for humans. It's biased to think cooked greens and non-fried starch is contributing to the top killers of heart disease, hypertension, cancer etc.

Everything listed on FPS re: starch is accurate.

No it is not because the claim that "because of their glycemia, starches tend to cause blood sugar dysregulation compared to fructose and sugar (sucrose)," is simply not true. One's FFA status is going to be the primary factory in this.

He says "Well-cooked below-ground vegetables, masa harina, and hominy are some of the best starches to consume." That's contradicting to say in that article because of everything else said. He says "Gauge your individual reaction to starches vs. sugar," something that should be clear in the article but the entire article makes it seem as though they all must be avoided for everyone. One thing that needs to be emphasized is that not everyone does well with lactose and fructose/sucrose as their main carbohydrate sources. And not everyone achieves satiation with those sources and without starch. This is important. Starch warms many people up in ways that the other sugars don't. So one could be left clueless if lactose and sucrose don't work for them after reading that article. They won't know what to do because starch is painted as so bad.

.

 

[tara]

It's also unscientific to use raw starch and animals that do not naturally cook starch in their native diet and do not secrete as much amylase as us as evidence for well cooked (which is really just normally cooked because no one eats raw starch) causing problems in humans.

+1

Fruit is really the only true raw food for humans.

And maybe milk, egg yolks and honey if it weren't for the pathogen risks (though I'm partial to the occasional raw fish sushi).

 

[vb2005]

I definitely had a problem with fructose. It destroyed my gut and I am European.

It is the same with me - i was healthier when was eating refined wheat bread then paleo and fruits destroyed my gut. Regarding honey - total disaster for me - and i am talking about raw local honey directly with honeycomb.
There are more problems with fruits and honey - not only fructose - histamine and salicilates i think are problem to some degree for everyone with leaky gut. If 500 mg aspirin per day can damage the gut of people and kill 16 000 persons in USA per year from intestinal bleeding then this can happen on high salicilate diet too.

 

[vb2005]

Sure, oranges and bananas don't grow in northern Europe, and transport logistics made them a rare treat a few decades ago. But wouldn't there have been sweet pip and stone fruit and berries in season at other times of year though? And honey and raisins?

Yes we have local fruits but they take very small percentage of the diet - i am from eastern Europe - Bulgaria and grains, potatoes and pork meat are the main source of calories here.

 

[Agent207]

“Two pounds of well-cooked mashed potato has the protein value similar to a liter of milk, about 33 grams of protein. A person would be able to live for a long time on two or three liters of either milk or 4-6 pounds of potatoes per day. The milk drinker would eventually need to supplement iron, the potato eaters would need to supplement vitamin A, possibly B12, but both of them are nearly perfect foods.”

Woww, this is a pretty dumb and nonsense nutrition statement. Happens that milk just contains lactoferrin, THE BEST form of all dietary iron available straight out. Really someone has to be very limited in nutrition to think of a heavy milk drinker and think he'd had to take poisonous iron supplements when he's already getting the most absorbable, healthy, natural state-of-the-art iron form available out there.

 

[JRB22]

So you say Dr. Peat is "very limited in nutrition?"

 

[pboy]

the most surprising thing is how many people give their opinion as 'fact' or near that about starches, sugar...not just in the Peat field but health field in general...as far as I can see no one really knows that's talking about it 100%, but people that have a lot of personal hands on experience kind of gravitate towards eventually or figure out things that work for them. I could spout out a lot on this but basically its best to figure it out, theres a ton to this picture and a lot is purely nutritional content but theres much more to it, including some 'vibe' aspects, which probably correlate to flavors and various phenolic or flavanols, really the energy of the thing. But basically its this...more digestible, usable energy is kind of always desirable to anyone, than not, and carbs basically are the primary and best energy source, protein would have various bad effects if used as a fuel source intentionally, and fat is just slower and basically I suppose you'd go into ketogenesis eventually and id imagine feel bad, I don't think ive ever got into that stage as far as I know

Ill throw in a few tidbits that might be interesting...humans can actually digest raw starch! (cooking was probably something done before grinding methods became efficient, or for other purposes, to make things quicker/easier to eat) I don't know if this is the case for everyone all the time but there were old studies (mostly empiric, some scientific) explicitly showing this, and with a few things ive tried and didn't notice any real difference, other than the taste...I guess also that's a main purpose of cooking, to deactivate volatile compounds, lower anti nutrients and things, and probably open cell walls before the flour mill times..and with roots they kind of already are open. But anyways, fructose isn't a problem, and probably has benefit over other sugars, the thing is most fruit at least to the majority of America, don't know about other places, is unripe or bad quality...which has consequences, where as roots and cereals and beans are harvested when 'ripe' as theres more a window and easier to do so they don't really hit back as hard as fruit...in some cases, I guess some roots have toxins in the skins, theres toxins or anti nutrients in brans and beans have various things apparently...but unripe fruit can wreck havoc, also many fruits are more herbal and not really meant as a main energy source, basically all stone fruit and many others, and are more laxatives, anything with sugar alcohols which is surprisingly many fruits. Sugar is more purified, but has little to no nutrients (b vitamins, some minerals).

As far as glycemic index, fast digesting this or that...its sort of irrelivent in fact, with good digestion basically any starch, the portion that is digestible, will digest very fast...10-15 minutes, the part that is indigestible wont digest no matter what, and 6-8 hours roughly later you'll get the gas from it...most cereals are nearly 100% digestible where as beans and roots are more like 75% so they generally cause gas, more often, but also have much more nutrition than grains

and Peat mentions persorption as a bad side effect of starch, but apparently when I read the study that didn't happen with boiled starch, only raw or baked, and really I cant say Ive noticed such a thing being significant in the past, but dunno, maybe it depends on peoples guts and metabolism and things

also some roots like carrot are probably higher than 75% digestible, and other things like raw turnip, maybe jerusalem artichoke and things are less than that cause they are high in fructans, definitely agave...that's basically (most) a disaster, or at least the 'raw' kind...and in general digestion of anything that's digestible is still not total unless vitamins, minerals, salts, ect are there and in a good balance

 

[Giraffe]

There are more problems with fruits and honey - not only fructose - histamine and salicilates i think are problem to some degree for everyone with leaky gut. If 500 mg aspirin per day can damage the gut of people and kill 16 000 persons in USA per year from intestinal bleeding then this can happen on high salicilate diet too.

What is a high salicylate diet in your opinion? What does it look like? What is the intake of salicylates?

A systematic review of salicylates in foods: estimated daily intake of a Scottish population. - PubMed - NCBI

Application of a validated food frequency questionnaire estimated median dietary intakes of 4.42 (range 2.90-6.27) and 3.16 (2.35-4.89) mg/day for Scottish males and females, respectively.

....

Related thread: https://raypeatforum.com/community/...isks-of-aspirin-are-grossly-overstated.12338/

"...“Gastrointestinal bleeds constitute the majority of the adverse events caused by aspirin, however there is no evidence that the overall frequency of fatal GI bleeds is increased by aspirin,” the researchers reported. They presented their findings at the 2016 Digestive Disease Week (abstract Tu1072)."

 

[Bahaa El wazzan]

@Westside PUFAs
Amazing info

Thanks a lot

 

[DrJ]

and also a book from Norman Robbilard called fast tract digestion where he his advice regarding sibo is to eat white rice and other starches with HIGH glycemic index - because white rice is working somehow like elemental diet / elemental diet is proven to cure sibo for 2 -3 weeks/ - the higher the glycemic index - less chance for bacteria to ferment the food - for example glucose will be rapidly absorbed.
What i think is that Peat dont make distinction between amylose and amylopektin starches and - amylopektin is rapidly absorbed. Also when you do the sibo breath test you have to do preparation diet of only meat, fish,eggs and white rice - so this again confirms the idea that starched dont reach bacteria in the small intestine or even if they reach it they stay there only several minutes.

Well, there's basically two reasons to avoid the broad class of starches, so it helps to distinguish the two, and then consider what your goals are. First is that resistant starches make it further down the intestine and can feed bad bacteria or even lead to SIBO, depending on the state of you immune function and the susceptibility of your digestive system to such things. Second, is that starch can trigger a big spike in blood sugar and corresponding big spike in insulin, which Peat recommends against.

What your boy Robbilard (love that name) is saying makes sense to me. Eat the high glycemic index starches because those are the ones that basically get digested and taken up right away and don't make it down the digestive track to cause problems. It just doesn't take into account that these are the starches that will cause a big insulin increase.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Found another one that is different than this one.



From Herb Doctors: Endotoxins

"The quickest way to alleviate the night sweats and hot flushes is to increase your sugar intake and your protein intake. One of the functions of the sugar is to lower the cortisol and adrenaline. And if your protein intake is too low - it should be 80 grams of good protein - among vegetables, it happens that the potato protein is the only one that ranks up there with the animal proteins, so that's even better than egg protein. but the milk, for example, and cheese and eggs and potato, are the high quality proteins and you should have around 80 grams of good protein per day. If you don't get enough sugar or starch in your diet, then you're going to use some of your protein for energy, so that impairs your liver function by starving it for protein. When the liver isn't functioning well, it can't store enough sugar to get you through the night with a steady sugar level. First your adrenaline surges to try to get more sugar out of your liver and when your liver is depleted, then your cortisol rises to turn some of your muscle tissue and thymus tissue and skin and other things into sugar, to keep your sugar up to a survival level during the night. So it's actually the cortisol surges at night that cause the hot flushes. Sugar is the first aid. Sugar and salty foods are quick relief for that, but it has to be against a background of adequate protein and other nutrients."

 

[lvysaur]

And maybe milk, egg yolks and honey if it weren't for the pathogen risks (though I'm partial to the occasional raw fish sushi).

And bivalves

 

[pboy]

what is this mythical blood sugar spike so many speak of

I kid but kind of...I dunno what people imply by that...is it supposed to be a so called burst then crash? it seems to imply like a surge of energy initially...but supposedly one gets such thing when they have blood sugar usability issues, so how could they even get a surge in the first place...and why would a surge in blood sugar necessarily be bad...I mean I know supposedly its cause the blood wants a certain range of sugar, but people don't really indicate the implications of having more..id say basically it would create tonic pressure and the person would feel really tense, but dunno if that's ever happened to me in experience, or it doesn't manifest itself that way. In the past when I ate say just rice and maybe soy sauce or rice and hardly anything else it doesn't feel like a surge at all, a 'spike'. Its kind of sad or strange that literally hundreds, thousands of people (maybe more if you include the medical people) speak of insulin spikes and high blood sugar and all that in terms of energy rush and crash, cause it doesn't make sense, nor correlate with experience...are really so many so called experts simply not really paying attention? At least be honest..if people were honest I think theyd be led to a solution much quicker. Its not really a 'surge' at all but an obvious heaviness, at least in my case, so even if you had elevated blood sugar it doesn't mean its being utilized, so theres no rush and crash its just like hunger and low sugar feel followed by probably a proceeding heaviness...then you'd ask well why isn't it being used? It seems like that whole sugar sin meem kind of stuff...if you eat carbs it has to have the 'rush and crash' to imply like the person got some guilty initial benefit of it and is a glutton or like selfish for eating it and somehow deserved the 'punishment' of the crash...instead if you looked at it as though they never got the 'surge' to begin with and just were basically fiending for sugar, and despite eating it still couldn't satisfy the craving, a different picture emerges, as someone who basically needs help and a solution, not like a glutton who sinfully eats carbs...and because people buy into that you have thousands or tens or more then creating whole offshoots like low carb and paleo diet solutions and things.

anyways in that light I don't think it matters, other people might have different thoughts or experience I don't know for sure, but I don't think the carb source or type of sugar matters in terms of insulin spikes and all that its just can the person, I guess in their current status/state and whatever they ate, use that sugar? Though I think fructose might have additional benefits, after not eating starch for a while the last times I did, they were balanced fresh made and all, and didn't seem to have any real issues, but it just wasn't quite as satisfying as something that had fructose also, but other factors could have been at play...whether fructose has metabolic benefits I don't know but somehow it seems to have mood benefits, maybe it helps clear out more negative molecules or somehow signals more a good environment

I remember growing up id have empty calorie so to speak drinks and food, I was kind of not a huge, or sporadic big eater cause I was always occupied with something enjoyable, but perhaps that's why it didn't make as much a difference ...the empty calorie things, maybe it did subtely, but I suppose there is a factor, or maybe something that can help shore up deficiencies, in being actively engaged in enjoyable things, in terms of usability of sugar/carbs...supposedly physical excersize does this also, but again that can push the lactic acid thing amongst other. I wonder if pro athletes really drink Gatorade or if its all advertising..if they actually do that's kind of like archaic and probably not the best thing. On the commercial they show Gatorade being like some miracle concoction that helped the gators win a bowl game or something...but really if theyd just have drinkin OJ it would've been better, how can sugar water with maybe some citric acid and a pinch of salt be better than something with a broad range of nutrients

 

[lexis]

What matters is how they are cooked and whats eaten with them

 

[raypeatclips]

I have often thought of Ray as being more pro-sugar than anti-starch. When I personally asked him about potatoes and whether I should try to wean them out of my diet he replied that "potatoes are a very nutritious food."

I tried zero starch when trying to go "full Peat", just sugar, oj, milk, rarely fruits and felt awful. I realised I felt better on starches so pretty much dropped all the sugar and juice and ate starch 3x a day with meals, very shortly I ran into problems with that as well. What seems to be best for me is a mixture of the two, starch maybe 1-2 meals a day, with oj and milk and sweets throughout the day when I feel like it.

 

[Tenacity]

I think a diet of mainly fruit, a large portion of animal protein, some starch and some leaves makes the most sense in my own context. I think if you live in warmer climates its easier to get away with only sugars for carbohydrates, but those in more moderate climates might struggle with the liquid intake. I don't think starch is necessarily as harmful as often described on this forum.

 

[thomas00]

In the context of SIBO, fructose is just as capable of perpetuating the problem as starch is so it might not be the biggest issue that needs to be considered.

From a digestion point of view, fruit, honey and sucrose have the advantage of being less complex so they are more likely to actually be digested and less likely to end up in the large intestine where you don't want it. And, unlike starches, they aren't prone to become resistant to digestion if they aren't cooked appropriately, a problem that turns starches into an undesirable prebiotic.

If you like to eat starches and you do fine with them then there is no reason to completely nix them from your diet. It's a good idea to always eat them boiled though.

 

[vb2005]

Diet – Recovery from Ankylosing Spondylitis this guy cured his Ankylosing Spondylitis eating so called safe starches - and the bacteria causing this desease is eating starch which means that white potatoes and white rice are safe for the people with gut problems caused by bad bugs.

 

[James IV]

I think SIBO is more about a backed up gut than any particular food. Bacteria can't live anywhere in the intestine where there is no food. I think sibo develops because the walls of folks intestines get blowouts and pockets caked with undigested food residue. They also literally get gunk backed up from the colon, and it keeps getting higher and higher as they pile more junk in top. All this sludge is a perfect environment for bacteria to nest. It also will be leaking into the bloodstThis probably happens from eating too much/too often, and indigestible foods. If someone has an empty, pink, healthy gut, they can't have overgrowth, or growth at all.

I'd treat SIBO as a clogged plumbing problem. If you notice, almost all "SIBO" protocols are made up of low residue foods. I believe the low residue is what makes them work for some people, rather than the foods themselves.

I'd bet if folks megadosed cascara and magnesium with plenty of water for a week or so, they would see improvements in their SIBO with no changes to diet. Although their social life would suffer .

 

[ecstatichamster]

Starch lowers metabolic rate according to Peat.