Peat Is Right About Starch

YourUniverse

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Interesting comment, did you test different kinds of fruits? High fructose (apples, etc), low fructose (cantaloupes, etc)

Also how is your diet look like?
The fruit I've tested are mainly orange juice and dates, and would have ~1300 calories of each on alternating days. It's the cheapest way to get good quality fruit.

1300 calories of dates feels equivalent to ~500 calories of cheese for me, and it doesn't speed my metabolism up to meet the 800 calorie surplus, either.

I like some OJ for breakfast, and a bit spread out through the day, but eating a high-carb diet of fruit just doesnt feel good to me.
 

Hairfedup

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I think Peat is right works on an individual level. I don't think many populations suffer from starches as much as West-Eurasians do.
 

YourUniverse

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I think Peat is right works on an individual level. I don't think many populations suffer from starches as much as West-Eurasians do.
Definitely, dont get me wrong, I'm not trying to claim Peat is wrong on fruit - I'm saying it seems to stimulate my appetite, and lower my activity, for some reason. Like @tca300 , maybe I have some sort of fructose intolerance? If thats him in his picture, I probably have a similar heritage
 

Hairfedup

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Definitely, dont get me wrong, I'm not trying to claim Peat is wrong on fruit - I'm saying it seems to stimulate my appetite, and lower my activity, for some reason. Like @tca300 , maybe I have some sort of fructose intolerance? If thats him in his picture, I probably have a similar heritage

Yeah I'm agreeing with you, I shoulda wrote 'peat is right'. Its interesting you bring up fruit, For me, I can barely eat an apple without extreme feelings of fullness and later lethargy. I have to eat tropical fruits in small amounts throughout the day. I was referring to the title post you know what I mean? I think a lot of people suffer when consuming starchy carbohydrates, which might boil down simply to genetics. I've seen posts on here with the opposite view to peat, talking about how populations like the Ghanaians/Papuans/Aboriginal Highlanders/isolated Japanese communities eating high amounts of starchy carbs and how it seems to work just great for them. But would it work for whoever is reading this forum? Prolly not unless they shared the same genetic makeup. I can eat starchy carbs all day and feel absolutely great, but I think I have the genetic components to do so...
 
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tca300

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Definitely, dont get me wrong, I'm not trying to claim Peat is wrong on fruit - I'm saying it seems to stimulate my appetite, and lower my activity, for some reason. Like @tca300 , maybe I have some sort of fructose intolerance? If thats him in his picture, I probably have a similar heritage
Yup, that's me!
 

Waremu

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I'm in the same camp. No matter how many times I tried going back to starch, it just always causes problems for me. I feel so much better without it. Better mental clarity, deeper and better sleep, more snappy reactions and thinking, am leaner without it, etc. Even the safer starches like white rice eventually gave me serotonin and endotoxin/gut issues.

I think the two bigger mistakes I made when I was new to Peat was not cutting out starch and not being more strict on my PUFA intake (which was still low, but not as low as I initially thought). After solving those two issues, my health has really turned around for the better.

As far fruit goes, I do great on it. I think it's important for me to get the folate I need and extra magnesium. I do take some organic pure dextrose mixed with fruit juice or my shake post-workout though for muscle glycogen needs.

After feeling good and doing this no starch thing, I get used to it and don't crave starch anymore. At first I felt I needed it for 'bulk', but that was largely mental for me. I didn't need it. And if I need something with bulk, very lean low fat ground beef and mushrooms can easily fill that need for me. (The very lean beef I eat is very low in PUFA, at about only 0.3 g per half pound). I find that usually when I have a craving for something relating to bulk, it is a sign of low zinc. Whenever I keep my zinc up that never happens to me.
 

jet9

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Starch consistently KILLS my motivation and libido. Makes me feel incredibly depressive. No idea why.
Did you test different sources of starch ? Potatoes, rice, wheat, oats, etc ? Do you find that some are better than others ?
 

Lokzo

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Did you test different sources of starch ? Potatoes, rice, wheat, oats, etc ? Do you find that some are better than others ?

It's only potatoes + Sweet potatoes. The others are NOT problematic. So annoying. And these effects are only noticed 24 hours later, not immediately. It also feels like it irritates the lower portion of my abdomen... like un-settled feeling.
 

jet9

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It's only potatoes + Sweet potatoes. The others are NOT problematic. So annoying. And these effects are only noticed 24 hours later, not immediately. It also feels like it irritates the lower portion of my abdomen... like un-settled feeling.
Interesting... What source of starch do you yourself eat / feel best on? Rice ? Or grains/bread/pasta ? Or maybe something else ?
 

GreekDemiGod

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Decided to cut starch out as an experiment; I can say over the past few days the fat around my belly has melted away, and I've leaned out everywhere else as well.
This is a ridiculous statement. Body fat simply does not melt like than in the order of days, it's a much slower process. What you experienced was probably bloating reduction.
 

Lokzo

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Interesting... What source of starch do you yourself eat / feel best on? Rice ? Or grains/bread/pasta ? Or maybe something else ?

I just smash white rice, and even oats with no issues, and I can tolerte bread too now, since BPC157, Cypro, Artichoke extract, and GUTRIGHT my gut feels like steel.

I can handle fuits just fine too.
 

JDreamer

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Our future .....

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Ritchie

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Peat based his position on starch on a couple of rat studies done decades ago. Those rats were fed UNCOOKED starch, and subsequently the researchers found issues with the way those rats digested the starch. LOL. There are literally so many issues with extrapolating anything from those studies into the human context. 1. They were rats, who have a very different metabolism and digestive system to humans. Any knowledgable scientist understands that animal studies are right at the bottom of the evidence hierarchy regardless of the methodology. 2. They were fed uncooked starch. Something humans virtually never eat for obvious reasons. 3. These results haven't been replicated in any powerfully designed human study, and in fact almost all research in the human context on cooked starch shows the opposite: that starch consumption is healthy and safe and forms a great source of nutrition. I mean, that Peat takes such a strong stance against starch based on very weak evidence, a lot of which is anecdotal, is quite surprising. Further, his general anti-starch position contradicts with other things he advocates for, such as potatoes. The fact is that starch is a condense form of glucose, and when cooked and eaten is used very effectively for energy by humans. Considering Peat advocates for a high energy diet, it is somewhat obvious that he is quite incoherent on the subject of starch.
Bottom line is that starch, when consumed in conjunction with other high energy foods such as sweet, juicy fruits and sugars, is a very important source of nutrition and energy, and can play a crucial role if one is striving for an optimally healthy, metabolism boosting, energising and well balanced diet.
 

thomas00

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depends though right

a heap of starch that contains no nutrients like white rice can cause a pretty nasty spike in blood sugar...nutrient dense starches like potatoes won't do that as much

and glucose+fructose is always going to be superior to just glucose
 

Ritchie

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depends though right

a heap of starch that contains no nutrients like white rice can cause a pretty nasty spike in blood sugar...nutrient dense starches like potatoes won't do that as much

and glucose+fructose is always going to be superior to just glucose
Energy (either in the form of glucose or glucose+fructose) = nutrition, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say white rice has "no nutrients"? Rice is high in energy, specifically glucose and hence is nutrition dense by definition. Besides it's very rare someone will eat starchy carbs all on their own, normally they are consumed along with other foods in the diet like fats, proteins, fruits and veges and form an important contributing factor to the diet as a whole. I mean, who is sitting around eating only cooked plain white rice all day and nothing else?

This blood sugar spike phobia of starch is founded on some very flimsy grounds. If I eat rice, potatoes or some other starch it's usually in combo with other foods, especially other foods throughout the span of the day (including fruits and sugars which then obviously throw fructose into the mix), which always play a role in preventing some type of "nasty spike in blood sugar". I think it's a mistake to look at foods completely in isolation as if they exist in a vacuum within our digestive system and metabolism.
 

thomas00

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Energy (either in the form of glucose or glucose+fructose) = nutrition, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say white rice has "no nutrients"? Rice is high in energy, specifically glucose and hence is nutrition dense by definition. Besides it's very rare someone will eat starchy carbs all on their own, normally they are consumed along with other foods in the diet like fats, proteins, fruits and veges and form an important contributing factor to the diet as a whole. I mean, who is sitting around eating only cooked plain white rice all day and nothing else?

This blood sugar spike phobia of starch is founded on some very flimsy grounds. If I eat rice, potatoes or some other starch it's usually in combo with other foods, especially other foods throughout the span of the day (including fruits and sugars which then obviously throw fructose into the mix), which always play a role in preventing some type of "nasty spike in blood sugar". I think it's a mistake to look at foods completely in isolation as if they exist in a vacuum within our digestive system and metabolism.

That's stretching out the definition of what a nutrient is. Ray has pointed out the importance of potassium in regulating blood sugar, which potatoes are full of and rice is not, for example.

Ray's position seems pretty coherent to me. Using your own dietary habits to dismiss the fact that starches, some more than others, cause huge spikes in blood sugar isn't exactly a sound approach. It's pretty well documented starches do that..... I haven't seen any reason to believe there isn't an insulin surge proportionate to it.


Anything I eat that requires me to eat something else to negate it's negative effects is always going to be inferior.
 

ExCarniv

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I find that is hard to reach high caloric demands without starch.

Every time I try a zero starch, I end eating less that I need as an active person.

How do you reach 2800-3000 calories without starch? Pretty hard without gorging on fat which is not ideal for me. (More than 60g of fat per day alongside high sugar is no bueno)
 

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