Starch: The Great Mystery

[cyclops]

In the winter in the US, I use a lot of frozen orange juice concentrate, because good fruit is scarce. When you use refined sugar it’s important to avoid the starchy foods, emphasizing milk, cheese, eggs, fruits, and occasional liver and seafood. Cooked leafy greens and mushrooms should substitute for starchy vegetables.'

Why is it important to avoid refined sugar when eating starchy foods? Seems like a good combo to add some fructose to the starch. You have to get nutrients somewhere else either way.

How could mushrooms and leafy greens substitute for starchy vegetables? Its mostly fiber vs starch. If your choosing to eat starch your choosing starch not fiber.

 

[alywest]

According to some (the specific carbohydrate diet to eliminate SIBO and Dr. Sarah Myhill) eliminating starches as well as lactose and sucrose are necessary because even a disaccharide can feed the SIBO. I would say that if you have SIBO or any overgrowth you should consider eliminating those things for the time being. I'm not saying they're bad, it's just important to be that much more restrictive until there is a restoration of a good bacterial balance. But that means honey is ok because it is a monosaccharide. I think honey can make up a lot of one's caloric intake.

Also according to the SCD you should make your own yogurt and never eat the store bought kind. The store bought stuff can be used as a starter. From that yogurt you can make "cream cheese" (by straining out all the whey until you have a thicker consistency.) Also they recommend using a lot of farmer's cheese aka dry curd cottage cheese which is only available at certain stores and usually sells out quickly.

 

[Vinero]

According to some (the specific carbohydrate diet to eliminate SIBO and Dr. Sarah Myhill) eliminating starches as well as lactose and sucrose are necessary because even a disaccharide can feed the SIBO. I would say that if you have SIBO or any overgrowth you should consider eliminating those things for the time being. I'm not saying they're bad, it's just important to be that much more restrictive until there is a restoration of a good bacterial balance. But that means honey is ok because it is a monosaccharide. I think honey can make up a lot of one's caloric intake..

That seems overly restrictive. That means the only permitted carb is fructose. SIBO is caused by hypothyroidism, avoiding sugar and starches won't cure that.

 

[tara]

That seems overly restrictive. That means the only permitted carb is fructose. SIBO is caused by hypothyroidism, avoiding sugar and starches won't cure that.

Something like the SCD seems to be what makes huge positive differences for a small minority of people. I wouldn't expect it to be necessary for most people.

 

[alywest]

That seems overly restrictive. That means the only permitted carb is fructose. SIBO is caused by hypothyroidism, avoiding sugar and starches won't cure that.

There are a lot of fruits and vegetables that you can eat but not potatoes or sweet potatoes. I think the SCD people are missing the boat on hypothyroidism because obviously there is a link. However, some people such as the autistic have excessively high levels of LPS, potentially up to 10,000 times the amount as typical people. Eating sugar/lactose will feed that bacteria, and in the normal person that may not be an issue but if the person can't process it properly in the small intestine then SIBO is sure to continue. I believe that the thyroid should be simultaneously treated, as well as watching serotonin which the SCD people don't seem to have a clue about, along with their completely missing the boat on PUFA.

 

[Vinero]

There are a lot of fruits and vegetables that you can eat but not potatoes or sweet potatoes. I think the SCD people are missing the boat on hypothyroidism because obviously there is a link. However, some people such as the autistic have excessively high levels of LPS, potentially up to 10,000 times the amount as typical people. Eating sugar/lactose will feed that bacteria, and in the normal person that may not be an issue but if the person can't process it properly in the small intestine then SIBO is sure to continue. I believe that the thyroid should be simultaneously treated, as well as watching serotonin which the SCD people don't seem to have a clue about, along with their completely missing the boat on PUFA.

I agree, eating large amounts of sugar and lactose when you have SIBO is not a good idea. Like Ray said: anything can be dangerous in a hypothyroid state. I think it's best if you have SIBO to eat low amounts initially, and work your way up overtime as your thyroid function improves along with gut health.

 

[Vinero]

Most fruit for most people is poor. Under-ripened, over priced, heavily pesticised and bad quality. Many types of fruits cause significant gut distress for folks. I think Peat sees their amazing value in a idealistic sense, but real world results with the fruits (esoeciallly here in the Western world) causes most Peaters to keep walking on by the fruit & veg section and on towards the dairy/fruit juices section. Those wonderful fruits that Peat mentions that are in his diet I have no access to, and probably never will have access to.

Well said. Most fruits that I tried in the local supermarket (apples, oranges,pears, dates, bananas, etc) seem very allergenic also. My lips sometimes swell or get tingly sensation in my mouth when eathing those fruits. Might be the pesticides or something. Fruit juice and starches seem way easier to get a large amount of carbs from.

 

[Peat Tong]

That seems overly restrictive. That means the only permitted carb is fructose. SIBO is caused by hypothyroidism, avoiding sugar and starches won't cure that.

fructose and glucose in their unbound form are okay, so fruit and honey are good.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Oh boy........that "always" is a killer!!!

Excellent post!!!

Yea but the clip from Jan. 2017 I posted is more a killer for those who are so anti-starch. Because you have to look at it from the average persons view who find's Peat and then finds that clip. They'll say to themselves, "Oh, my digestion is fine, I'll ramp up my sugar intake in the form of starch.."

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Also:

"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."

 

[Westside PUFAs]

"I Think It’s Best To Get As Much Sugar And Starch In Your Diet".... preferably sugars from fruit and milk.."

"There isn't anything wrong with a high carbohydrate diet, and even a high starch diet isn't necessarily incompatible with good health, but when better foods are available they should be used instead of starches."

@theLaw I think this one's a killer:

 

[YourUniverse]

Now I'm confused, are we debating what ray thinks is acceptable or what ray thinks is best?

 

[Ritchie]

From my perspective this is all farely simple to work out from the Peat perspective if you take a step back. When you step back a bit and look at the bigger picture to avoid all the little nuances that come from Peat's characteristically undefined and non-authoritative nature, things become clearer and somewhat simplified...

Peat recommends a diet with a high intake of energy from carbohydrates as core. This is key, because his rationale is based on human physiology and biology and in looking at the energy requirements we have in the form of glucose to maintain a healthy metabolism and so forth, regardless of the specific type of carbohydrates we eat to get that energy (eg. whether it be starch or fruit). It is all used as glucose by the body and glucose is what is of major import (fructose is important as well of course but for different reasons).

Peat then goes on to critically assess the different forms of carbohydrates available to us, and says that starch can be bad because it has the potential to increase endotoxin production due to presorption of starch grains getting through the intestine into the circulatory system. Now, from what I understand through my readings of Peat, this conclusion is based entirely on a few rat studies. I must say, I always find it ridiculous to look at rat studies when investigating human digestion comparitively, as we have significantly different digestive systems and nutrition requirements than rats. But that aside, these studies showed rats suffering presorption issues from eating RAW, uncooked starch. Firstly, and obviously, we are not rats we are humans and as such we handle starch, digestively speaking, very differently. Secondly, noone ever really eats raw uncooked starch so what is the relevance?! (Ever heard of someone eating raw rice, or raw potatoes?). Cooking the starch obviously makes a massive difference to its digestibility. Thinking about this rationally, and taking into consideration all the evidence and information at hand, i believe this conclusion of Peat's (which he has seemed to base mainly on these rat studies) can be pretty much written off as an error in Peat's judgement on the matter, as controversial as that may be... That being said, I'd be willing to stand corrected if there was some additional evidence or information that I have missed somewhere.

Since energy in the form of carbohydrate is what is of import, and Peat states that starch is just as important and beneficial as sucrose, as long as one is able to handle it digestively speaking (which, as mentioned above, there is no reason to assume otherwise), then rationally it would be reasonable to conclude that a combination of fruit and starch is optimal as a means of meeting ones caloric and nutritional requirements. Having said that, there is the argument that fructose acts to dull the insulin spike from eating pure starch (glucose), however if you are consuming fruit, juice or sugar in other forms throughout the day, along side eating starch, then in all likelihood you are consuming enough fructose to cover this base without thinking to much about it.

 

[raypeatclips]

From my perspective this is all farely simple to work out from the Peat perspective if you take a step back. When you step back a bit and look at the bigger picture to avoid all the little nuances that come from Peat's characteristically undefined and non-authorative nature, things become clearer and somewhat simplified...

Peat recommends a diet with a high intake of energy from carbohydrates as core. This is key, because his rationale is based on human physiology and biology and in looking at the energy requirements we have in the form of glucose to maintain a healthy metabolism and so forth, regardless of the specific type of carbohydrates we eat to get that energy (eg. whether it be starch or fruit). It is all used as glucose by the body and glucose is what is of major import (fructose is important as well of course but for different reasons).

Peat then goes on to critically assess the different forms of carbohydrates available to us, and says that starch can be bad because it has the potential to increase endotoxin production due to presorption of starch grains getting through the intestine into the circulatory system. Now, from what I understand through my readings of Peat, this conclusion is based entirely on a few rat studies. I must say, I always find it ridiculous to look at rat studies when investigating human digestion comparitively, as we have significantly different digestive systems and nutrition requirements than rats. But that aside, these studies showed rats suffering presoption issues from eating RAW, uncooked starch. Firstly, and obviously, we are not rats we are humans and as such we handle starch, digestively speaking, very differently. Secondly, noone every really eats raw uncooked starch so what is the relevance?! (ever heard of someone eating raw rice, or raw potatoes?). Cooking the starch obviously makes a massive difference to its digestibility. Thinking about this rationally, and taking into consideration all the evidence and information at hand, i believe this conclusion of Peat's (which he has seemed to base mainly off these rat studies) can be pretty much written off as an error in Peat's judgement on the matter, as controversial as that may be... That being said, I'd be willing to stand corrected if there was some additional evidence or information that I have missed somewhere.

Since energy in the form of carbohydrate is what is of import, and Peat states that starch is just as important and beneficial as sucrose, as long as one is able to handle it digestively speaking (which, as mentioned above, there is no reason to assume otherwise), then rationally it would be reasonable to conclude that a combination of fruit and starch is optimal as a means of meeting ones caloric and nutritional requirements. Having said that, there is the argument that fructose acts to dull the insulin spike from eating pure starch (glucose), however if you are consuming fruit, juice or sugar in other forms throughout the day, along side eating starch, then in all likelihood you are consuming enough fructose to cover this base without thinking to much about it.

This is a great summary and I completely agree with it, a mixture of both like Ritchie mentions is what I feel best on.

 

[schultz]

How on earth do you eat sustenance calories on fruit and milk? It's an insane amount of liquid

It doesn't seem to bother me. I have done a few things to accommodate it though. I stopped drinking traditional coffee altogether and only drink latte's. This gives you coffee and milk in one (obviously). I never drink water. If I feel like I am getting too much liquid I just add OJ concentrate to milk. This gives you a cup of milk and cup of juice at the same time. I work a job where I am standing and walking around and all that and not a job where I am sitting in an office with air conditioning. In the summertime if I am working hard I can drink a ton of milk. I remember one day last year I drank 22 cups of milk in a day. Sweat was just pouring off of me.

Does it bother anyone that practically every civilization has used starch as the base of their diet? If starch was so bad, wouldn't we see many cases of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabeties in traditional societies? The fact that this wasn't the case until the modern era makes me skeptical of Starch's role in metabolic syndrome.

Starch can be conveniently stored. Also, when food and calories are scarce, relative to modern Western countries, any source of calories becomes important. It's not like these cultures sat around all day on the internet, and they also didn't have cars. Diabetes, obesity and heart disease are very likely caused (partially or completely) by PUFA, and I imagine that was kept reasonably low in most cultures considering seeds oil didn't exist in large amounts.

Now I'm confused, are we debating what ray thinks is acceptable or what ray thinks is best?

lol, I was sort of thinking this.

But we already know the answer. Starch can be good, fruit can be great. Then there is the individual context to consider. If you're not aiming for "optimal" and you want to eat starch because it's satisfying, then that is fine. I have a tendency to eat starch at dinner because I have a family and I want to enjoy myself. Enjoyment is still a good reason to eat the stuff. I seem to enjoy it less in the summer. I also won't eat what I consider to be bad quality fruit. Starch is quite consistent. I consume starch with the thought that it's not as optimal as fruit, and I'm okay with that. I do feel the healthiest when I'm eating good fruit instead of starch though (it could be a mental thing).

 

[theLaw]

Now I'm confused, are we debating what ray thinks is acceptable or what ray thinks is best?

Again.....

@Westside PUFAs see above.

 

[Runenight201]

I'm coming to the conclusion that potatoes and white rice are ok.

Either way I'm going to try out a starch free diet because I've never done it before and I'm curious to see my experience with it. My diet will consist of fruit, OJ, milk, some coconut oil, raw carrots, added sucrose (for those CALS), and bone broth. I think the craving for starch is easily eliminated by salt. I just had a bowl of salty broth and I felt the same warmth I felt with the salty potatoes. I'll probably be adding well-boiled spinach, mushrooms, and whatever leafy vegetable as well...because just salty broth is so plain.

I'll definitely throw potatoes and rice back in at some point, but it shall be a fun little experiment. Its also fun to see my family's reactions when I put a heaping tablespoon of sugar into my OJ =P It honestly feels like a drug the mood lift and instant happiness after a sugar hit like that is pretty fun.

 

[tara]

"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." [-Peat]

Note that this is only true if you take 'potatoes' to include 'sweet potatoes' and some other tubers like taro.

and says that starch can be bad because it has the potential to increase endotoxin production due to presorption of starch grains getting through the intestine into the circulatory system.

AIUI, these are 2 different issues.
1. Endotoxin is from microbes feeding on the starch in the gut, and then dying and leaving endotoxin hanging around to get absorbed from the gut into the circulation. (Maybe excessive endotoxin can also stimulate serotonin production in the gut itself? - not sure about this.) (Endotoxin issues can also apply to other foods that we don't digest fully and leave to the microbes.)
2. Persorption of starch grains is a different issue - they can, according to Peat, get into the circulation themselves, and block tiny capillaries in the cardiovascular system. (Particle persorption issues can also apply to other small insoluble particles, including the excipients in some supplements, and maybe activated charcoal powder.)

But that aside, these studies showed rats suffering presorption issues from eating RAW, uncooked starch. Firstly, and obviously, we are not rats we are humans and as such we handle starch, digestively speaking, very differently. Secondly, noone ever really eats raw uncooked starch so what is the relevance?! (Ever heard of someone eating raw rice, or raw potatoes?). Cooking the starch obviously makes a massive difference to its digestibility.

I think the persorption issue may conceivably also apply to dry-cooked starch - that is, starchy foods that are not cooked with water, and therefore not gelatinised. Eg. think shortbread or other dry biscuits or crackers, and maybe potato crisps. (Cooking them like this means they can be stored much longer, and plenty of people eat them.) There is something significantly different about gelatinised starch. Peat does make a point of saying that starchy foods like potatoes and oats, if eaten, should be boiled for a long time.

as long as one is able to handle it [starch] digestively speaking (which, as mentioned above, there is no reason to assume otherwise)

I think that might be where individual microbiomes etc come into play. Some people - as reported here (and I think Peat may be among them) - really do seem empirically to have digestive trouble or other noticable symptoms with starch - for them, there is real reason to assume otherwise, and perhaps to be cautious about starch when other suitable options are available.

then rationally it would be reasonable to conclude that a combination of fruit and starch

Considering food, rather than just isolated molecules, maybe:
Fruit and starchy tubers?
Sweet and starchy foods?
(or if you want to focus on the molecules, sugar/fructose/sucrose and starch?)

 

[Braveheart]

These low fat days I'm lovin' my Mexican rice pudding made w skim milk, raisins, sugar, cinamon and vanilla...plus tropical fruit...it's the core/largest part of my calories....kinda like Kempners' rice diet except for the milk....feeling good.

 

[johnwester130]

eating ANYTHING is better than starving to death.

So, in context, salmon, bulletproof coffee and raw kale could be helpful.

Peat is not an authoritarian, try potatoes if you want