Thoughts On Starch

[koganmj]

I've only done 50/50 soda to OJ without any added sugar, but when you drink the coke you can just "feel" that it does something you probably wouldn't be able to replicate with OJ/soda/coffee/etc

 

[zooma]

It makes me smile every time I see people singing the praises of coke, it's been my favourite food/drink my whole life

Those of you who opposed to any starch in your diet, what is your take on (ripe) bananas? They don't seem to have the affect I describe below although that could be due to the portion size.

I've eaten rice a few times since I posted this thread and paid close attention. It definitely sapped my energy and even after a decent amount I was still hungry for more. I'm going to limit it only to the odd occasion now (the opposite of what I was thinking about when I posted this!) and eat as much as I want when I do. I'm sure there are some anti-stress benefits from doing this..

 

[Such_Saturation]

Yes... Come to the dark side!

 

[Amazoniac]

Starch can be a source of endotoxins. But so can fructose. We've a limited capacity to handle it in one sitting. Excess will reach the large intestine and ferment just like the evil starch. Ironically providing the same beneficial short chain fatty acids and other by-products.
Like I wrote somewhere, the amount of a food is often overlooked.

Regarding eating pure white rice, it won't satiate you just like a strained orange juice wouldn't. It will destabilize hormones involved in blood sugar regulation and as soon as insulin does its job, hunger will strike again.
White rice and strained orange juice are complements to a meal, not a meal in themselves.

 

[Amazoniac]

I've never understood rice... I eat an enormous pile of it, then I go check how many calories that was, and it's like one hundred. Waste of time. Oh yeah, then the hypoglycemia kicks in... then the endotoxic stress after that...

At least you can use it for avoiding the salt to cluster. Haha!

 

[Such_Saturation]

White rice and strained orange juice are complements to a meal, not a meal in themselves.

Yeah that is why I ate it with protein... It was even worse!

 

[Amazoniac]

White rice in special is so rapidly absorpted that it won't cause much problems with endotoxins. It's cery low in toxins also. So the main concern with it is the blood sugar regulation.

 

[Such_Saturation]

White rice in special is so rapidly absorpted that it won't cause much problems with endotoxins. It's cery low in toxins also. So the main concern with it is the blood sugar regulation.

My concern is the huge mountain I had to eat!

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Starch can be a source of endotoxins. But so can fructose. We've a limited capacity to handle it in one sitting. Excess will reach the large intestine and ferment just like the evil starch. Ironically providing the same beneficial short chain fatty acids and other by-products.
Like I wrote somewhere, the amount of a food is often overlooked.

Regarding eating pure white rice, it won't satiate you just like a strained orange juice wouldn't. It will destabilize hormones involved in blood sugar regulation and as soon as insulin does its job, hunger will strike again.
White rice and strained orange juice are complements to a meal, not a meal in themselves.

You're comparing a liquid (OJ), to a solid (rice). Liquid is never satiating. Sushi would not be satiating without white rice.

 

[narouz]

Like I said, I simply cannot get to sleep at night without consuming starch (regardless of copious amounts and combinations of sugar/protein/fat). That would make it pretty essential (for me personally) in my mind.

Yeah, I see your point, kogan.
It is bad to not be able to sleep!
You know, I don't think I've heard this kind of need for starch before.
It would be interesting to hear if anybody else
needs to eat starch to go to sleep.

After you eat the starch and go to sleep,
are you able to stay asleep?

(Thanks for the videos...I'll check 'em out!)

 

[narouz]

Starch can be a source of endotoxins. But so can fructose.

Is this an amazoniacal thought or a Peatanical one? :)
I'm not bitching, Amazon,just interested.

 

[tara]

Like I said, I simply cannot get to sleep at night without consuming starch (regardless of copious amounts and combinations of sugar/protein/fat). That would make it pretty essential (for me personally) in my mind.

Yeah, I see your point, kogan.
It is bad to not be able to sleep!
You know, I don't think I've heard this kind of need for starch before.
It would be interesting to hear if anybody else
needs to eat starch to go to sleep.

I would certainly have said this in the past - that I couldn't sleep unless I'd eaten starch - actually, lots of starch. I have gradually been moving to more sugar and less starch, but I'm not sure I could have made a sudden and complete switch at the beginning. It took me many months to work up to the amount of sugar I eat/drink now. When I started, I'd feel sick from too much sugar at half the amount, but I still needed more carbs.
Now I have days with little or no starch, and mostly sleep OK (esp if I go to bed!). (My current sleep is probably affected by medicine, too, though.)

 

[narouz]

Like I said, I simply cannot get to sleep at night without consuming starch (regardless of copious amounts and combinations of sugar/protein/fat). That would make it pretty essential (for me personally) in my mind.

Yeah, I see your point, kogan.
It is bad to not be able to sleep!
You know, I don't think I've heard this kind of need for starch before.
It would be interesting to hear if anybody else
needs to eat starch to go to sleep.

I would certainly have said this in the past - that I couldn't sleep unless I'd eaten starch - actually, lots of starch. I have gradually been moving to more sugar and less starch, but I'm not sure I could have made a sudden and complete switch at the beginning. It took me many months to work up to the amount of sugar I eat/drink now. When I started, I'd feel sick from too much sugar at half the amount, but I still needed more carbs.
Now I have days with little or no starch, and mostly sleep OK (esp if I go to bed!). (My current sleep is probably affected by medicine, too, though.)

Well, there ya have it.
2 starch nightcappers. :)

Are you able to stay asleep after your bedtime starch, tara?

 

[tara]

Currently I usually wake up to roll over one or more times and go straight back to sleep with or without starch (but with progest-e and pizotifen, which probably help sleep). But some days I feel strong cravings for starch, and feel like I would have trouble sleeping without it. I usually allow myself at least a little when that happens, which is less and less often.
Before Peating I ate much more starch and very little sugar, and I think whether I slept through the night depended at least partly on whether I'd eaten enough carbs and enough calories (along with the effects of other stressors).
During the transition from more starch to more sugar, I think sleep related to either total calories or total carbs (and more needed after strenuous exercise). But in the beginning part of the transition I couldn't eat enough carbs from sugar without feeling sick, so I needed some starch too.
Long before reading Peat, I used to keep snacks by the bed to eat if I couldn't get back to sleep (I mostly avoided sugar through the day, but sometimes had chocolate biscuits by the bed as large 'sleeping pills'. Or bananas, or banana chips.
I don't count myself as typical wrt sleep - coffee in the evening has more often than not resulted in deeper, longer sleep (but with down sides).

 

[koganmj]

You know, I don't think I've heard this kind of need for starch before.
It would be interesting to hear if anybody else
needs to eat starch to go to sleep.

Just in the last few days I've been reading the Getting Ripped thread, there was a comment somewhere within the first few pages I think that a user reported not being able to sleep without starch.

After you eat the starch and go to sleep,
are you able to stay asleep?

Very much so. The funny thing is, I only need an actual pretty minuscule amount of starch to get the benefits - a mere handful of pretzels suffices (I'm getting around to going to a health food store and finding something Organic Corn cooked in Coconut Oil, I promise!). And yet, I can have a big thick chocolate milkshake before bed but it still doesn't get the job done.

I would certainly have said this in the past - that I couldn't sleep unless I'd eaten starch - actually, lots of starch. I have gradually been moving to more sugar and less starch, but I'm not sure I could have made a sudden and complete switch at the beginning. It took me many months to work up to the amount of sugar I eat/drink now. When I started, I'd feel sick from too much sugar at half the amount, but I still needed more carbs.
Now I have days with little or no starch, and mostly sleep OK (esp if I go to bed!). (My current sleep is probably affected by medicine, too, though.)

I do remain open to the possibility that my current need for starch may simply be a "snapshot in time" reflective of my current state of health. I never rule anything out in the future, and if I do ever have a diminished need for starch I'll definitely report in.

But some days I feel strong cravings for starch, and feel like I would have trouble sleeping without it.

I know this feeling, which was what I alluded to in my earlier comment where I said the days I experiment without starch are physically and mentally un-enjoyable.

White rice and strained orange juice are complements to a meal, not a meal in themselves.

Couldn't agree more. Well said.

 

[tara]

I do remain open to the possibility that my current need for starch may simply be a "snapshot in time" reflective of my current state of health. I never rule anything out in the future ...

This make sense to me.
Not only does one solution not always fit all, sometimes it doesn't even fit one forever.

 

[Amazoniac]

Starch can be a source of endotoxins. But so can fructose. We've a limited capacity to handle it in one sitting. Excess will reach the large intestine and ferment just like the evil starch. Ironically providing the same beneficial short chain fatty acids and other by-products.
Like I wrote somewhere, the amount of a food is often overlooked.

Regarding eating pure white rice, it won't satiate you just like a strained orange juice wouldn't. It will destabilize hormones involved in blood sugar regulation and as soon as insulin does its job, hunger will strike again.
White rice and strained orange juice are complements to a meal, not a meal in themselves.

You're comparing a liquid (OJ), to a solid (rice). Liquid is never satiating. Sushi would not be satiating without white rice.

In sushi, white rice is in the context of a meal: wrapped in fiber, mixed with some protein and a bit of rice vinegar with small amounts of sugar.
So the rice is a complement to the meal.

 

[Amazoniac]

Starch can be a source of endotoxins. But so can fructose.

Is this an amazoniacal thought or a Peatanical one? :)
I'm not bitching, Amazon,just interested.

Definitely not mine. Neither from Dr Peat.
Fructose should be as relevant as starch concerning endotoxins. Especially if you are dealing with higher amounts.
Fructose malabsorption is the term coined to this issue in people who decrease their ability to handle fructose and excessive amounts of it reaches the large intestine. It happens to everyone, with the portion that are not absorpted due to the limited amount we can handle at once. And from many complaints I've read, fructose seems much more problematic for most people than the starch itself.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Starch can be a source of endotoxins. But so can fructose. We've a limited capacity to handle it in one sitting. Excess will reach the large intestine and ferment just like the evil starch. Ironically providing the same beneficial short chain fatty acids and other by-products.
Like I wrote somewhere, the amount of a food is often overlooked.

Regarding eating pure white rice, it won't satiate you just like a strained orange juice wouldn't. It will destabilize hormones involved in blood sugar regulation and as soon as insulin does its job, hunger will strike again.
White rice and strained orange juice are complements to a meal, not a meal in themselves.

You're comparing a liquid (OJ), to a solid (rice). Liquid is never satiating. Sushi would not be satiating without white rice.

In sushi, white rice is in the context of a meal: wrapped in fiber, mixed with some protein and a bit of rice vinegar with small amounts of sugar.
So the rice is a complement to the meal.

Wrapped in fiber? The seaweed wrap is hardly a fiber. One is not getting satiety from the seaweed portion of the meal. Same with vinegar and sugar. Those are not the satiating parts of the meal. Depending on the species of seafood in the sushi, it is going to be a mix of fat and protein. People who eat sushi often order a side or two of white rice for extra satiety.

Other Asian meals such as pho, ramen, and noodle/rice based dishes are starch based meals. Those meals are only satiating because of the starch in them as the meat portions and non-starch plant portions are very little compared to the starch. It is the other way around, the meat/low calorie plant is the compliment to the starch.

For me, potatoes and rice are key to satiety. The difference can be experimented by eating a large amount of steamed broccoli or any other low calorie/low starch vegetable until satiety is reached. Then do the same with potatoes/rice. I am hungry much, much quicker when eating the fibrous low starch foodstuff vs. the high calorie potatoes/rice. The difference is astounding to me. Potatoes/rice offer much longer satiety.

There is a difference between starches like cereals and beans, and potatoes and rice.

Ones perception of what a "complete" meal is, is completely up to them.

 

[Amazoniac]

Consuming starch in the context of a meal is important. Satiety comes not only from enough calories, but from suficient macro and micronutrient intake. Eating starch in the context of a meal provides those nutrients and also delays its transit time, so you don't have an excess of energy delivered at once.
Isolating foods from the meals is confusing. Satiety comes from balance, and in the case of sushi, the protein will give most of the satiety; fiber from seaweed, acid from vinegar, viscosity from sugar, cooled rice will all decrease the fast absorption of starch and contribute to satiety.
Other strong indicator that starches are not so great on their on is the palatability. They taste much better in the context of a meal, as complements.