Thoughts On Starch

Amazoniac

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I'm a bit confused. In the Perfect Health Diet they recommend starches over fruits for carb sources, deviating in favour of glucose over fructose. One of the arguments is that fructose seems toxic and should be minimized, which is fine. But they base a lot of their arguments from an evolutionary perspective, and from that point of view, eating a diet that is considerably low in fructose was probably unrealistic, the ratio shouldn't deviate so much from 1 throughout evolution. The discussion is: are we adapted to handle fructose so well that is desirable to be consumed together or it's better to simply avoid it due to its toxicity?
Both seem to cause problems with endotoxins, which have been discussed.
Blood sugar regulation seems better with fruits. But if minimizing fructose is worth a bit more blood sugar disregulation, is possible to implement some strategies to mitigate those effects greatly. Especially if you consume sugar in small amounts each meal.
Another interesting point is that people that live long don't seem to consume much fruit. Just as treats.
 

Amazoniac

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Fruit where I live is relatively cheap, not as cheap as starches but still cheap. People, regardless of their income, consume their meals with starches as their main source of carbs and leave fruits as desserts or snacks. OJ is common along with meals. Sometimes, as a typical breakfast, coffee with milk, bread with butter and/or cheese and ham and a piece of fruit.
 

narouz

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Amazoniac said:
narouz said:
I thought I remembered a thread on this (Jaminet) topic long ago.
I haven't reviewed it yet:
http://www.raypeatforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=351&hilit=jaminet+starch

This discussion is over two years long. Haha!

Yeah, ha. :lol:

Hard to know what really works, regarding starch.
Progress in that regard has been retarded
by the forum's er reticence to openly declare what a good Peat diet is.
My guess is most here eat a lot of starch.
So...maybe thinking they eat a Peat diet
while really eating more like a Jaminet?
(I can't remember exactly what a Perfect Health diet is.
I own the book...somewhere.)
It is very tough, in my view, to avoid starch.
Still, I have to say, that in my periods of avoiding it nearly completely,
for the most part I did really well
in terms of metabolism.
 

narouz

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Birdie said:
Btw, safe starches is definitely a Jaminet term well known in the paleo community... Where was I."

That quote from Birdie comes from a post of 2 or 3 years ago
from a thread called Peat "Safe Starches"...?
http://www.raypeatforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=253&p=1021&hilit=jaminet+starch#p1021

I think this continues to be like an urban legend of PeatDom--
the so-called "Peat Safe Starches."
As it turns out, it looks like it was a conflation of Peat with Jaminet.
 

narouz

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Here is a page from the Jaminet website,
an article called "Is It Good to Eat Sugar?"
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2012/01/is-it-good-to-eat-sugar/

Here is a taste from the article, focusing upon fructose:

"Why the Focus on Refilling Glycogen?

Why do the defenders of sugar focus on its ability to refill glycogen?

The reason is that fructose is treated by the body as a poison. Dietary fructose is shunted to the liver for disposal by conversion to glycogen, fat, lactate, or pyruvate.

Fructose is treated like a poison because it is dangerous. High doses of fructose have observable harmful effects even in short-term studies. Fructose does no good to the liver while it’s there, in fact fructose combined with polyunsaturated fats very effectively creates liver disease. Fructose in any other organ does harm; for instance, fructose promotes cancer growth.

Given fructose’s rapid disposal, any benefits from fructose have to be attributable to the glycogen or other products it is turned into. If fat, lactate, or pyruvate (a glucose product) provided benefits, dietary fats or starches would do the same, without the risk of fructose toxicity or fats getting stuck in the liver due to choline and methionine deficiency. So if fructose is to have benefits, it has to be via glycogen.

Here, then, is the challenge Peat-atarians face. Fructose has many proven harms. It has only one possible benefit: its ability to help re-fill liver glycogen. Peat-atarians have to show two things:

That a diet with Peat-like sugar proportions – roughly 50% fructose, 50% glucose –is better than a diet with PHD-like sugar proportions – 15% fructose, 8% galactose, 77% glucose – at refilling liver glycogen.
That better re-filling of liver glycogen improves the healthfulness of the diet."
 

narouz

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Andrew Kim...
I used to like his stuff--
some of which was posted here on the forum.
But it looks like Kim asked that his stuff be removed...?

Reason I mention that is
he is mentioned in the Jaminet/starch/sugar thread noted upthread.

I went over to his blog and searched for Jaminet and sugar and starch (or something like that)
and turned up this blog,
a response to Jaminet's rebuttal to Danny Roddy and someone else:

http://www.andrewkimblog.com/2013/02/response-to-dr-paul-jaminets-rebuttal.html

And here is a link to another of Kim's blog articles called
"Are Starches Safe? Part 2"
http://www.andrewkimblog.com/2012/12/are-starches-safe-part-2.html
 

narouz

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tara said:
Fructose malabsorption?: I have wondered whether the possible fructose malabsorption issue might contribute to starch cravings and a feeling of lacking satiety without at least a little starch. I've read but not verified that fructose is most easily absorbed with an equal amount of glucose, which is what you get from sucrose and some fruits. I'm not sure if the theory says this aplies to everyone or just some people. If you drink a lot of juice from apples and pears etc, and honey, you could get quite a bit more fructose than glucose. So I speculate that maybe for some people a problem with high fructose to glucose ratio can be easily solved by eating a little starch to redress the balance. So for some people, sensing this might result in a rational craving for starch.

Thoughts on satiety: Before reading and trying some of Peat's ideas, I was convinced that sugar was harmful, and I didn't eat much of it. I probably wouldn't have distinguished a full belly from satiety. Especially while pregnant and breastfeeding, I tried to always have food in my stomach to prevent morning sickness (at any time of day).
Now that I drink a lot of my calories, go for easier to digest food, and the solids I eat are higher calorie density, I am often satisfied (not hungry) without being full. It took a while to get used to this, and during the transition I think I was sometimes eating more starch than I needed because I felt like I needed it to be full.
G Olwyn refers to people sometimes feeling full and hungry at the same time during recovery from anorexia etc, while their energy needs are very high (sometimes many thousands of calories a day for a period) but their depleted digestive tract is nowhere near up to processing the food that fast - it's full and sluggish, while the cells are still needing more fuel.

Some interesting thoughts, tara.
The concept of satiety is pretty complicated.
And it actually may be too narrow to fully encompass what we're trying to talk about.
Satiety--without looking it up in the dictionary--
would not seem to include the notion of pleasure--
the experience of pleasure during the time of consuming food.
Nor would it include the idea of variety--
the experience of different kinds of foods.
Those concepts--pleasure and variety--are sortuv woven together, I think.

Then there is the element of ritual.
With Peat eating, where the emphasis tends to be on smaller feedings--snacks--
as opposed to big meals...
well, somewhat unfulfilling to invite friends over to
a lavish dinner of orange juice and cottage cheese. :cool:
(I know I'm being somewhat unfair there,
but I do think there is a real point behind the snark. :) )

This is a bit off-course from the charted route of Starches.
But...I think there is a connection:
starches are largely what constitute the "comfort foods,"
and "comfort" is linked to satiety--and the other notions I mentioned above.
 

Jennifer

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narouz said:
well, somewhat unfulfilling to invite friends over to
a lavish dinner of orange juice and cottage cheese. :cool:
(I know I'm being somewhat unfair there,
but I do think there is a real point behind the snark. :) )

This is a bit off-course from the charted route of Starches.
But...I think there is a connection:
starches are largely what constitute the "comfort foods,"
and "comfort" is linked to satiety--and the other notions I mentioned above.
Hmm...inviting friends over to share a lavish dinner of orange juice and cottage cheese? Let me guess...friends don't pick up the phone anymore when you call? Just kidding!

But really, come to my house and I'll cook us up a meal of sautéed mushrooms and scallops in a garlic butter sauce with a side of roasted herbed turnips (your favorite ;)) and we'll finish with cheese cake topped with fruit compote and whipped cream. Now that's my idea of comfort food. :)
 
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narouz said:
somewhat unfulfilling to invite friends over to
a lavish dinner of orange juice and cottage cheese. :cool:

:rofl Narouz if it wasn't for your compositions, I don't think I would visit this site so often.
 

jyb

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narouz said:

The content is identical to Ray's articles or interviews. It feels like a re-hash I can't learn anything from, even the form is often similar. I don't mean this as a harsh critique though, as long as he's not claiming sole credit for it there is nothing wrong with presenting information.
 

narouz

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jyb said:
narouz said:

The content is identical to what Ray uses in articles or interviews. It feels like a re-hash I can't learn anything from. I don't mean this as a harsh critique though, as long as he's not claiming credit for it there is nothing wrong with presenting information.

I remember some contretemps about Kim's stuff at the time.
Some thought he was essentially copying Peat.
Honestly, I didn't get too involved with that.
Just saying, my reaction was I liked it.
Thought he really fleshed out Peat-harmonious lines of thinking very persuasively and, yes, originally--
that was my impression.

I am thankful to Kim for the blog above.
He shines some additional light into this controversial area, for me.
I've only read like 3 or 4 articles by him,
and those I liked.
I'm not perfectly sure
but I think this issue was on my mind
and I did check a couple of articles' footnoting
and wouldn't have minded seeing Peat there.
He used to have oranges on his site
and now has blueberries.
 

narouz

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Jennifer said:
narouz said:
well, somewhat unfulfilling to invite friends over to
a lavish dinner of orange juice and cottage cheese. :cool:
(I know I'm being somewhat unfair there,
but I do think there is a real point behind the snark. :) )

This is a bit off-course from the charted route of Starches.
But...I think there is a connection:
starches are largely what constitute the "comfort foods,"
and "comfort" is linked to satiety--and the other notions I mentioned above.
Hmm...inviting friends over to share a lavish dinner of orange juice and cottage cheese? Let me guess...friends don't pick up the phone anymore when you call? Just kidding!

But really, come to my house and I'll cook us up a meal of sautéed mushrooms and scallops in a garlic butter sauce with a side of roasted herbed turnips (your favorite ;)) and we'll finish with cheese cake topped with fruit compote and whipped cream. Now that's my idea of comfort food. :)

You should orchestrate a Peat Menu, Jennifer!
If anyone can do it, you can,
because you're not even a big starch eater.
I would love to eat that.

Yeah...I didn't even bother inviting anyone to my cottage cheese with orange juice party. :cry:
 

pboy

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its like when I tell people im a master chef, theyd expect me to cook like ornate dishes with tons of spices and stuff...i'd serve them ripe fruit and milk hahah or like, potatoes boiled properly without burning and milk in it

theres an intelligence in efficiency, and a HUGE net benefit not only for the body and mind, but time and energy
 

narouz

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Potatoes ala pboy

-boil 2 skinned russet potatoes on low heat for 2 hours
-serve with butter and salt
 

narouz

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Vita3 said:
I cook ala Peat 40-45 minutes + butter and salt.

Yeah, me too...I was just making a guess that pboy may have some super-secret
"longer-is-better," Master Chef, Peat Potato cooking regime... :D
 

Jennifer

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narouz said:
Vita3 said:
I cook ala Peat 40-45 minutes + butter and salt.

Yeah, me too...I was just making a guess that pboy may have some super-secret
"longer-is-better," Master Chef, Peat Potato cooking regime... :D
Ooh...I'll have to convince Master Chef pboy to share his super-secret Peat potato cooking regime for the Peat menu. We need starch options for those who partake in them. :)

So I've been wanting to recreate Orange Julius' at home and had searched a long time for the authentic recipe and I finally came across it last night on a woman's blog whose first job was at an Orange Julius. All simple Peat friendly ingredients. I'll share it with you, narouz and then you can invite your friends over for a Julius party. I mean, who doesn't love an Orange Julius, right!? :D
 

narouz

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Jennifer said:
narouz said:
Vita3 said:
I cook ala Peat 40-45 minutes + butter and salt.

Yeah, me too...I was just making a guess that pboy may have some super-secret
"longer-is-better," Master Chef, Peat Potato cooking regime... :D
Ooh...I'll have to convince Master Chef pboy to share his super-secret Peat potato cooking regime for the Peat menu. We need starch options for those who partake in them. :)

So I've been wanting to recreate Orange Julius' at home and had searched a long time for the authentic recipe and I finally came across it last night on a woman's blog whose first job was at an Orange Julius. All simple Peat friendly ingredients. I'll share it with you, narouz and then you can invite your friends over for a Julius party. I mean, who doesn't love an Orange Julius, right!? :D

Finally! I'll have some friends!? :cry: :lol:
 

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