As many of you know, I’m currently at the Ancestral Health Symposium at Harvard University. Yesterday I participated on a panel organized and moderated by Jimmy Moore called “Safe Starches: Are They Essential on an Ancestral Diet?” The panelists were myself and Paul Jaminet on the “pro-starch” side, and Dr. Ron Rosedale and Dr. Cate Shanahan on the “anti-starch” side (though Cate’s position is not quite as cut-and-dry as Ron’s).
I’m giving my talk on iron overload today, so I don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to at least summarize the “anti-starch” side’s arguments and then list some bullet points of my arguments in favor of starch for those of you who aren’t here. I’m not sure if the panels will be made available after the fact (the talks will be).
Ron and Cate believe that glucose is toxic in any concentration, and it’s just a matter of scale. In fact, Ron is fond of saying that “everyone is diabetic”. Since starch breaks down into glucose, then by definition starch is toxic and should be avoided – by everyone. I’m a little less clear on Cate’s position, but she seemed to argue that glucose raises insulin, and insulin causes problems, so everyone should be on a low-carb diet ranging from 20 – 70 grams of carbohydrate a day, starch included.
My arguments in favor of starch
Let’s define the terms: are we debating whether starch is “safe” in healthy people or people with particular health conditions like diabetes or small-intestine bacterial overgrowth? These are very different conversations. People with hereditary hemochromatosis (a disorder that causes iron overload) should not eat iron-rich foods like liver and mussels; does that mean everyone should avoid these foods? Even if starch/glucose is “toxic” for diabetics, should everyone avoid starch/glucose?
If the argument is that starch is not safe for healthy people, I would say there’s little to no scientific or anthropological evidence to support that idea, and overwhelming evidence opposing it.
There are literally billions of people eating high-starch diets worldwide, and you can find many examples of cultures that consume a large percentage of calories from starch where obesity, metabolic problems and modern, inflammatory disease are rare or nonexistent. These include the Kitava in the Pacific Islands, Tukisenta in the Papa New Guinea Highlands and Okinawans in Japan among others. The Kitavan diet is 69% carb, 21% fat, and 10% protein. The Okinawan diet is even more carb-heavy, at 85% carb, 9% protein and 6% fat. The Tukisenta diet is astonishingly high in carbohydrate: 94.6% according to extensive studies in the 60s and 70s. All of these cultures are fit and lean with low and practically non-existent rates of heart disease and other modern chronic disease.
Amylase is thought to have played a key role in human evolution in allowing humans an alternative to fruit and protein. Compared with primates, humans have many more copies of a gene (AMY1) essential for breaking down calorie-rich starches. The ability to digest starch, along with the discovery of fire and cooking, gave humans a new food source that allowed us to thrive even in marginal environments. Some scientists have even argued that consumption of starch, along with meat, was primarily responsible for the increase in our brain size.
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Dr. Rosedale argues that evolution is optimized for fertility, not longevity, and that starch consumption decreases longevity. The evidence he cites from this come from studies of roundworm, C. Elegans. However, I am not aware of any evidence in humans showing that starch consumption decreases longevity, and some of the longest lived cultures in the world consume large amounts of starch. Okinawans over the age of 65 (who grew up eating a traditional diet) are a prime example. According to a study of the traditional Okinawan diet in 1949, they obtained 85% of calories from starch, mostly from sweet potato. Life expectancy was 86 years for women and 77.6 years for men. Life expectancy at age 65 is the highest in the world, at 24.1 years for females and 18.5 years for males. Finally, the Okinawan population has the highest prevalence of centenarians in the world. This is especially remarkable when you consider that Okinawans did not have access to modern medical care during the 40s & 50s and and higher rates of death due to infections like tuberculosis as a result. If glucose is toxic and promotes short lifespan, how do the Okinawans live so long?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. The amount of starch (and carbohydrate in general) will depend upon genetic/epigenetic factors (like amylase production), existing health conditions and the volume and intensity of activity – among others.
If the argument is that starch isn’t safe for those with impaired glucose tolerance, I concede that may be true in many cases. However, I’d like to point out that there’s some evidence that suggests starch may be safe in this population as well. For example, low-fat diets also cause fat loss (even without deliberate calorie restriction), though to a lesser extent than low-carb diets. And there are documented cases of people losing significant amounts of weight and improving metabolic parameters by eating nothing but potatoes. For example, Chris Voigt lost 21 pounds over the course of two months by eating only potatoes and not deliberately restricting calories. Furthermore, his fasting glucose decreased by 10 mg/dL (104 to 94 mg/dL), his serum triglycerides dropped by nearly 50%, his HDL cholesterol increased slightly, and his calculated LDL cholesterol dropped by a stunning 41% (142 to 84 mg/dL).
There’s more, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go further. If Drs. Rosedale and Shanahan are going to advise us to avoid an entire class of food that has been eaten for a couple of million years by humans, the burden of proof is on them to tell us why that food isn’t safe. Evidence from roundworm experiments and biochemical/mechanistic speculation is not enough in the face of overwhelming evidence that starch and glucose are safe in the absence of certain existing health conditions.
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so interesting to read how people are different.
my experience is opposite to Kelly’s.
i was always cold, always cold. did i mention i hate being cold?
switching my diet to Paleo diet really made me cold resistant.
(i’m still cold but more normal now)
but then i never go long term VLC long cause i don’t need to loose weight.
i’m doing pretty close to PHD w/ some Weston Price thrown in.
regards,
In my experiences as a nutritionist starch has been an important piece of the diet i recommend to patients. This includes people with impaired glucose tolerance as well as athletes. For example, I had a 65 year old male that made the switch to paleo. He was losing weight, but had all the tell tale signs of a cortisol issue (inability to fall and stay asleep, fatigue, etc.) I had him to everything the same except add in about 8oz of starch a day and everything turned around, including his type 2 diabtes. As an athlete myself, I cannot function without adding starch into my diet. Recovering from workouts is brutal without it.
Thanks Kevin & Kelly for your answers. Are you taking/recommending probiotics or thyroid meds? I’m waiting for an appointment with a new thyroid doc – What about the whole Gluten/ Leaky gut issue- that starches provide more problems with leaky gut?
Yep, I am. I was having undiagnosed thyroid problems before radically changing my diet (8 months ago) and then Paleo really did me in. I was RIDICULOUSLY cold all the time, wasn’t having a menstrual cycle (I’m 35), felt incredibly depressed and all I wanted to eat was sugary foods. And as I read back over my symptoms, I feel like what I wrote is almost an understatement. I can’t even begin to tell you how bad I felt. It was the scariest thing ever. My husband was worried, my co-workers were worried. I could barely even leave the house. My mother who was 65 just died a year ago. She, in effect, drank herself to death and now, looking back, I strongly feel it was the same thing I went through. She had stopped eating and just lost her will to live. In Janurary (and even before) when things started to get bad, I went to doctors but they didn’t know what was wrong and would just send me home with prescriptions for anti-depressants. I was on Wellbutrin for over 5 years.
So in January I started down a different path and tried several different things – BHRT was the first. It didn’t help. It actually made things worse for me. So I stopped both (BHRT and Paleo) for awhile. My next plan was to go back to my awful diet of high sugar as it did get be back to maybe 30% (previously, I was in a VERY bad place – probably operating at 10-15%) while I tried to find a thyroid doc. That took awhile and there were a lot of tears shed by me as they would just shrug their shoulders over and over and tell me my thyroid was fine. Doctors just do NOT understand the thyroid. I never did find a good one but I did discover, in the meantime, that I had an RT3 problem and found a Yahoo Support Group for that. Then, finally found a doctor who would prescribe Cytomel so I started that 1 month ago. I also started back on Paleo (no starches in the beginning) but started noticing the depression and energy decrease creeping back on so I started to experiment with starches too. The Cytomel was definitely helping but the high amount of safe starches made it even better.
Even this morning I was thinking in wonder about how much better I feel!!! I am just not the same person I was 4 weeks ago. I typically am always busy – even on the weekends, but up until this month, it has been 7 long months of doing absolutely nothing. This past weekend was one of the first weekends I was almost back to my old self I am operating now at about 70% of my former self. Hopefully, things will get even better in the next month (I’m supposed to take the Cytomel for 12 weeks).
This article and all of the comments has made me very emotional in the past week as it is the first time I have found other people that were having the same problem as me. Thank you to everyone for your comments and thank you to Chris Kresser too. I searched the web high and low for people like me for the past 7 months. It wasn’t until this article that I now have more insight into what is wrong.
I currently take 100mg of Cytomel. There is a Yahoo Support Group on the subject if you end up having an RT3 problem. And my email address is kellystee [at] yahoo dot com if you need someone to talk to. I will admit that I was skeptical about whether or not the RT3 thing was really real and whether the Cytomel treatment would work, but I was desperate. So far, so good for me. I can’t decide if it is Cytomel or the safe starches that is helping or a combination of the two. I’m not sure and I was in such a bad place that I’m not ready to stop either. My gut tells me that it is the two combined (no pun intended). I’m only doing the high dose of T3 for 12 weeks, so I was going to wait it out and just see.
I’ve been on Paleo, and watched my already low temperatures dropping. As they go lower, my weight goes up, my hair falls out, and my body aches increase. And my Total Cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides go up. Sure, Paleo is fine for many people, but it sure isn’t the whole story for me! I’m going to start increasing the good starches and continue to take my temperature. I have a feeling, this is the answer for my condition – and others with compromised thyroid function! (Hashimotos…)
Thanks Chris, you are always presenting important information to empower us to take care of our health!
Yep, Lianda. Same with me. You must be smarter than I am. I didn’t figure it out at first and continued going low carb for quite a bit longer. Things got really bad for me – I pretty much lost my will to live, rarely left the house, I couldn’t even lift my arms to wash my hair I was so exhausted.
I now have to eat quite a bit of safe starches everyday. I eat a huge bowl of rice in the morning, usually a potato for lunch and then more rice or a potato for dinner (along with vegetables and protein). I also eat 3 pieces of fruit – one for each meal. Ever since I upped my carbs, my mood and energy level improved immediately. I do lose weight VERY slowly though.
My experience was quite different. I have no reason to join a whining chore of the people who seems to turn their bodies into starvation mode with a diet they thought was a Paleo. I went LCarbing at November 2007, at 46 years old. I have multiple health issues, my main concern are probably allergies(asthma, Hashimodo hyperthyroid, eczema, cat allergy, allergy to fish, citruses, strawberries, some more), also migraines. Everything got better, since I went on the diet I stopped requesting any asthma meds from my doctor, cats and fish allergies became less pronounced. If other allergies got better, why Hashimodo should be worse? I keep being asked by different people what I am doing for my skin and hair. I eat plenty of fat, especially grass-fed butter, coconut oil and eat organ grass-fed meats. I have not get a single infection or seasonal flue since I went on a LC diet, all hot flashes and mood-swings associated with pre-menopause stopped, my migraines are 10 times better. I also hanged the Synthroid on the Armour thyroid two years ago. Addressing thyroid issues could be tricky and require more than just silently taking any med you doctor prescribed. Problem with hair may be associated with inadequate medications.
Galina,
I think that people are looking for information to improve their health and not a “whining chore” of people. I have gotten a lot of beneficial help and suggestions.
I’m really happy for your success with LCarbing. However, it doesn’t work the same way for everyone, as evidenced by the people who follow the recommendations of the “gurus” and find their symptoms are not responding the way they “should” be according to the “expert”. It’s a matter of being aware of your own body, how you feel, what you’re eating, and WHAT’S eating you: Stress!
I think it will be beneficial to figure out why you body decided you were starving. Often details make huge difference. Did you loose a lot of weight? Did you limit your calories, eat enough fat, protein? Blaming limiting carbs for Hashimodo looks quite ridiculous for me.
I’m not blaming Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis – it’s showing me that the condition does NOT improve, but actually got worse eating a strict Paleo Plan. There is enough corroborating information from very respected Paleo and other health practitioners that explains the biochemistry that supports including more starches, not from grains, but from beans, rice, potatoes and other similar sources.
If something doesn’t work for you, and other people say “It SHOULD”, that still doesn’t mean it is the right thing for your body. I believe in being observant and mindful to see how I get the best results and health.
There were populations of people living on LC diets without loosing their hair or getting allergies. BTW, I am not eating zero carbs, but often under 50 grams. I think Kelly’s diet contains an unhealthy amount of carbohydrates by the standards of any Paleo-bloger, more in the line with Dr. McDugal or Ornish.
I eliminated wheat about 7 months ago, and I pay far more attention to good nutrition than I used to.
Never deviated much from ideal weight, and when I lost 10 pounds years ago, then went back to eating whatever the heck I wanted to, it took me about 2 years to gain the pounds back. That alone is enough to convince me that I am well-suited to certain kinds of starches, so I would never dream of going VLC. My carb consumption varies each day, but is maybe 75 grams on average. I would like to get the level closer to 100.
It is stunning to realize the incredible diversity among humans. Although I never dissected a cadaver in an anatomy lab, I remember reading in a book that no two humans have the same stomach shape. The shape of your stomach is as unique as your fingerprints. This leads me to wonder what that fact may have to do with the relative ease with which some people digest certain foods, while others suffer with the same intake.
It helps to know your genetic heritage. After having studied my genealogy, I have concluded that I must descend from a long line of folks who have unbelievably strong pancreases. On the other hand, my skin seems to be my weakest organ, and if it was possible to inherit a problem from either side of the family, I did.
You also have to think about early environment. People who were breast-fed babies have a huge jump-start on those who were not. I believe those of us who grew up during the 50’s/60’s also have it easier. There just weren’t any fast food places around then. My mother cooked three meals per day from scratch, and for hungry family members as well, especially for my father who ran a business from home and never missed a meal in his life!
I appreciate the posts of the individuals above who recommend seeking out local and seasonal forms of produce. That’s what I do as well. I’ve practiced gardening for 3 years now, and I admit I’m not very good at it, but I have learned so very much. And about starches, though I wish I could grow my own crops of wonderful Yukon Gold potatoes (I’m space limited), I recognize at the same time that potatoes and rice are CHEAP and abundant sources of some good nutrition. I have decided that I must find some rice at an Asian market. I’ve only tasted sticky rice once, but I remember that I loved it.
AWESOME.. Dr. Rosedale just posted his to the point, factual, easy to get your arms around answers to the questions that just did not seem answered during the panel at AHS12.. http://drrosedale.com/blog/2012/08/18/a-conclusion-to-the-safe-starch-debate-by-answering-four-questions/
For me, this seals the deal in my mind, getting the truth, the roots of all of this..
The question in my mind is, “How many people are ACTUALLY healthy?”
If starch is bad for people who are not healthy, we need to know who that is.
My doc (a typical GP) thinks I’m one of the healthiest people she sees: because I don’t drink or smoke, and I’m thin. Fact is, I feel totally like crap all of the time. I sleep/wake all night, and cannot move without a struggle until late afternoon each day. I suspect it has something to do with either mold toxins (I’m a farmer) or some other fundamental environmental or mineral issue that the AMA avoids dealing with because it would mean an evaluation of our entire food and health systems. (Yes, I’ve had sleep studies, amalgam removal, lyme tests, h pylori tests, magnesium levels tested, blood chemistry tested, and I am not diabetic).
So, when I hear a statement like “X is safe for healthy people”, I really wonder who the hell these people are, and who is doing the evaluation of them.
Auntiegrave..
GREAT point you have made. I am sooo looking forward to Dr. Rosedale’s points that he is going to post on his blog about this topic, taking it much further. Just because one is ‘healthy today’ does not mean one should not do all you can do to maintain that. It seems silly to wait until one gets sick to then change your diet as Nora Gedgaudas put forth in her presentation. Also, like you have pointed out there are many people who might feel ‘healthy’ or their doctors tell them they are ‘healthy’ when in fact they are not. I believe it is not to categorize as Dr. Kresser has a diet for ‘healthy’ and a diet for ‘sick’ if one wants to maintain ones ‘healthy status’ but rather should the emphasis be that a healthy person might be able to cheat a little more and the body recover easier than a sick person, thus a sweet potato ‘treat’ once in a while.. but I do not believe that eating that way all the time is actually doing the body good, again for the long term goal of ultimate health. Diabetes is awesome (well not, but just for this point).. as it is a disease of accelerated aging as pointed out by Rosedale – THUS we are ALL aging to one degree or another it is just more easily witnessed in a diabetic with the results of what they have eaten. Don’t look at ‘them’ and think you are all so different, you are just aging at a slower pace, but keep doing what you are doing and you might soon catch up and ‘them’ might be ‘YOU’. Drs. Kresser, Rosedale, Jaminet, Whel and several others are all heads and shoulders above the ‘standard of practice’ and that is awesome that they are all showing up within Paleo. Their difference though might seem minor, is that last 8% of a tipping scale is where one might see a MASSIVE difference in longer term results. However, for the paleo, cross fit, muscle massed, organic god in your mid 30’s you might just be more focused on today and be clouded from the long term as you stand right now in your strength. Though, all in all… compare these diets with the SAD diet, OMG light years ahead as far as health and longevity. They have a lot in common, keep it healthy unprocessed, organic, grass fed, forget the grains, throw in some blackberries if you must, easy on the dairy.. and work towards the greater good and away from drugs when possible, be kind and respectful, and first and foremost, do no harm. I cannot wait for Rosedale commentary on this topic as it is always rich in supporting data/studies and just he just explains it so it makes common sense to me.
Thank you for this post Chris! I just recently started a blog to bring together people dealing with autoimmune diseases and I always find your information invaluable. Keep up the good work!
To tell the truth, I don’t remember what else annoyed me so much as countless &apm,s in comments. It almost makes me to grind my teeth. I wish it would be dropped someday.
Would someone please tell me what “amp” means? I keep seeing it referred to in comments and am stumped.
Cathryn, “&” is an HTML character entity reference. Your browser should be replacing it with “&” when it renders the web page.
Doh, I just realized you might not see that second character. “amp” is supposed to be translated into the ampersand character.
Once again, so well done, informative and thorough. Thank you so much for taking the time to relate this information while you are so busy at the symposium! I really like how even-handed you are, providing information so we can make our own decisions. As a rehab nurse who checks the HgA1C on about 20 patients a month, all I can say is that the answer is in the blood sugar results for most people. They can determine for themselves so easily through self-testing glucose an hour after ingestion of starchy foods, and see what’s happening. Feelings of well-being are great, but you often don’t feel symptomatic from higher blood sugars, just low ones, so you have to be careful since hyperglycemia can be so insidious. Some people don’t even experience weight gain when they are in trouble.
I would really appreciate it if you have time to report on your iron-overload talk- my husband has hemachromatosis
I can explain the potato diet:
http://hopefulgeranium.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/the-role-of-vitamin-fortification-in.html
This is such a fascinating and frustrating topic for me. Like so many other women I have read here (and elsewhere on other paleo-ish blogs), I lost a lot of weight going “lowish” carb primal/paleo (under 100g of carbs). While amazing at first, I ended up with lower-than-low levels of thyroid hormones and sex hormones (and amenorrhea for years). So low, in fact, that my doctor stated he was surprised the lab even wasted ink on my levels.
I began to include starches in the form of yams and sweet potatoes. (If I could invent a new diet of only this food, let me tell you, I would.) I immediately began to feel my mood lift and my satiety level rise; however, I would also feel incredibly guilty after eating these items because it has been somewhat ingrained into my cranium that starches are often reserved for athletes (which I used to be, but NO longer) post-workout or others who are quite physically active. In other words, I felt I didn’t “deserve” them. How creepy is that?
The medications I am on have packed on the pounds, so there again, I am afraid of my beloved yams adding more weight. After a trial of a couple months of small, daily yam ingestion, I gained weight–but my mood was better. Hmmm. When I stopped, I didn’t lose, but I didn’t gain. And, I wasn’t so satisfied or happy. It truly is an individual issue, isn’t it? Perhaps I will have to settle being the overweight, cheery chick with her yams….
Thanks, Chris, for this timely post. I enjoyed it and all the others’ input, too.
The question to me is, what kind of starch? Grain or something else? My experience is grains and sugars make me feel run down. Other kinds of starch are just fine.
The term “safe starch” comes from Paul Jaminet and the Perfect Health Diet. He lists potato, sweet potato, taro, rice, tapioca, and a few others. Most grains (rice being the exception) are not considered safe due to the phytic acid, lectin, and anti-nutrients like gluten and such. Soy also falls in this category, as it refined sugar. He does not suggest that all these starches would be safe for everybody (diabetics especially), but should be well tolerated, and even beneficial, for most people.
Sorry, I meant to type “as DOES refined sugar.” Not ‘it.”
I think this is a matter of choice and paying attention to the body. For example, I notice when I eat white potatoes I have a tendency to bloat. I don’t have this experience when eating sweet potatoes. I also tend to do the same thing when eating rice. I put rice in the starch and grain category. Since I’m intolerant to gluten it may have something to do with it. I prefer to let my body be the deciding factor when consuming starches…I think most people should practice the same thing. Thanks for a great article and addressing this.
Rob Genova wrote: “Hundreds of groups all over the world consumed starch as a staple **prior** to the onset of the diseases of modern civilization. That is, before DIABETES EXISTED.”
Diabetes has been known problem for 3,500 years. The ancient Egyptians documented it. It was documented in India about the same time period. Writings in Greece 300BC documented cases of Diabetes. There have been CAT Scans of Egyptian mummies that show they had onset of heart disease and obstreperous even though some of them died in their late 20s. This doesn’t mean that all carbs are bad but apparently the heavy consumption of wheat in Egypt didn’t prevent CVD or Diabetes.
Poor wording on my part. I should have wrote the “epidemic of diabetes”. The disease was not widespread until the modern era. And, nobody is claiming that wheat (or carb) consumption **prevents** diabetes.
I thought this article and all the comments were very interesting. I, like most posters, went downhill when I cut out carbs. It was pretty bad for me – I had severe depression, panic attacks, and I could sit in a chair for hours with my eyes glazed over (after a month of VLC). And if you asked me what I was thinking when I was sitting there, I was thinking NOTHING. It was like my body had ceased to function – I truly believe it was a form of hibernation. I had experienced problems with the depression and low energy prior to VLC. Never did I think VLC would make it worse though.
Now that I have re-introduced carbs, I am better but not nearly 100%. I am probably only operating at about 50% and have been battling my issues for 8 months.
Recently, we went to China and spent a month there. It was such an eye-opening experience for me. We met an American woman and her husband and had dinner with them one night. This is a summary of everything we learned about them:
Wife:
-she is from Atlanta
-she is African American
-40 years old
-her diet as a child and young adult consisted of processed and fried foods (mac n’ cheese and fried chicken is what she gave as an example)
-when she moved to China she weighed 350 pounds
-she married a Chinese man
-she struggles a lot with the fact that he has so much energy and is always ‘go go go’. It is very hot where they live and they have to walk everywhere. (The part of China we were in is similar to a tropical rain forest. I personally found it to be miserable. My husband I would be walking out on the street and dripping with sweat, our hair and clothes plastered to our bodies, yet a Chinese person would have just a light sweat on their forehead and cheeks.)
-1 year after living there, her excess weight started to just “melt off” (her words) and she now weighs 200 3 years later. She said she didn’t try at all.
Husband:
-weighs 120 (he is a very thin, willowy guy)
-35 years old
-grew up in a village in central China
-he had no electricity as a child, all water was carried in the buckets with the pole across their back (including for farming).
-diet as a childhood mostly consisted of rice (A LOT of it) and vegetables; he said the village had a huge farm that everyone in the village tended to so this is what their village ate. He had chicken occasionally growing up. Not much fish. No dairy. No wheat.
-he said northern villages grew and ate wheat and they were much stockier people. Not fat, but stocky.
-the husband has a RIDICULOUS amount of energy!! i was shocked and very envious. if Americans had that much energy, I can’t imagine all that we could accomplish. The couple had been walking and shopping all over the city all day. He carried all of the purchases because the wife was too tired. It was hotter than hot. They had walked several miles. The wife looked like she was ready to collapse. She said she was grumpy because she was so tired and hot. But it was his only day off in quite awhile, so he was ‘go go go’ (her words). While we were eating dinner he had to walk home (1 mile) to accept delivery of furniture and then he came back to the restaurant. He was sweaty when he returned, but didn’t seem tired. We then finished dinner which was probably another 2 hours.
-I asked him what was the Chinese opinion of Americans and he said that Chinese think that Westerners are lazy. I could easily see this point of view after meeting him.
-his wife said she went to his village when they got married and he was expected to work on the farm while they were there. She commented that the work was very hard and they worked a lot of hours.
-they have no oven (most Chinese do not), no refrigerator (she said 50% of Chinese do not) and no clothes dryer (most Chinese do not).
-she said when she cooks dinner, she walks through the market that is across the street from their house, buys meat and vegetables and then comes home and cooks that and rice and that’s what they eat. There are no leftovers, so no need for a refrigerator. She says all of the vegetables are bought from farmers and are usually fresh from the field that day. The meat is sometimes alive and the vendor will kill it right there and hand it to her or it will have been killed that day. She said everything they eat is very fresh. She said she never understood fresh until she started cooking and eating like this.
-she says the meat in China is very different. It tastes different, it cooks differently. I agreed on the taste part. My husband and I would refer to it as “Chinese meat”. It just tasted different. I didn’t prefer the taste but I’m sure I could get used to it. Eating meat in China made me VERY skeptical of meat in the United States. We were eating 80% grass-fed meat in the US. Now it is all I will eat. I think there is something very wrong with grocery store meat here after having been to China. It is too fatty.
-she showed me a bowl (what would be a very large cereal bowl – the ones with very tall sides like at Ikea) and she said that her husband eats FOUR (FOUR!!!) bowls of rice that size everyday.
Ever since coming home from China, we have been eating a lot more rice (1 c. a day). Based on what I read in this thread though, I might have to increase that amount!
I grew-up in a different culture without any access to a fast-food (Soviet Union), we carried all our purchases by hands,walked everywhere, I used to live in an apartment without an elevator on a 4-th floor, my mom still lives in that place. Such life-style prevents extreme obesity in the population, children and young people were all lean, but there were still wide-spread Western deceases in population like CVD, diabetes, cancer. Yes, people look thinner, they are more energetic, but all it on a surface. My slender father died from a heart attack at 51, my naturally thin grandpa died from a liver cancer. My naturally plump grandma is still alive at 93, but has an Alzheimer. I convinced my mom to try LCarbing one year ago, her blood pressure immediately got normal and stays normal since, her GERD is also under control now.. She was not a junk-food eater, most of her carbs used to come from a sour-dough rye bread.
Of course, it is ridiculous to say that all carbs are a poison, but different people have different safe dose.
Kelly.. you cannot compare what you would do compared to your friends husband… as you said he is ‘go go go’.
The food quality in China is at least as bad as in the US. They use plenty of drugs and pesticdes and with all the corruption going on every single food category has plenty of disgusting scandals attached to it. Trust me, while I’ve never been to the US I’d rather eat your meat than the garbage I get in China.
Also, many westerners who come to China and stay there for some time actually gain weight, the food is drained in cheap, re-used veggie oil.
Your comparison is IMO quite unfair, poorer people in rural areas of China = lower calories, less unhealthy choices, lower food reward, higher activity level. Compare the Chinese in the coastal regions to America and you get a different picture. No offense, but I think you saw things a little bit through rose-colored glasses when you were there.
Hi, Chenzhen. I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend. And you are right. They are many areas of China where the food quality is very poor and you see more than a few overweight people. I was just surprised to see so many people that could live off the land. I have always grown up in a city. Even where I grew up in the South, we lived in a city and I have never really seen anyone live off the land like the man we went to dinner with. It was such an amazing experience to me to meet someone that grew up without electricity eating a diet of mainly rice and vegetables. And it’s rice too – I was so surprised as I have been raised believing that rice was a “carb” and carbs made you fat. And here this skinny man eats 4 bowls a day!! Wow.
I will say though that, when we were visiting, we were in Yiwu and Ningbo. I’ve been told that these cities are “mainland China”? I think these are more of non-major cities and we met many people from the countryside. We also had been to Shezhen, Hong Kong, and Shanghai and the quality of the food was very different.
It was just so interesting to see this man who had come from a completely different walk of life. It left a huge impression on me.
Carbs might not make you fat if your thiamine status is marginal:
http://hopefulgeranium.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/some-footnotes-in-support-of-thiamine.html
thiamine status has been galloping upwards in the USA but is still marginal in most of asia.
You need extra thiamine to convert carbs to fat on a high-carb diet.
I think that safe starches are fine. I’ve added a lot more potatoes to my diet, and I haven’t noticed any difference in weight. I think that Low Carb diets work well in genreral, because they cut out so many problematic foods, like refined grains, refined sugars, soy, and dairy (and I know that dairy is a gray area). But I also think a low carb diet based heavily on say, protein powders, high omega six oils, and artificial sweetners is going to be more damaging to the body than one that is based on poatoes.
I also like potatoes quite a bit. Don’t know for sure, but I would say I eat about 100-150 carbs a day.
From what I can gather, most Anglo-Americans have healthy ancestors who ate quite a few carbs. Ever read Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder? The breakfasts they consumed were made up of lots of pancakes, doughnuts, jellies, and of course good animal products like butter, bacon, and milk. They also ate popcorn, bread, and potatoes. Of course, they worked their butts off too – at least during the summer. However, reading that particular memoir, I would estimate that those men ate close to 3,000 calories a day and I don’t think any of us are in danger of getting near that if we up our carbs a bit. During the “long winter”, Almonzo and his brother Royal lived mostly off of pancakes and syrup. Almonzo Wilder lived to a ripe old age of 92 despite a crippling bout of diphtheria and an extremely stressful life….and lots of sugar and white flour that crept into his diet during the later years. Carbs are not an obstacle to a healthy life. Toxins, pesticides,refined oils, flours and sugars are where the problems lie.
I was always slim to begin with. Then a while back, I went Paleo (not to lose weight) but for better blood glucose control, gluten avoidance, and the other benefits. So I reduced my carbs. I found that I was getting “too thin” and needed to gain weight. So I have added back “safe starches” — rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes. I also consume sugar in the form of fruit, dark chocolate, coconut water, etc. But still avoiding “carbs with gluten” such as pasta, bread, processed food.
I think safe starch is fine, just don’t do a whole bunch of them all at once. Spread them apart. However, I’m still struggling to gain weight. I eat a lot and about 4 times a day, including pasture raised animal fats, eggs, poultry, avocado, olives, and butter. Any ideas why I’m unable to gain weight? Metabolism too fast? Mal-absorption? Not able to produce insulin?
Restricting starch into ketosis helped with inflammation, but then re-introducing safe starches at a lower level helped in other ways. Both were good and I intend to do both ketogenic and moderate-starch from time to time, but my balance point is around 100g starch (and some sugars) daily.
Many of those higher-carb cultures are calorie restricted or follow intermittent fasting patterns. They also have flourishing microbiota which generate extra amino acids in the case of the PNG highlanders.
A high rate of de novo lipogenesis is fine on low-calorie high carb diets under these conditions.
The Irish before the 1850s potato famine did very well on a mostly potato diet; better than similarly placed English eating bread.
One condition you do not want high-carb is Hepatitis C, as the viral life cycle is dependent on hepatic lipogenesis. http://hopefulgeranium.blogspot.co.nz/2012_02_01_archive.html
The normal metabolic flux, carbohydrate => fatty acids => CO2 + H2O favours the virus; leaving off the first term of the flux equation sufficient to restrict lipogenesis tends to restrict it.
This could also be achieved by constant caloric loss, were such a lifestyle sustainable. (not gain and loss, but constant loss). I have known anorexics and speedfreaks to clear the virus completely, and the almost complete (5%) suppression of lipogenesis in such states was the likely cause (they sure didn’t have enhanced immunity).
Very interesting post, George. I ground my way through the science and multitude of TLA’s and am sharing it with people I know with HCV especially the genotype 1 folks. I also sent your blog link to a clinical nurse specialist here at Christchurch who supports people with HCV for the gastrologists. Looks as though there’s been a lot of studies done investigating why what you suggest actually works.
Somehow my cursor stopped here while skimming through the immense comment pile this issue generated (it’s telling that this is by far the most commented on of all Chris’s posts). I know of some studies into clearing fatty liver with high-fat diet, but are there any you know of on HCV replication?
Post them to my blog if anything turns up.
Animal PUFAs, especially DHA and AA, are suppressive of HCV, and I’m going to look at factoring them in soon.
Thanks for the response.
Alrighty, I’ll ask. The director of our lab, Peter George, is also a lipids specialist so he might be a good one to make enquiries to and one of the gastroenterologists seems to have a lot of HCV positive patients, (as a phlebotomist, I call them my Tuesday morning chamber of horrors due to the tiny and grouchy veins) but as you know doctors know relatively nothing about nutrition.