Yeah, I agree with your take on most of those, Iguana (though I find leeks to be OK, but I normally don't eat much at one sitting). I think this is one reason that cooked potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams are preferred to underground storage organs that are edible raw, as most of the ones edible raw aren't that tasty, unfortunately.
I haven't seen yacon yet. Thanks for the feedback on it.
So far the only starchy veg I've found that I like well enough and digest well enough raw to consider eating relatively regularly is parsnips, which surprised me because they taste too bitter to me when boiled. Some sites list them as low-starch, but this one claims they are as starchy as potatoes, interestingly:
http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/application-of-food-combining-principles/food-classification-charts.htmlSoaked sweet potatoes taste pretty good, like sweet carrots, and aren't too tough after they're soaked, but you're apparently supposed to dry them as well and I didn't care for them after drying, but I'll experiment some more.
I don't handle cooked winter squashes well and had gotten indigestion from undercooked winter squash in the past, so I wasn't optimistic about blenderized raw winter squash, but being a mad scientist
I tried it anyway (using butternut squash) out of curiosity to see how it compares to parnsips and soaked sweet potatoes. Man was that a mistake! I ate 1 cup (140g) of blenderized raw butternut squash followed by just water (the squash left my mouth dry and I needed water after eating it and water has never noticeably interfered with my digestion) to avoid confounding variables. It tasted pretty poor to me and was still tough even after blenderizing, though less tough than a whole slice that I took a bite of before blenderizing. I could feel it heavy in my stomach and I gradually developed increasing indigestion after eating it. Like Sabertooth, the squash spiked my blood glucose--from 85 mg/dl before eating it to 140 mg/dl one hour afterwards, an increase of 55 mg/dl--a bigger increase than I expected from a raw veg. However, by 2 hours my blood glucose dropped to 106 mg/dl, which is pretty good. I intended to measure my blood glucose at 3 hours post-prandial too to see if it would return to 85 mg/dl, but had to abandon the experiment right after the 2nd hour, as the indigestion got too bad and I developed nausea and malaise. Eating raw meat with fat resolved the indigestion and nausea and greatly decreased the malaise. In retrospect I wish I had measured my BG after 3 hours anyway, as meat and fat don't tend to affect my BG much.
The next morning I woke with my mouth open and dry, as usually happens when I eat too much plant carbs, though I didn't notice that much increase in dry skin like I normally do after eating too much fruits and I didn't get any zits like I do from too much fruits. Overall the results of my experiment with raw butternut squash were quite negative.
I might still try soaking and drying squash, but if I do, I'll probably go with a smaller amount to reduce the chances of indigestion.
I've also been experimenting with cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes and overall those experiments haven't gone well either so far, though they at least taste good to me and seem to digest well, which I can't say for the raw butternut squash.
