Examples, Your List of Raw Starchy Foods?

[goodsamaritan]

Examples, Your List of Raw Starchy Foods?

I'm craving for starch past 2 days.

Fat Meat and fruit won't fill me.

When the human body is purified of accumulated toxins it instinctively gravitates toward starch foods...

from http://www.newveg.av.org/staffoflife.htm

Or maybe I'm iron deficient?  I'll eat liver and pound green kamote tops tomorrow.

Or maybe its the herbal dewormer I'm taking.

Examples, Your List of Raw Starchy Foods?

[RawZi]

    Is Edwin Douglas a vegan, and if so- how long?  Are you craving cooked starch or raw?  Do you eat any raw white meat?  Are you eating enough fat?  If you do, how do you eat fat? Have you tried making soft or hard cheeses? I'm not sure about raw starch foods, I guess bananas, carrots and potatoes.  Cereal was actually smelling good to me the other day.  I'm going to eat some marrow now.

The Staff of Life
by Edwin S. Douglas, Founder,
American Living Foods Institute
The Importance of starch in the human diet is greatly underestimated by many advocates of living food lifestyle. Starch is definitely the staff of life. In this article, we will present our reasons for reaching this conclusion, and contrast the difference in the effect on the human body of fruit foods (simple carbohydrates) and starch foods (complex carbohydrates).

FRUIT FOODS (Simple Carbohydrates)

Fruit foods are not able to provide sustainable energy. They are body cleansers, not body builders. Vegetable foods are the body builders. The human body is not ideally suited to a predominately fruit diet, despite some theories to the contrary.

Too much reliance on fruit foods can result in moderate to severe mood swings, mental disorientation, physical coldness, constant cravings and abnormal weight loss. Fruit foods temporarily elevate the blood sugar level and are easy to digest, they can provide the illusion of health and well being. The blood-sugar highs produced by excessive fruit consumption can become physiologically and psychologically addictive.

________________________________________________

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES...FROM
STARCH FOODS ARE LIKE
TIMED-RELEASE ENERGY CAPSULES.
________________________________________________

Unfortunately, people who eat predominately fruit diets often suffer from progressive nutritional deficiencies which may not become evident for months or years. They also often experience severe cravings for pasta, bread, pastry or chips. These cravings frequently lead to binges, followed by unpleasant periods of detoxification and withdrawal. The body has a natural longing for starch foods, and to ignore this instinctive hunger is pure folly.

STARCH FOODS (Complex Carbohydrates)

In ancient times the primary sources of starch were root vegetables and tubers such as raw yams and potatoes , and high-starch nuts such as acorns and chestnuts. The importance of root vegetables was recognized by Dr. Norman Walker, the famous nutritionist, who emphasized that they are rich in essential minerals and vitamins. In his book, "Diet and Salad", he recommended that we include raw potatoes, yams, parsnips, rutabagas and turnips in our diet by grinding, grating or chopping them and adding to salads. Most people don't find these raw starch foods appetizing.

...

Dr. Herbert Shelton in his famous book, Superior Nutrition, states clearly that whole plants alone do not contain all the food factors required by man in correct correlations. "Only by eating a variety of plant foods, so selected that the total diet of fruits, nuts, and vegetables can supply all the food factors required, can he be well and adequately nourished. The mono- diet is a fallacy...so far as the higher animals and man are concerned. Variety we need, but not the whole variety at any one meal."

He recommend that fruit be eaten as a separate meal, and that other meals consist of vegetables combined with either a starch or a protein.

OUR INSTINCTIVE NATURE

When the human body is purified of accumulated toxins it instinctively gravitates toward starch foods and green vegetables, as well as a modest amount of fruits, nuts and seeds.

[magnetic]

Examples, Your List of Raw Starchy Foods?

I'm craving for starch past 2 days.

Fat Meat and fruit won't fill me.

from http://www.newveg.av.org/staffoflife.htm

Or maybe I'm iron deficient?  I'll eat liver and pound green kamote tops tomorrow.

Or maybe its the herbal dewormer I'm taking.

Examples, Your List of Raw Starchy Foods?

I avoid all such foods, I just do not find them appealing.  My diet is currently raw lamb, raw fruits and some cheese and buttermilk.  I need dairy to make my meat last, I would rather eat dairy than run out of meat and have to eat factory meat.  I haven't been able to find wild fish and the quarter of beef I am going to order won't be available until April...

Your cravings are interesting, my body has a lot of healing to do I bet.  Keep us updated.

[PaleoPhil]

Here are some raw starchy foods:

soaked and/or dried raw sweet potato
bananas
cucumber
coconut
parsnips
carrots
water chestnuts

Sources:
Foods Highest in Starch, http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000007000000000000000.html
Food Classification Charts, http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/application-of-food-combining-principles/food-classification-charts.html

Of those I only eat parsnips regularly, carrots now and then, and raw soaked sweet potato and banana once in a rare while.

[BakeyMan]

acorns are pretty tasty and help diminish my cravings for grain.  it takes a long time to leach the tannins out, so I haven't eaten them in a while.  still have a couple bags in my fridge. 

[goodsamaritan]

A few days ago 2 straight days of beef liver.
Lately I've been having some kayomito (star apple) and some saba bananas.  
Seems my starch craving is being sated for now.

[Sitting Coyote]

Why soak bananas and potatoes?

[PaleoPhil]

It was meant to be read as "raw soaked sweet potato once in a rare while and raw banana once in a rare while." Soaked bananas would be      

I soaked the sweet potatoes because it reduces the toxin load and makes them taste better raw. I ate them more out of curiosity than any view that they're particularly healthy. I was intrigued by reports by raw vegans and Instinctos that they eat soaked and/or dried sweet potatoes raw and by news reports of evidence suggesting that Australopithecines ate significant amounts of tubers (likely raw) and other underground storage organs millions of years ago and some chimps dig up and eat raw tubers and I decided to try soaked and dried sweet potatoes myself. Soaked they were good, but after drying them they lost their appeal.

Coincidentally, after doing this experiment I learned that Australian aborigines soak long yams in rivers before eating them, and they often also cook them, but they sometimes eat them raw.

[kurite]

I know that in general raw starches seem undigestable but has anybody actually tried experimenting with a large portion of their calories coming from raw starches?

[Iguana]

I soaked the sweet potatoes because it reduces the toxin load and makes them taste better raw. I ate them more out of curiosity than any view that they're particularly healthy.

Who know what’s healthy or unhealthy for you? I eat sweet potatoes only if they taste good.

I was intrigued by reports by raw vegans and Instinctos that they eat soaked and/or dried sweet potatoes raw  (…)

Soaked and/or dried? Not me and I never saw nor heard before of anybody doing that!

[TylerDurden]

If I only ate what I found tasted good, I would still be guzzling on raw dairy all the time and suffering greatly, healthwise.


What is bizarre is that during the times when I was in severe ill-health, I found that pasteurised dairy tasted foul to me, with raw dairy giving me powerful, unnatural cravings. Yet, as I have recovered my health, I don't get those warning signals any more. I do get things like frquent urination afterwards, though not as instant as before.  It seems that I was only warned by my body when I was in severe ill-health. There was one exception to this:- I vaguely recall also finding that pasteurised dairy tasted foul to me when I first started drinking it as a toddler.

[PaleoPhil]

Soaked and/or dried? Not me and I never saw nor heard before of anybody doing that!

Interesting, you're one of the few people I've encountered who didn't at least soak or dry sweet potatoes. I think Yuli might be another and there's GCB's Anopsology and a couple other undetailed reports (http://www.beyondveg.com/nieft-k/instincto-guide/instincto-guide1e.shtml, http://www.sunfood.net/anopsology_1.html). With the latter report, there was the usual surprise:

"Sweet potatoes? But, one can't even eat them raw." http://www.sunfood.net/anopsology_1.html

I don't think Yuli and GCB specified exactly what if anything they did with them, so I couldn't be certain whether they might have soaked them like traditional aborigines do, or not.

Do you cut up or peel sweet potatoes or do you just bite into them? I find they taste much better to me after being soaked. If you try it I think you'll see what I'm talking about. I got the idea from raw vegans at an online forum. I think it was GITMR. I think the post had said that one should soak and dry them first before eating them. I found that soaking improved the taste, but drying did not. I'm guessing that if you've seen others report they just eat them as is it was at Paleocru, yes? Only a small number of the vegans reported eating raw sweet potatoes and some of them were surprised that they were edible, just as Tyler here seemed to indicate that they had to be cooked to be made edible. I was surprised myself the first time I saw someone post about eating them raw. The people at the cooked Paleo forums and blogs appear to believe that they have to be cooked.

When I discussed the tubers consumed by Australopithecus and other predecessor hominins, I think Tyler assumed I was talking about cooked tubers, based on his response. It seems that people tend to assume that tubers must be cooked, including Wrangham.

Isn't it interesting that traditional Australian aborigines soak even the long yams (Dioscorea transversa, dangar) that are edible raw?

This video shows Aborigines boiling, peeling, grating and soaking Djitama, a more toxic tuber:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wgeBcWXMo0

If I find the long yams video again I'll share it.

On a related topic, isn't it an interesting coincidence that the fruits that people seem to gravitate towards, other than berries, tend to contain more starch (bananas, breadfruit--there's another starchy food I forgot to mention), or fat (avocado, durian) than avg?

[RawZi]

Do you cut up or peel sweet potatoes or do you just bite into them? I find they taste much better to me after being soaked. If you try it I think you'll see what I'm talking about. I got the idea from raw vegans at an online forum. I think it was GITMR. I think the post had said that one should soak and dry them first before eating them. I found that soaking improved the taste, but drying did not. I'm guessing that if you've seen others report they just eat them as is it was at Paleocru, yes? Only a small number of the vegans reported eating raw sweet potatoes

    I've cut up a raw sweet potato here and there and eaten it.  It can also be good juiced raw in some combinations.  I know that's not paleo though.

[jessica]

do you have any juicy tubers, yams are very dry and irritating raw...i would suggest, jicama, jerusalem artichoke(not an artichoke at all but a delicious crunchy tuber, the best by far, read about it), carrots, celeriliac(celery root), fennel bulb, green peas(perhaps a legume but very delicious young and raw), onions(super sweet, good to kill parasites) cucumber


 there are other veggies i would suggest, however i warm most of them to like sun baked temp as this makes them eaiser for me to digest..zuchinni, green beans, celery

all green, from lettuce to herbs, seriously i eat down on herbs when i am farming

any green in the brassicus family makes me anemic...so i avoid them, besides saurkraut..
brassicas are brocolli, kale, mustard, turnip, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, etc....i can eat them when they are roasted though, along with winter squash and sometimes potatoes, although those are always kinda bleh to me...i think perhaps its because these are more cold weather crops and storage crops. who knows.....

[RogueFarmer]

There is a sunflower relative known as Yacon which is supposedly sweeter and juicier and crunchier than an apple. Hard to get a hold of. I am going to try really hard to  grow some next year.

[jessica]

awesome let me know if you have a good source!  i am harvesting the jerusalem artichokes right now, they are in really shitty soil so they arent that great but it was an experiment.  if i plant what i grew this year in better soil i will definitely have an excellent crop.  there is a kind of nasturtium that creates a tuber that is spicy, id like to grow those as well!

[jessica]

i had to dig this thread up because i have found that aging and drying jersusalem artichokes makes them much more palatable.  it seems as though i am more acutely aware of live foods having mild toxic taste to them when they are in the wrong state to eat, so its been fun learning the process of "at which stage does this food taste the most edible".  mostly it involves neglect...

[A_Tribe_Called_Paleo]

I LOOOOOVEEEEE Dates!

[PaleoPhil]

Here are some raw starchy foods:

soaked and/or dried raw sweet potato
bananas
cucumber
coconut
parsnips
carrots
water chestnuts

Sources:
Foods Highest in Starch, http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000007000000000000000.html
Food Classification Charts, http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/application-of-food-combining-principles/food-classification-charts.html

Of those I only eat parsnips regularly, carrots now and then, and raw soaked sweet potato and banana once in a rare while.

Ooops! I don't think I meant for cucumber or coconut to be on that list, as I don't think they contain significant starch (cucumber is reported as containing a tiny bit).    I don't think dates do either.

I currently eat all those foods except water chestnuts (I haven't seen any raw fresh ones around yet) and cucumbers (unless they happen to be in a salad I eat). I also eat raw plantains and some raw (and some lightly to moderately cooked--I know, I know, I'm a sinner  ) small potatoes. I find I fare better when I eat most of the bananas pretty close to green, when they are starchier, rather than the common raw vegan advice of eating them super-ripe, and I also eat raw dried green plantains, which are another starchy food. I also eat raw jicama. I find it to be super yummy when young, small, fresh, and raw, and some sources report that it contains plenty of starch, though other sources contradict that.

Recently I've also been trying various versions and brands of tiger nuts--another starchy food that can be consumed raw. Too early to comment on them.

[jessica]

jicama seems to get starchier with age...? 

i mostly do sweet potatoes and sunchokes, since i can get them the most locally grown. i prefer them to all other subterranean vegetables as they seem to give the best energy and are incredibly satisfying. i do love jicama but i have yet to find it organic, its the one thing i eat that is conventional, but i really try and avoid it.  i have tried regular potatoes and they seem to give me joint pain so i am not sure i have found the right way to prepare them or perhaps i will always be sensitive to them?  yams are off limits as they make my temples swell. i try to avoid carrots and parsnips these days as they are not as satiating as starchier tubers.

i dont think dates are starchy ATribeCalledPaleo...but i understand.

[PaleoPhil]

jicama seems to get starchier with age...?

That's my guess, though it's just a guess.

Sunchokes are reportedly rich in inulin, which is also supposed to be beneficial, rather than starch.

[RogueFarmer]

I just bought a potted yacon. Wish I had bought more but it was kind of a spur of the moment omg that's yacon as I have only ever heard of it offered for sale a couple other places much less seen one and then it was there. Probably go back and get more tomorrow.

[PaleoPhil]

Cool, I've read that yacon is quite tasty. Wish I had access to it. Yacon is another tuber that is low in starch and high in other prebiotics (reportedly inulin and oligofructose), which is good too, because research by Jeff Leach and others suggests that species variety is beneficial to the GI microbiome and thus to us.

[jessica]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu%C3%B1o

[goodsamaritan]

Today i bought raw BABY CORN / YOUNG CORN.



I'm really serious about this raw starch thing, it's a different kind of nutrition I seem to be looking for.

Any experience with baby corn guys and gals?