Starch Diet......????

[Poncho]

So I have found the 'starch diet' online while browsing. It has reviews that all talk about weight-loss and feeling good. Whats going on? 

Please tell me this is as insane as I think it is.

Theyre saying not to eat meat.. for the rest of your life.. ......

[eveheart]

You can find it all on the internet and in books. You can find different people with all sorts of ideas. I used to be a vegetarian. I kept on feeling worse and worse, and in addition, I continued to gain weight on the low-fat plans that were guaranteed to make me slim and willowy. A lot of the advice comes from the US government's mixing politics with research, so that the official government position is the exact opposite of what research shows.

One good argument against an all-starch diet is found in research into how our ancestors ate. Another good argument is how many vegetarians get sicker and sicker. We all find the truth for ourselves, and if we're smart, we learn a little truth from listening to others.

[svrn]

WHy do you care what anyone says? You can pay to get research to say literally anything you want and you can find people whov convinced them selves of many absurd things. Iv talked to people who literally think they are god as well as tons of other outrageous beliefs.

Figure out for yourself what works. Your body will tell you what does and does not work.

[cherimoya_kid]

So I have found the 'starch diet' online while browsing. It has reviews that all talk about weight-loss and feeling good. Whats going on? 

Please tell me this is as insane as I think it is.

Theyre saying not to eat meat.. for the rest of your life.. ......

Maybe some people can get away with it, and not have major health problems.  There are a few small vegan populations in China, and plenty of vegetarians in India. 

However, most people will have healthier teeth, bones, brains, digestion, and reproductive systems by eating some animal products regularly.

[Poncho]

haha alright, its insane what people go for.

[LePatron7]

A starch diet sounds horrible. In fact it's the opposite of my raw diet, which is all simple carbs.

[goodsamaritan]

I was craving for raw starch a year or more ago.
I found my raw starches and stopped craving for them.  Incorporated raw starches in my raw paleo diet.
I now eat singkamas, and yacon and some pumpkin when I feel like it.

[Poncho]

I cant even believe people are actually able to sustain life eating that way long term...

[goodsamaritan]

I cant even believe people are actually able to sustain life eating that way long term...

Humans are survivors.
I view raw paleo diet as living the good life, the healthy life.
But when we do disaster preparedness stuff, you obviously cannot rely on raw paleo diet.

[Poncho]

Well why not??

[Polyvore]

Yeah... why not? Pemmican, as I have said before, can be made raw, and lasts for years without refrigeration.

As for the starch diet...
People's health improves short term because of weight loss. Losing fat removes a lot of stress from the body, improves insulin sensitivity, sheds fat-soluble toxins and lots of other good stuff. The body enters into a pseudo-ketosis to break down the fat in their stores because they are not eating ANY fat (a pure starch diet). The body needs fat from SOMEwhere so if there is none in the diet it will take it from where it can.
But in the long term after their initial weight loss, they will suffer from nutritional deficiencies and fat cravings, and if they continue to eat no-fat after their safe fat-stores are gone then their body will pull it from their muscle cells and their organs to sustain the heart and brain, or eventually they will suffer brain damage when they completely run out of fat.
It is definitely not a sustainable or healthy long term diet, but I can imagine it has it's benefits for the obese, if done for no more than a few months, supplemented with some lean raw fish (for omega 3s to defend against brain damage) ... but then after their 2-3 months they should go on a VLC high fat diet with lots of organs and seafood.

[goodsamaritan]

Well why not??

Why not disaster preparedness?

Our disaster grab bags in the car and the home are canned goods and bottled in plastic drinks.  We have some seeds for sprouting.

[Poncho]

After reading all that Ive read on this site, I would throw away my grab bag haha. I would clearly be better living off the land. If the land was no longer able to provide, whats the point of surviving anyways? Its like they say somewhere that I read recently 'the modern diet is made for survival, thats all'

[goodsamaritan]

Yes, I came to that conclusion too that "the modern diet is a survivalist diet" and it is not meant to make us healthy.

For me, surviving a crisis is a good thing... then when good times are back, raw paleo diet is back.

Say an earth quake, a war, we are the descendants of survivors.

[Poncho]

I havent given it any thought honestly. I have really never imagined not being able to get food

[CitrusHigh]

We've discussed this a few times on here I think and my thoughts have always been the same, that would be your most crucial time to continue with raw paleo. Take hurricane katrina for example. Nobody had to go hungry or thirsty or be afraid of gators or snakes. That RAW snake and gator meat was loaded with bioavailable water, and some of the highest quality nutrition possible. But thanks to dumb dumb medicine, that stuff is dangerous...and loaded with parasites....and salmonella....and bullshit bullshit bullshit. Eat them, they're delicious.

Same thing with the tsunamis. Uh, hello, can you say seafood smorgasbord? If you survived the initial wave of course.

Mudslide xyz latin american country? Eat some wild life, eat some bugs....do NOT cook. lol

Furthermore, I just got over one mutherfucker of a detox because of the last 3 months stoned 12/7, eating shitty food (stress eating because of car and money issues, I KNEW better, did it anyway), and the toxins/oxidation created by stress alone (the stress itself was probably the worst of the three offenders, think about being in fight or flight for about a month straight!). All came out over the course of the last two days in the form of literally hacking up all that tar, and the most delicious detox where I could literally feel my little bug friends gnawing on all my infected tissue. All better today now. But do you really want to hit your body with the worst kind of 'food-like' products when it's already stressed out and in protection mode? The answer is no. There are shelf stable options which are a million times better than any canned foods, and at least passable in emergency. And these would be things like a blend of coconut oil, honey, and anything else you want to put in there that is equally shelf stable.

[PaleoPhil]

So I have found the 'starch diet' online while browsing. It has reviews that all talk about weight-loss and feeling good. Whats going on? 

Please tell me this is as insane as I think it is.

Theyre saying not to eat meat.. for the rest of your life.. ......

The not eating any meat part is indeed insane. The starches part is not that crazy, though the vegetarians pushing starches on the Internet mostly eat cooked starches, which I suspect is suboptimal. Before cooking there was fermenting. Human beings and pre-human ancestors have been eating raw Paleo starchy foods for many millions of years. This is something that most so-called "Paleo" dieters are not aware of. Most are also not aware of the fact that some traditional people bury their roots and tubers to ferment them, so as to make them more tasty and digestible. If someone tells you that a food must be cooked to be made edible, check into whether it can be made edible via fermenting (or bletting in the case of some fruits) before assuming they are correct.

RAW YAMS
> Raw Yam?, http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/omnivorous-raw-paleo/raw-yam/25/

African Species of Yam (Dioscorea) that are Edible Raw (these are not available in American supermarkets):
> Dioscorea bulbifera - the "air potato"/"potato yam" (native to Africa and Asia; apparently only certain varieties are edible raw per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable); http://tiny.cc/t89pow)
> Dioscorea transversa - Long Yam or Parsnip Yam (native to Australia: Women Hunters - Ray Mears Extreme Survival - BBC
> Dioscorea batata (opposita; nagaimo; Chinese yam; yamaimo) - Mountain Yam (native to China; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable))

> Gbodo: Nigerian fermented and dried or parboiled yam
-> Effect of local preservatives on quality of traditional dry-yam slices 'gbodo' and its products, http://www.idosi.org/wjas/wjas2(3)/6.pdf

OTHER TUBERS EDIBLE RAW (FERMENTED)

> Biochemical changes in micro-fungi fermented cassava flour produced from low- and medium-cyanide variety of cassava tubers. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18087867

Studies on bio-deterioration, aflatoxin contamination and food values of fermented, dried and stored ipomoea batatas [sweet potato] chips
http://www.sciencepub.net/nature/ns1011/018_11118ns1011_123_128.pdf

Tubers as Fallback Foods and Their Impact on Hadza
Hunter-Gatherers
Frank W. Marlowe* and Julia C. Berbesque
http://www.bioanth.cam.ac.uk/fwm23/tubers_and_fallback_foods_21040_ftp.pdf

[TylerDurden]

What annoys me is the implied suggestion in the above post that such starchy foods were a typical staple of HGs and palaeo-era cavemen. If one actually reads the studies on modern HGs who still stick to their ancestral diets, one finds, invariably, that such starchy foods were the least desired foods, with meat etc. being far preferred. In other words, such tribes only ate starchy foods in order to prevent starvation and ensure survival, nothing more.

[PaleoPhil]

As usual, you still don't seem to understand. I don't imply things. I only mean what I say, nothing more. Please stop trying to read between the lines--you are the worst at it I've ever encountered on the Internet and if you stop trying to do that with my and others' posts, you will spare yourself the annoyance. There's no hidden meaning there. I'm a simple man with no hidden meanings in my posts.

Least desirable? Yes. Nonexistent? No. Fallback foods does not mean starvation foods. They are different terms with different meanings. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that there aren't any starchy foods that are edible raw. That's what the cooked foodists like Wrangham apparently want people to believe. Let's not buy into Wrangham's propaganda.

[Brad462]

"Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that there aren't any starchy foods that are edible raw. That's what the cooked foodists like Wrangham apparently want people to believe."

Examples please?

[PaleoPhil]

I gave some above, and there's more. Iguana can probably share some more.

[Brad462]

Oh, sorry...  I imagine those would be impossible to find in America.

[PaleoPhil]

True, but that is irrelevant to human physiology. Plus, Jicama and yacon are sold in some American supermarkets. I think Goodsamaritan and Iguana are familiar with these. They are a couple of the "Paleos" who do not become apopleptic when someone talks about Paleo starchy foods.

[goodsamaritan]

"Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that there aren't any starchy foods that are edible raw. That's what the cooked foodists like Wrangham apparently want people to believe."

Examples please?

I have singkamas, yacon and pumpkins.

[TylerDurden]

Fallback foods does not mean starvation foods.

This is just equivocating re terms. The simple fact is that HG tribes report that they do NOT like such starchy foods like tubers, they simply eat them when other foods are in short supply. The fact that people eat particular foods does not mean that they are automatically a natural or ideal part of their diet. I'm thinking of pandas and bamboo, for example, and modern humans with their cooked, junk diets, among others.