Q&A with Fat Head Readers
Tom Naughton, producer and star of Fat Head, has recently been migrating toward PHD. The resistant starch philia that has been sweeping through the ancestral health world got him started, and after experiencing some benefits from resistant starch and then potatoes, Tom decided to go back and read our book. He liked it and reviewed it positively.
Tom invited me to do a Q&A with his readers, who had lots of great questions. Here it is.
You should eat a serving of safe starch several times a day – with every meal! No, baked potatoes do not have to be served cold. Room temperature is OK but body temperature or warmer is even better. Make your potatoes enjoyable.
Vlc eater: “Do you recommend PHD for diabetics and prediabetics? If VLC eliminates fasting glucose issues and leads to better glocose levels overall, do you see a problem? Also, is it possible that the self-reported mood issues reported here are a manifestation of mild carb addiction?”
Yes, I do recommend PHD for diabetics and pre-diabetics.
I discussed this question in a previous blog post (“Safe Starches Symposium: Dr Ron Rosedale,” Nov 1, 2011). The basic biology here is that the body’s physiology is optimized for a carbohydrate intake of around 30%. At higher carbohydrate intakes, glucose disposal pathways (such as switching muscle cells from fat to glucose burning) are invoked; at lower carbohydrate intake, “triage” of glucose occurs, reserving it for the brain, and some useful carb-dependent functions are lost. Both extremes are stressful, and in metabolic disorders, both extremes may be difficult to handle.
In diabetes, the body does not dispose of excess carbohydrate properly, so carb intakes above about 30% are harmful. However, all carb intakes of 30% or lower are handled quite well in terms of blood glucose levels. This has been demonstrated in many studies. I like the LoBAG (Low Bio-Available Glucose) diet studies of Mary Gannon and Frank Nuttall, which are quite close to PHD. They tested both 20% carb and 30% carb diets in diabetics, and both carb levels were handled quite well. Here is data from Gannon & Nuttall’s 2004 study of a 20% carb diet (graph is actually from a later paper by Volek & Feinman).
Over a 24 hour period, blood glucose levels were tracked in Type II diabetics on their usual diets (blue and grey triangles) and after 5 weeks on a 55% carb – 15% protein – 30% fat (yellow circles) or 20% carb – 30% protein – 50% fat diet (blue circles):
You can see that on the 20% carb diet blood glucose came close to non-diabetic levels. The same thing happened in later studies of a 30% carb diet.
What happens when diabetics go to very low carb diets, 10% carb or less? The body invokes “triage” mechanisms for glucose conservation under carbohydrate starvation. Among these are hormonal changes including low T3 thyroid hormone and high cortisol. This condition makes fasting problematic and diabetics tend to develop high blood glucose levels in the morning after the overnight fast. Due to high fasting glucose and severe insulin resistance, HbA1c may be elevated by this strategy compared to a 20% or 30% carb diet. Various pathologies, including hypoglycemic episodes, dysregulation of serum fatty acid levels, ketoacidosis, and adrenal dysfunction become more likely. The long-term dangers described in our “zero-carb dangers” series are also present, including a higher risk for some infections, kidney stones, and other ailments.
Evidence that resistant starch helps diabetics also supports the prescription of starchy foods. It’s likely that natural whole foods will be found to be the best source of fiber, and resistant starch in nature is always accompanied by digestible starch.
PHD has generated very good results in diabetics and so, while diabetics might possibly benefit from a slight bias toward lower carbohydrate and higher protein vis-à-vis the healthy, the ordinary version of PHD seems to be very close to optimal for diabetics.
Allison: “I want to know recommendations of how to use “safe starch” for weight loss.”
Eat it! Getting about 20%-25% of calories as safe starches (30% of calories as carbs) is optimal for weight loss. It’s best to cook them in a batch and save them in the refrigerator until meal time, when you can quickly re-heat them. This is both convenient and generates more resistant starch.
Tony: “Dr. Jaminet’s phd proposes safe carbohydrates to replenish daily glucose stores. He proposes safe carbs because of the damaging health effects of grain carbs (except rice). If a subject occasionally (1,2,3 times a week?) consumed bad starches instead of good starches won’t these bad starches still replenish his glucose stores? Won’t the good fats blunt any insulin spike from the bad starches? In other words, phd with bad starches, wholly or partially, occasionally. Would subject’s health still go down the tubes? Would subject gain weight or stall a weight loss?”
Yes, all starches will replenish glycogen (glucose stores). What makes a starch “good” or “bad” (we use the terms “safe” and “toxic”) is not the starch but associated compounds which can be toxic to us.
I can’t say that your health will go down the tubes if you eat bad starches like wheat. Only that they appear to be risky things to eat. They do harm some people. It’s possible that even in people who appear to be unharmed, they do insidious damage. We can’t know for sure, we just think that it’s prudent to avoid wheat.
No, wheat won’t necessarily cause weight gain by itself. It is associated with higher body mass indexes, however, and there may be mechanisms by which it can promote leaky gut which is inflammatory and promotes weight gain. I think it will be slightly easier to lose weight without it.
Lily: “I am sensitive to sugar, and have a huge addiction to it. Starches like white rice tend to raise my blood sugar too much and I end up binging (even if I have it with a fat source). Are there safe starches that I can eat that won’t raise my blood sugar so much? Potatoes seem to affect me the same way white rice does. I would eat potatoes with the peel, or try brown rice, but don’t those have anti-nutrients? Are there starches that are safe for me, a sugar addict with a body that doesn’t handle sugar very well?”
I’ve heard many stories like yours and people are often surprised to find that all of those things clear up pretty quickly on PHD. The pattern:
Carnivore: “My dilemma is when on a VLC diet my blood sugar (A1C test) very good, fasting glucose very high (I am diabetic) When I start some safe starches (tried potatoes and beans) morning fasting glucose excellent – blood sugar throughout the day – way too high after the meals – and even with medication is coming down in a few hours (too slow). So, my question is: how can one determine how much safe starch is safe? (for a female diabetic approaching the retirement age) and what kind of starch: potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes? I assume rice is out of question for diabetics like me.
This is a very common pattern. See my answer to vlc eater above. 20% to 30% carbs is best. If postprandial blood sugars are high, make sure you are cooking and eating starches properly and working on your gut flora with fiber and fermented vegetables.
Work out every day, but vary the intensity, and vary the calories in sync with workload.
Becky: “For the nightshade avoiders among us: Does packaged tapioca starch serve as a resistant starch? If so, can it be eaten like potato starch … in water, raw? I use it to make baked biscuits. Will they, cooled, provide resistant starch? Cassava, sago and taro are not available here. I like to keep rice to a minimum. Plantains, green bananas and sweet potatoes are my starches. I got diverticulitis on VLC and am enormously vested in getting my gut biome fed with resistant starch. I am the Becky quoted in your book, in the thyroid discussion. To update, Hashimoto’s antibodies DISAPPEARED from my TPO blood tests, and my doctor says I no longer have Hashimoto’s. He thinks it was probably giving up wheat.”
Hi Becky, it’s great that your Hashi’s is gone! And thanks for contributing your story to our book!
Detailed questions about resistant starch content of various foods under various cooking methods should be directed to Tim and Grace, who have been researching those things.
I would say however that you should not eat tapioca starch in water raw. Rather, make it into foods like your biscuits and eat them as parts of meals in the PHD manner, accompanied by butter, vinegar, vegetables, and meat. Or at least, as a dessert with butter and vinegar.
Gerard Pinzone: “I’m interested in trying this out to see what difference it might make. I’ve heard that there may be an initial period of weight gain. If true, why? Can you provide a recommended schedule? Something like, “1 tablespoon of potato starch in the morning for one week, then increase by 1 tablespoon each week until you reach 4 tablespoons.” Is it better in the morning than night? Also, what issues are signs that we should stop and which should we grin and bear? Can we start/continue to take a probiotic? Should we?”
Coming from SAD, people almost invariably lose weight when adopting PHD. I haven’t heard of any cases of weight gain in people coming from the standard American diet.
Coming from lower-carb diets, the immediate reaction can be either weight loss or weight gain. There are two principal reasons why weight gain may occur. It is partly a matter of low-carbers “adopting PHD” by simply adding starches to their Paleo diet, thus adding calories; and partly a matter of a gut dysbiosis or infection leading to greater inflammation when carbs are added. The solutions are (a) emphasize nutrient density and dietary balance so that hunger abates with lower calorie intake – that is, implement PHD more fully; and (b) address gut health through immune support and fermented foods and fiber.
I recommend just adopting PHD in toto from the beginning. There’s no reason to delay a good thing.
It’s fine to take probiotics but fermented vegetables usually contribute more.
JD says: “Just like all of this rethinking about RS, I’ve been rethinking the theory about optimal omega 3:6 ratios. Everything I remember reading about it recommends the ideal ratio is between 1:1 and 1:4. But what if it’s less about the ratios and more about eliminating bad fats (franken oils, factory farmed animals). Let’s say someone is following the Perfect Health Diet almost to a T, except most of their fat calories are coming from a high quality olive oil so the O3:6 ratio is closer to 1:8; is there any reason to think that person might less healthy than someone with a more ideal ratio? I do remember reading about how essential fatty acids from O3 and O6 fats compete for the same enzymes, but are there any studies out there that suggest excessive olive oil consumption interferes with therapeutic doses of O3 EFAs?
I guess my question could really be simplified to this; Is there any reason I should stop drowning my salads in olive oil?”
Our peak health ranges are about 1% to 4% of calories from omega-6 fats (mainly linoleic acid) and 0.5% to 1.5% of energy from omega-3 fats (mainly from marine sources).
If you eat at the high end of the omega-6 range (4%) and the low end of the omega-3 range (0.5%), you’ll still have perfect health according to our analysis, and you’ll have an 8:1 ratio.
However, you have to hit fatty acid quantities spot on to be the peak health range for both with that ratio. If you have a 3:1 ratio, you could eat omega-6 anywhere from 1.5% to 4% of energy and still be in the peak health range for both. So that is a more desirable ratio to aim for.
Drowning your salads doesn’t sound good. How about flavoring your salads with olive oil?
Amberly: “If using RS as a supplement (ie Potato Starch in a smoothie or cup of warm water), is there a “best” time of day to take it? In the morning? Before bed? All at once? Split into two or three doses?
Also, I am very sensitive to carbs and need to lose quite a bit of weight. What is the lowest number of carbs you would recommend going? Is it possible to stay in ketosis? Can you get the same health benefits from a cyclical ketogenic diet–IE VLC most of the time with one or two evenings a week of safe starches? Can you get health benefits by adding just RS (ie Potato Starch) but not the safe starches?”
Take RS before your first meal. If you do intermittent fasting and your feeding window is 11 am to 7 pm, take the RS at 11 am.
I would recommend getting at least 20% of calories from carbs, but I think 30% is better for most people.
Lower carb diets should be seen as only temporary therapeutic diets, forms of extended fasting, not as permanent diets. Ketosis is fine, unless you have certain infections, but chronic starvation of desirable nutrients is not. I think it’s best to eat starches daily. No, your body needs glucose as well as a healthy gut flora.
Troysdailybacon: “With regards to Xylitol – I use it as a tooth protocol to fight cavities, but end up injesting a small amount. I’ve heard that it acts like a prebiotic as well. But in the mouth, bad bacteria try to metabolize it, but can’t, so the bacteria die off. How does Xylitol react in the gut? Will it feed the good bacteria and produce butyrate? Or, like in the mouth, will it kill off good and/or bad bacteria in the gut?”
Xylitol like other sugar alcohols can be fermented by some bacteria, and it has antimicrobial effects against others, so it will alter the gut flora (and the oral flora). I am not sure we know enough to say whether the changes are good or bad.
In in vitro studies, xylitol doesn’t seem especially effective at preventing cavities – it doesn’t do nearly as well as fluoride; and it also appears ineffective in human studies. This may be one of those cases where positive early studies don’t seem to be replicable.
Rob: “Do you recommend supplementing with additional resistant starch (potato starch) and other fermentable fibers (inulin, pectin, etc) or just getting these things from food? What are the potential negative effects of too much resistant starch and fermentable fibers?”
I recommend getting fiber from food, but designing one’s diet and preparing food to make it fiber-rich. This can be done by eating natural whole foods, copious fruits and vegetables, and pre-cooking and refrigerating starches.
It is unclear what the negative effects of too much fiber would be, but there is surely a point when you can get too much.
I think of it in ecological terms. You are crafting an ecosystem in your gut, and you want an ecology that favors evolution of a healthful flora.
Humans have an overnight fast of 12-16 hours and a daily feeding window of 8-12 hours. Gut bacteria have a reproductive life cycle of about an hour when food is available. So during your daily feeding, your bacteria have enough food to reproduce and could potentially double their numbers 8 times, or increase their population 256-fold. Then they go through an overnight fast, and their numbers diminish. Ecologically it is a boom-bust cycle similar to deer multiplying when food is abundant and then starving in the winter.
Within the overnight fast, your immune system has an advantage in shaping the ecology. Where probiotic flora are present, it can reward them by generating mucus; where inflammatory pathogens are present, it punishes them with antimicrobial peptides. During the fast, microbes are relatively defenseless due to lack of resources. During feeding, microbes have the upper hand.
Providing lots of fiber creates a boom-bust ecology on a daily cycle, while a low-fiber diet creates more stable bacterial population levels.
In general, you want to eat the amount of fiber that maximizes microbial diversity (that is, genetic diversity) in the gut. Low microbial diversity is associated with disease, high diversity with great health.
Boom-bust ecologies create a different set of selective pressures on bacteria than ecological systems with stable food supplies. Potentially, too great an amount of fiber might reduce microbial diversity by rewarding species that are able to reproduce most rapidly during the food “boom” and preserve their numbers by hibernating during the overnight “famine”. Many beneficial species may not compete successful with hyper-growers like E. coli in such an ecosystem.
Low microbial diversity in the gut is associated with many diseases. Usually low diversity results from starvation of fiber, but conceivably supplementation with large doses of resistant starch could bring about a similar result.
I consider the optimal amount of fiber to still be an open research question. We don’t know the answer. But I am confident the optimal amount is not “infinite fiber.” There will be some amount that is too much.
Incidentally, getting a diversity of fiber types – not just resistant starch – will be important, as this too will promote microbial diversity. This is one reason a natural whole foods approach is likely to be optimal.
Howard Lee Harkness: “Is the “soluble fiber” in chia seed (gel) a suitable “resistant starch” for the PHD? I’ve been experimenting with chia seed gel, and I have noticed that when I eat a serving (about 3 tbl chia seed soaked in 8 oz water about 15 minutes & added to a 20g protein shake with ice, coconut oil and MCT), I am not hungry again for a very long time (12 hours or more). However, I have not noticed any weight loss over the past week. My other main source of soluble fiber is raw carrot (about 1/2 cup per day), which I’ve been trying for about 3 weeks, again with no change in weight. Background: I easily lost a bit over 100 lbs on an Atkins-style diet starting in late 1999, but have remained weight-stable at roughly 50 lbs over goal (give or take about 10 lbs) since 2002.”
I am not familiar with chia seeds, although I do see that they can help rats with dyslipidemia and fatty liver. You might ask Tim and Grace about their resistant starch content.
Kathy from Maine: “1. Tom said at the end of the post, “Perhaps you’ll be persuaded to eat a potato smothered in grass-fed butter.” From my limited reading of PHD, I took away the message that the plan is higher fat (65%), but that fat should come from what naturally occurs in foods and NOT ADDED to foods, like butter on the baked potato, etc. Did I misread this?
2. I’m confused on the 140 degrees. I thought that after the initial cooking and cooling, it was critical that the food NOT be reheated more than 140 degrees to reap the most resistant starch.
3. PHD recommends approximately 15% protein, which on a 2000-calorie diet would be 300 calories, or just 75 grams of protein. How does this correlate to Phinney & Volek’s advice in “Art & Science of LC Living” (and in a podcast I heard from Phinney) that everyone needs three 30-gram servings of protein daily, for a total of 90 – 100 grams or more in order to trigger protein muscle synthesis? In that book, they showed a table of a weight loss plan for a woman, and it advocated 100 grams of protein through all stages of the weight loss from “induction” through maintenance. Also, Dr. Eades notes in his Lifeplan book that women over 50 actually need more protein than men (and recommends at least 100 grams daily) because women of that age don’t absorb as much of the protein as do the men. I’ve always tried to get at least 100 grams a day. Is that too much, in Jaminet’s thinking? Or is 75 – 100 grams a good ballpark figure?”
The recommended PHD macronutrient ratios are 30% carb, 15% protein, 55% fat.
Yes, most fat should come from natural whole foods, but most people will probably eat 2-4 tbsp per day of oils from cooking oil, salad dressing, coconut milk, butter, and other oils. It’s good to put butter or sour cream on a potato.
Resistant starch starts to melt (become digestible) with cooking above the boiling point of water, and the strongest rise in melting occurs between 60˚C and 70˚C (140˚F and 160˚F). Five minutes of cooking at 70˚C / 160˚F will eliminate nearly all resistant starch. It can take several days of refrigeration to restore the resistant starch content.
However, briefly warming a potato in the microwave will not raise the potato temperature to 70˚C, and will not destroy much resistant starch.
It’s true that if you want to maximize muscle mass, you should eat more protein than 15%. However, if you want to maximize longevity, 15% is a good number.
We actually give a peak health range for protein that ranges up to 150 grams (600 calories) per day. So the Phinney & Volek numbers are compatible with PHD. Where you choose to fall within that range is a matter of personal preference.
I’ve seen no evidence that elderly women need more protein than elderly men. All studies of centenarians show that elderly women eat less protein than men, and they outlive the men. It would be strange if they ate less and lived longer even though they needed more.
Amberly: “In creating the most RS from a SS, does it matter how the item is cooked/cooled? IE does it matter if you bake the potato and then eat it immediately after it has mostly cooled (below 140), or does it form more RS if it is baked/boiled then put in the refrigerator overnight, and then reheated? Same type of idea with rice. Does the longer a food is cooled the more RS it creates, or is it pretty much the same?”
General principles, you don’t want starches to become dehydrated. So use gentle water-based cooking methods like boiling or steaming. If you have an autoimmune disease or food sensitivities, favor cooking them in a pressure cooker.
You don’t need to cook starches for a long time to gelatinize them – just cook them as you would normally – but you do need to cool them for a while if your goal is to form extra resistant starch. Refrigerate them at least overnight, and resistant starch content actually continues to increase through 4 to 7 days of refrigeration.
Daci: “What about green bananas as a safe starch? I really miss them since being on a lchf diet. I like them better than ripe ones. Always have. Any thoughts?”
Eat them! Bananas are a great food, green or yellow.
George: “Big fan of PHD and have been incorporating resistant starch particularly in the form of 4 Tbl of Bob’s Red Mill Unmodified Potato starch. Question: Give the nutritional breakdown of 4 Tbl of Potato Starch (160 calories/40 grams of carbohydrate): do does amounts contribute to the PHD minimum levels of starch 400-600 calories per day if this form of starch bypasses digestion in the stomach and small intestine and instead is largely digested by gut bacteria in the large intestine/colon? Or is it recommended to eat some starch that is not “resistant”? If so, how much of “resistant” and Non-resistant starch should be consumed or does it not matter?”
No, resistant starch does not count as a carbohydrate source. It is a short-chain fatty acid source providing about 1 to 1.5 calories fatty acids per gram. It doesn’t provide any carbohydrates. Of course, it is always accompanied by digestible starch in real foods. Those count as carbohydrates.
Yes, you should always combine resistant starch with digestible starch. In general, I think a natural whole foods approach is going to work out best in the end.
General guidelines, you want about 20-25% of calories as digestible starch from “safe starches,” about 10% of calories as sugars from fruits, beets, carrots, and the like, and about 2% of calories from maybe 30 grams of fiber per day, probably about half from resistant starch naturally formed in “safe starches” and half from a diverse array of fruits and vegetables.
Tom invited me to do a Q&A with his readers, who had lots of great questions. Here it is.
Questions and Answers
Jeanne Wallace: “Should we eat a serving of safe starch daily? And must a baked potato be cold in order to be healthful or is room temp okay?”You should eat a serving of safe starch several times a day – with every meal! No, baked potatoes do not have to be served cold. Room temperature is OK but body temperature or warmer is even better. Make your potatoes enjoyable.
Vlc eater: “Do you recommend PHD for diabetics and prediabetics? If VLC eliminates fasting glucose issues and leads to better glocose levels overall, do you see a problem? Also, is it possible that the self-reported mood issues reported here are a manifestation of mild carb addiction?”
Yes, I do recommend PHD for diabetics and pre-diabetics.
I discussed this question in a previous blog post (“Safe Starches Symposium: Dr Ron Rosedale,” Nov 1, 2011). The basic biology here is that the body’s physiology is optimized for a carbohydrate intake of around 30%. At higher carbohydrate intakes, glucose disposal pathways (such as switching muscle cells from fat to glucose burning) are invoked; at lower carbohydrate intake, “triage” of glucose occurs, reserving it for the brain, and some useful carb-dependent functions are lost. Both extremes are stressful, and in metabolic disorders, both extremes may be difficult to handle.
In diabetes, the body does not dispose of excess carbohydrate properly, so carb intakes above about 30% are harmful. However, all carb intakes of 30% or lower are handled quite well in terms of blood glucose levels. This has been demonstrated in many studies. I like the LoBAG (Low Bio-Available Glucose) diet studies of Mary Gannon and Frank Nuttall, which are quite close to PHD. They tested both 20% carb and 30% carb diets in diabetics, and both carb levels were handled quite well. Here is data from Gannon & Nuttall’s 2004 study of a 20% carb diet (graph is actually from a later paper by Volek & Feinman).
Over a 24 hour period, blood glucose levels were tracked in Type II diabetics on their usual diets (blue and grey triangles) and after 5 weeks on a 55% carb – 15% protein – 30% fat (yellow circles) or 20% carb – 30% protein – 50% fat diet (blue circles):
You can see that on the 20% carb diet blood glucose came close to non-diabetic levels. The same thing happened in later studies of a 30% carb diet.
What happens when diabetics go to very low carb diets, 10% carb or less? The body invokes “triage” mechanisms for glucose conservation under carbohydrate starvation. Among these are hormonal changes including low T3 thyroid hormone and high cortisol. This condition makes fasting problematic and diabetics tend to develop high blood glucose levels in the morning after the overnight fast. Due to high fasting glucose and severe insulin resistance, HbA1c may be elevated by this strategy compared to a 20% or 30% carb diet. Various pathologies, including hypoglycemic episodes, dysregulation of serum fatty acid levels, ketoacidosis, and adrenal dysfunction become more likely. The long-term dangers described in our “zero-carb dangers” series are also present, including a higher risk for some infections, kidney stones, and other ailments.
Evidence that resistant starch helps diabetics also supports the prescription of starchy foods. It’s likely that natural whole foods will be found to be the best source of fiber, and resistant starch in nature is always accompanied by digestible starch.
PHD has generated very good results in diabetics and so, while diabetics might possibly benefit from a slight bias toward lower carbohydrate and higher protein vis-à-vis the healthy, the ordinary version of PHD seems to be very close to optimal for diabetics.
Allison: “I want to know recommendations of how to use “safe starch” for weight loss.”
Eat it! Getting about 20%-25% of calories as safe starches (30% of calories as carbs) is optimal for weight loss. It’s best to cook them in a batch and save them in the refrigerator until meal time, when you can quickly re-heat them. This is both convenient and generates more resistant starch.
Tony: “Dr. Jaminet’s phd proposes safe carbohydrates to replenish daily glucose stores. He proposes safe carbs because of the damaging health effects of grain carbs (except rice). If a subject occasionally (1,2,3 times a week?) consumed bad starches instead of good starches won’t these bad starches still replenish his glucose stores? Won’t the good fats blunt any insulin spike from the bad starches? In other words, phd with bad starches, wholly or partially, occasionally. Would subject’s health still go down the tubes? Would subject gain weight or stall a weight loss?”
Yes, all starches will replenish glycogen (glucose stores). What makes a starch “good” or “bad” (we use the terms “safe” and “toxic”) is not the starch but associated compounds which can be toxic to us.
I can’t say that your health will go down the tubes if you eat bad starches like wheat. Only that they appear to be risky things to eat. They do harm some people. It’s possible that even in people who appear to be unharmed, they do insidious damage. We can’t know for sure, we just think that it’s prudent to avoid wheat.
No, wheat won’t necessarily cause weight gain by itself. It is associated with higher body mass indexes, however, and there may be mechanisms by which it can promote leaky gut which is inflammatory and promotes weight gain. I think it will be slightly easier to lose weight without it.
Lily: “I am sensitive to sugar, and have a huge addiction to it. Starches like white rice tend to raise my blood sugar too much and I end up binging (even if I have it with a fat source). Are there safe starches that I can eat that won’t raise my blood sugar so much? Potatoes seem to affect me the same way white rice does. I would eat potatoes with the peel, or try brown rice, but don’t those have anti-nutrients? Are there starches that are safe for me, a sugar addict with a body that doesn’t handle sugar very well?”
I’ve heard many stories like yours and people are often surprised to find that all of those things clear up pretty quickly on PHD. The pattern:
- Binging and cravings and addictive behaviors typically follow starvation, so I’ll guess you’ve been too low carb for too long. Your brain knows your body needs carbs and when it’s available says, “Ah! We’ve found the nutrient we need! Go eat this precious sugar/starch before this rare and vital food disappears!” To fix this, eat PHD levels of carbs. Over time the craving/addiction will go away.
- Weight gain from eating carbs usually indicates a leaky gut and a dysbiotic gut flora, such that when you expose your gut to carbohydrates you get inflammation which activates adipose tissue (an immune organ) and causes it to grow. It also relates to the binging, after past starvation your appetite is upregulated temporarily when you get a chance to repair malnourishment.
- High blood sugar upon eating starch indicates that (a) you are cooking and eating it incorrectly and/or (b) you lack the gut flora needed for proper glycemic regulation. To fix (a), read this post, and to fix (b), you need more fiber, including some resistant starch, and fermented vegetables.
Carnivore: “My dilemma is when on a VLC diet my blood sugar (A1C test) very good, fasting glucose very high (I am diabetic) When I start some safe starches (tried potatoes and beans) morning fasting glucose excellent – blood sugar throughout the day – way too high after the meals – and even with medication is coming down in a few hours (too slow). So, my question is: how can one determine how much safe starch is safe? (for a female diabetic approaching the retirement age) and what kind of starch: potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes? I assume rice is out of question for diabetics like me.
This is a very common pattern. See my answer to vlc eater above. 20% to 30% carbs is best. If postprandial blood sugars are high, make sure you are cooking and eating starches properly and working on your gut flora with fiber and fermented vegetables.
Work out every day, but vary the intensity, and vary the calories in sync with workload.
Becky: “For the nightshade avoiders among us: Does packaged tapioca starch serve as a resistant starch? If so, can it be eaten like potato starch … in water, raw? I use it to make baked biscuits. Will they, cooled, provide resistant starch? Cassava, sago and taro are not available here. I like to keep rice to a minimum. Plantains, green bananas and sweet potatoes are my starches. I got diverticulitis on VLC and am enormously vested in getting my gut biome fed with resistant starch. I am the Becky quoted in your book, in the thyroid discussion. To update, Hashimoto’s antibodies DISAPPEARED from my TPO blood tests, and my doctor says I no longer have Hashimoto’s. He thinks it was probably giving up wheat.”
Hi Becky, it’s great that your Hashi’s is gone! And thanks for contributing your story to our book!
Detailed questions about resistant starch content of various foods under various cooking methods should be directed to Tim and Grace, who have been researching those things.
I would say however that you should not eat tapioca starch in water raw. Rather, make it into foods like your biscuits and eat them as parts of meals in the PHD manner, accompanied by butter, vinegar, vegetables, and meat. Or at least, as a dessert with butter and vinegar.
Gerard Pinzone: “I’m interested in trying this out to see what difference it might make. I’ve heard that there may be an initial period of weight gain. If true, why? Can you provide a recommended schedule? Something like, “1 tablespoon of potato starch in the morning for one week, then increase by 1 tablespoon each week until you reach 4 tablespoons.” Is it better in the morning than night? Also, what issues are signs that we should stop and which should we grin and bear? Can we start/continue to take a probiotic? Should we?”
Coming from SAD, people almost invariably lose weight when adopting PHD. I haven’t heard of any cases of weight gain in people coming from the standard American diet.
Coming from lower-carb diets, the immediate reaction can be either weight loss or weight gain. There are two principal reasons why weight gain may occur. It is partly a matter of low-carbers “adopting PHD” by simply adding starches to their Paleo diet, thus adding calories; and partly a matter of a gut dysbiosis or infection leading to greater inflammation when carbs are added. The solutions are (a) emphasize nutrient density and dietary balance so that hunger abates with lower calorie intake – that is, implement PHD more fully; and (b) address gut health through immune support and fermented foods and fiber.
I recommend just adopting PHD in toto from the beginning. There’s no reason to delay a good thing.
It’s fine to take probiotics but fermented vegetables usually contribute more.
JD says: “Just like all of this rethinking about RS, I’ve been rethinking the theory about optimal omega 3:6 ratios. Everything I remember reading about it recommends the ideal ratio is between 1:1 and 1:4. But what if it’s less about the ratios and more about eliminating bad fats (franken oils, factory farmed animals). Let’s say someone is following the Perfect Health Diet almost to a T, except most of their fat calories are coming from a high quality olive oil so the O3:6 ratio is closer to 1:8; is there any reason to think that person might less healthy than someone with a more ideal ratio? I do remember reading about how essential fatty acids from O3 and O6 fats compete for the same enzymes, but are there any studies out there that suggest excessive olive oil consumption interferes with therapeutic doses of O3 EFAs?
I guess my question could really be simplified to this; Is there any reason I should stop drowning my salads in olive oil?”
Our peak health ranges are about 1% to 4% of calories from omega-6 fats (mainly linoleic acid) and 0.5% to 1.5% of energy from omega-3 fats (mainly from marine sources).
If you eat at the high end of the omega-6 range (4%) and the low end of the omega-3 range (0.5%), you’ll still have perfect health according to our analysis, and you’ll have an 8:1 ratio.
However, you have to hit fatty acid quantities spot on to be the peak health range for both with that ratio. If you have a 3:1 ratio, you could eat omega-6 anywhere from 1.5% to 4% of energy and still be in the peak health range for both. So that is a more desirable ratio to aim for.
Drowning your salads doesn’t sound good. How about flavoring your salads with olive oil?
Amberly: “If using RS as a supplement (ie Potato Starch in a smoothie or cup of warm water), is there a “best” time of day to take it? In the morning? Before bed? All at once? Split into two or three doses?
Also, I am very sensitive to carbs and need to lose quite a bit of weight. What is the lowest number of carbs you would recommend going? Is it possible to stay in ketosis? Can you get the same health benefits from a cyclical ketogenic diet–IE VLC most of the time with one or two evenings a week of safe starches? Can you get health benefits by adding just RS (ie Potato Starch) but not the safe starches?”
Take RS before your first meal. If you do intermittent fasting and your feeding window is 11 am to 7 pm, take the RS at 11 am.
I would recommend getting at least 20% of calories from carbs, but I think 30% is better for most people.
Lower carb diets should be seen as only temporary therapeutic diets, forms of extended fasting, not as permanent diets. Ketosis is fine, unless you have certain infections, but chronic starvation of desirable nutrients is not. I think it’s best to eat starches daily. No, your body needs glucose as well as a healthy gut flora.
Troysdailybacon: “With regards to Xylitol – I use it as a tooth protocol to fight cavities, but end up injesting a small amount. I’ve heard that it acts like a prebiotic as well. But in the mouth, bad bacteria try to metabolize it, but can’t, so the bacteria die off. How does Xylitol react in the gut? Will it feed the good bacteria and produce butyrate? Or, like in the mouth, will it kill off good and/or bad bacteria in the gut?”
Xylitol like other sugar alcohols can be fermented by some bacteria, and it has antimicrobial effects against others, so it will alter the gut flora (and the oral flora). I am not sure we know enough to say whether the changes are good or bad.
In in vitro studies, xylitol doesn’t seem especially effective at preventing cavities – it doesn’t do nearly as well as fluoride; and it also appears ineffective in human studies. This may be one of those cases where positive early studies don’t seem to be replicable.
Rob: “Do you recommend supplementing with additional resistant starch (potato starch) and other fermentable fibers (inulin, pectin, etc) or just getting these things from food? What are the potential negative effects of too much resistant starch and fermentable fibers?”
I recommend getting fiber from food, but designing one’s diet and preparing food to make it fiber-rich. This can be done by eating natural whole foods, copious fruits and vegetables, and pre-cooking and refrigerating starches.
It is unclear what the negative effects of too much fiber would be, but there is surely a point when you can get too much.
I think of it in ecological terms. You are crafting an ecosystem in your gut, and you want an ecology that favors evolution of a healthful flora.
Humans have an overnight fast of 12-16 hours and a daily feeding window of 8-12 hours. Gut bacteria have a reproductive life cycle of about an hour when food is available. So during your daily feeding, your bacteria have enough food to reproduce and could potentially double their numbers 8 times, or increase their population 256-fold. Then they go through an overnight fast, and their numbers diminish. Ecologically it is a boom-bust cycle similar to deer multiplying when food is abundant and then starving in the winter.
Within the overnight fast, your immune system has an advantage in shaping the ecology. Where probiotic flora are present, it can reward them by generating mucus; where inflammatory pathogens are present, it punishes them with antimicrobial peptides. During the fast, microbes are relatively defenseless due to lack of resources. During feeding, microbes have the upper hand.
Providing lots of fiber creates a boom-bust ecology on a daily cycle, while a low-fiber diet creates more stable bacterial population levels.
In general, you want to eat the amount of fiber that maximizes microbial diversity (that is, genetic diversity) in the gut. Low microbial diversity is associated with disease, high diversity with great health.
Boom-bust ecologies create a different set of selective pressures on bacteria than ecological systems with stable food supplies. Potentially, too great an amount of fiber might reduce microbial diversity by rewarding species that are able to reproduce most rapidly during the food “boom” and preserve their numbers by hibernating during the overnight “famine”. Many beneficial species may not compete successful with hyper-growers like E. coli in such an ecosystem.
Low microbial diversity in the gut is associated with many diseases. Usually low diversity results from starvation of fiber, but conceivably supplementation with large doses of resistant starch could bring about a similar result.
I consider the optimal amount of fiber to still be an open research question. We don’t know the answer. But I am confident the optimal amount is not “infinite fiber.” There will be some amount that is too much.
Incidentally, getting a diversity of fiber types – not just resistant starch – will be important, as this too will promote microbial diversity. This is one reason a natural whole foods approach is likely to be optimal.
Howard Lee Harkness: “Is the “soluble fiber” in chia seed (gel) a suitable “resistant starch” for the PHD? I’ve been experimenting with chia seed gel, and I have noticed that when I eat a serving (about 3 tbl chia seed soaked in 8 oz water about 15 minutes & added to a 20g protein shake with ice, coconut oil and MCT), I am not hungry again for a very long time (12 hours or more). However, I have not noticed any weight loss over the past week. My other main source of soluble fiber is raw carrot (about 1/2 cup per day), which I’ve been trying for about 3 weeks, again with no change in weight. Background: I easily lost a bit over 100 lbs on an Atkins-style diet starting in late 1999, but have remained weight-stable at roughly 50 lbs over goal (give or take about 10 lbs) since 2002.”
I am not familiar with chia seeds, although I do see that they can help rats with dyslipidemia and fatty liver. You might ask Tim and Grace about their resistant starch content.
Kathy from Maine: “1. Tom said at the end of the post, “Perhaps you’ll be persuaded to eat a potato smothered in grass-fed butter.” From my limited reading of PHD, I took away the message that the plan is higher fat (65%), but that fat should come from what naturally occurs in foods and NOT ADDED to foods, like butter on the baked potato, etc. Did I misread this?
2. I’m confused on the 140 degrees. I thought that after the initial cooking and cooling, it was critical that the food NOT be reheated more than 140 degrees to reap the most resistant starch.
3. PHD recommends approximately 15% protein, which on a 2000-calorie diet would be 300 calories, or just 75 grams of protein. How does this correlate to Phinney & Volek’s advice in “Art & Science of LC Living” (and in a podcast I heard from Phinney) that everyone needs three 30-gram servings of protein daily, for a total of 90 – 100 grams or more in order to trigger protein muscle synthesis? In that book, they showed a table of a weight loss plan for a woman, and it advocated 100 grams of protein through all stages of the weight loss from “induction” through maintenance. Also, Dr. Eades notes in his Lifeplan book that women over 50 actually need more protein than men (and recommends at least 100 grams daily) because women of that age don’t absorb as much of the protein as do the men. I’ve always tried to get at least 100 grams a day. Is that too much, in Jaminet’s thinking? Or is 75 – 100 grams a good ballpark figure?”
The recommended PHD macronutrient ratios are 30% carb, 15% protein, 55% fat.
Yes, most fat should come from natural whole foods, but most people will probably eat 2-4 tbsp per day of oils from cooking oil, salad dressing, coconut milk, butter, and other oils. It’s good to put butter or sour cream on a potato.
Resistant starch starts to melt (become digestible) with cooking above the boiling point of water, and the strongest rise in melting occurs between 60˚C and 70˚C (140˚F and 160˚F). Five minutes of cooking at 70˚C / 160˚F will eliminate nearly all resistant starch. It can take several days of refrigeration to restore the resistant starch content.
However, briefly warming a potato in the microwave will not raise the potato temperature to 70˚C, and will not destroy much resistant starch.
It’s true that if you want to maximize muscle mass, you should eat more protein than 15%. However, if you want to maximize longevity, 15% is a good number.
We actually give a peak health range for protein that ranges up to 150 grams (600 calories) per day. So the Phinney & Volek numbers are compatible with PHD. Where you choose to fall within that range is a matter of personal preference.
I’ve seen no evidence that elderly women need more protein than elderly men. All studies of centenarians show that elderly women eat less protein than men, and they outlive the men. It would be strange if they ate less and lived longer even though they needed more.
Amberly: “In creating the most RS from a SS, does it matter how the item is cooked/cooled? IE does it matter if you bake the potato and then eat it immediately after it has mostly cooled (below 140), or does it form more RS if it is baked/boiled then put in the refrigerator overnight, and then reheated? Same type of idea with rice. Does the longer a food is cooled the more RS it creates, or is it pretty much the same?”
General principles, you don’t want starches to become dehydrated. So use gentle water-based cooking methods like boiling or steaming. If you have an autoimmune disease or food sensitivities, favor cooking them in a pressure cooker.
You don’t need to cook starches for a long time to gelatinize them – just cook them as you would normally – but you do need to cool them for a while if your goal is to form extra resistant starch. Refrigerate them at least overnight, and resistant starch content actually continues to increase through 4 to 7 days of refrigeration.
Daci: “What about green bananas as a safe starch? I really miss them since being on a lchf diet. I like them better than ripe ones. Always have. Any thoughts?”
Eat them! Bananas are a great food, green or yellow.
George: “Big fan of PHD and have been incorporating resistant starch particularly in the form of 4 Tbl of Bob’s Red Mill Unmodified Potato starch. Question: Give the nutritional breakdown of 4 Tbl of Potato Starch (160 calories/40 grams of carbohydrate): do does amounts contribute to the PHD minimum levels of starch 400-600 calories per day if this form of starch bypasses digestion in the stomach and small intestine and instead is largely digested by gut bacteria in the large intestine/colon? Or is it recommended to eat some starch that is not “resistant”? If so, how much of “resistant” and Non-resistant starch should be consumed or does it not matter?”
No, resistant starch does not count as a carbohydrate source. It is a short-chain fatty acid source providing about 1 to 1.5 calories fatty acids per gram. It doesn’t provide any carbohydrates. Of course, it is always accompanied by digestible starch in real foods. Those count as carbohydrates.
Yes, you should always combine resistant starch with digestible starch. In general, I think a natural whole foods approach is going to work out best in the end.
General guidelines, you want about 20-25% of calories as digestible starch from “safe starches,” about 10% of calories as sugars from fruits, beets, carrots, and the like, and about 2% of calories from maybe 30 grams of fiber per day, probably about half from resistant starch naturally formed in “safe starches” and half from a diverse array of fruits and vegetables.
No comments:
Post a Comment