Starch makes you fat?

I come across this misconception all the time, even from well meaning health oriented vegans (the ones who avoid vegan junk foods). There is a simple explanation:

If it was as simple as starch turns into fat McDougall, Barnard, Fuhrman, Campbell and tens of thousands of lesser known WFPB SOS free people would be fat. But they are not, they are lean.

WFPB SOS free: whole food, plant based, with vanishingly low levels of added sugars oils and salt.

The key to understanding why this is so:

"The true cause of the pre-condition known as insulin resistance is high levels of fat in the diet".

If you harbor this precondition, then, yes, carbs (good ones or bad ones) will trigger blood sugar instability, fat storage, and ultimately any of the variety of the so-called metabolic diseases. This is why paleos have to limit (any kind of) carb consumption to nil.

How does one prevent or reverse the precondition of insulin resistance? By keeping total dietary calories from fat (any kind of fats, good ones or bad ones) to 10 to 15% (on an average basis). Then insulin resistance becomes insulin sensitivity, and one can consume a high amount of total calories from good carbs, which as we know are the foods with the highest nutrient to calorie ratios. These are the foods that are "nutrient dense" as opposed to "calorie dense".

Nutrient dense foods make us lean and healthy, calorie dense foods make us fat and sick (it's that simple). And one can eat nutrient dense meals until one is completely full, every time, and one will still become lean over time, it is unavoidable. Imagine that.

We do not want to "spend" our daily allotment of calories frivolously. We want to only consume good carbs, good fats, and good proteins. There is no room for "empty calories" if you want to become lean and healthy.

And if we are not insulin resistant any longer we can begin to consume the most nutritionally dense food groups, which are fruits and vegetables, ie the "good carbs".

It's not a "diet", it's a lifestyle choice that will make and keep us lean and healthy. It is the opposite of the (mostly unconscious) lifestyle choice that is making us fat and sick, the calorically dense diet, which by definition is nutrient deficient (overfed and undernourished).

Calorically dense foods in the diet crowds out the foods that are nutritionally dense. One is "always hungry" in that condition, and is pushed to eat too many calories in a continuing (but vain) attempt to get the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other phytochemicals necessary for good health.

Due to insufficient nutrition, a gradual collapse of health ensues, culminating somewhere in middle age for most people, when symptoms of poor health begin to surface.

BTW one cannot eat crap and take supplements and be OK, that does not work. If it did the "fortified" crap big food sells us would make us all healthy, when in fact it's a significant contributor to the general health collapse we see in "developed" world populations.

How ironic is it "developed" countries have the highest disease rates?

"Nutrient density" is the primary reason a WFPB SOS free approach is more efficient in reversing metabolic disorder diseases than any other approach.

And so-called "high raw" (fresh foods) versions of WFPB SOS free are the most efficient of all.

Consider the average medical doctor, unfortunately, untrained in "real" nutrition, and completely clueless. They should all be compelled to wear a prominent warning label on the breast pocket of their lab coats - "nutritionally clueless: proceed with caution".

It all boils down to a very simple formula: base your diet on fruits and vegetables, the fresher the better. You may also find, as many do (myself included), that big meals of fruits in the morning or midday, and vegetables in the evening, is very satisfying and insures we get plenty of both food groups.

Of course one does not have to work very hard to make fresh fruits delicious, but vegetables can benefit from creativity in the kitchen. To begin, keep it simple: a lot of big salads for dinner. Yes, you can put some starchy vegetables in them in order to get sufficient calories: root veggies and legumes. Add a bit of avocado and a nut/seed based dressing (I'm partial to tahini), and you will get enough calories in a day to avoid getting too thin!

And we don't want to get too thin do we? ;-)

You're going to look great, even better, you're going to feel great.