Is A Starch Based Diet The Key To Good Health?
What if I told you that potentially staying healthy and eating right is not as difficult as they may often seem? That you could possibly drastically improve your health and give your body the nutrients it needs while still consuming a number of your favorite foods. Even though it may sound like a TV ad you’ve heard a million times before, this time there is no gimmick or set of easy payments that you need to make. This time there is fact, and the facts show that the potential key to a healthy life is a starch-based diet. So what is a starch-based diet? A starch-based diet is a nutritional regimen that fuels your body through 70% starch, 10% fruits and 20% vegetables while cutting out meats, dairy and certain oils. Currently spearheaded by Dr. John McDougall, starch-based diets date as far back as the Neanderthals; with other evidence showing it’s existence throughout even the Aztec and Mayan civilizations.
The one thing each of these civilizations held in common is that they were all lean, fit and healthy -the polar opposite to the typical individual of the modern day western world. Within a starch-based diet you would nourish yourself daily with fruits, vegetables and any assortment of the following (and many other) starch packed foods: Rice Barley Oats Potatoes Bananas Cassava Buckwheat Sweet Potato Chestnuts Water Chestnuts Yams Lentils Fava Beans Peas Chickpeas Rye Breadfruit Mung Beans Acorns Arrowroot This sample-sized list may not seem that appetizing but I’m sure an example daily menu, which Dr. McDougall presented in a recent Ted Talk, might more effectively draw your interest: Breakfast: Bowl of Oatmeal, Hashbrown Potatoes Lunch: Lentil, Bean or Pea Soup, Bean Burrito Dinner: Pasta with Marinara Sauce or Rice with Vegetables Not only does that menu probably effectively tantalize your taste buds but it also does something that I’ve often found other diets lacked: it has the ability to actually make you feel fully satisfied. In my own experience of them, both potatoes and legumes have always been amongst the most filling food items I’ve ever consumed, even more so than most of the meats I used to eat. So not only does this diet allow you to continue to enjoy delicious foods it also satisfies the expanded hunger requirements our previous dietary choices have programmed us to feel we need. By having this feature it allows for an even easier transition to both beginning the diet and also later adjusting to a more appropriate consumption quantity. What to avoid and why? As previously mentioned the starch-based diet also comes with a number of things we are advised not to consume.
These include but are not limited to: meat, fish, dairy, eggs, animal fats, vegetable oil, olive oil and processed foods. In the same Ted Talk, Dr. McDougall also states that the majority of these foods were only ever introduced into our regular diets through wealth. As we became wealthier we then became more enabled to eat in more exotic ways and began consuming starch vicariously through animals. Doing this, forced our bodies to become more effective at gathering calories and outwardly making us more obese, overweight and ill. Much like anything else we have come to understand the solution never lies in working with the adjustments our bodies or consciousness were forced to make, but instead simplifying them back to the way they were naturally designed. Numerous individuals that have adopted the starch-based diet under the leadership of Dr. McDougall have seen arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity all be cured. “When you stop doing things that make people sick, they get well.” – Dr. McDougall Why Starch? As a carbohydrate, starch is not only a great source of nutrients but it is also very low in fat making it ideal for weight loss. A recent article published on everydiet.org stated starch as an incredible provider of proteins, essential fats, vitamins and minerals, with both potatoes and sweet potatoes being recognized as complete foods for their ability to meet all of our nutritional needs. If Getting Healthy Is This Simple, Why Isn’t It Actively Promoted? Plain and simple the main reason why potentially effective diets such as the starch-based diet are not actively promoted is they aren’t profitable for big business. Dr. McDougall reminded us all that within the current US Health Care System 20% of the GNP is expected to be spent annually on illness. We are only most profitable to big business when sick, we are a weak asset to have lingering around when either healthy or dead, so what better way to stay profitable than to promote medications and diets that keep us that way. “The solution is simple but it doesn’t favor business, that’s the problem.” – Dr. McDougall It is therefore up to us to begin both adopting and promoting lifestyle alternatives such as this (or others that we discover) within our own networks and friend circles. Share the information this article has provided you with, and also let it be a foundation to doing even more research into whether the starch based diet is or is not for you. I’m certainly not promoting the starch-based diet as the go to solution for all of us, I just think its definitely worth considering and looking into. Other Tips I thought I’d also take this opportunity to bring up a couple of other helpful tips that both myself and the rest of the CE team have come across that go well in relation to the starch-based diet. For those of you that are interested in watching the TedX talk with Dr. McDougall here it is: SOURCES Everydiet – http://www.everydiet.org/diet/starch-solution TedxTalks – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wfMNNr3akfeature=youtu.be .
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