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With the new year coming up, I was considering some way of really putting Peat’s ideas to the test. Last year, I had done a really low fat diet (many days falling under 10 grams) for the first three or so months of the year, as a way to help deplete PUFA. Going higher gelatin and using a lot of beef tendon made this possible. I was considering trying the same thing again this year, but it didn’t seem as appealing.
Then I remembered the whole “No Starch” thing. Some members on the old RPF had reported excellent results dropping starch, including kreese, CLASH, and Hans. I tried it for a bit and did have some okay to good results, but not earth shattering. Looking back on the timing, it was the first half of 2020. Yeah, not the best of times overall. I think I probably gave up at some point, not thinking there was much point to anything (darks times, right?)
Welp, things are going a lot better this year, so was thinking it’s really time to put that to the test. I ate a fair amount of starch on the very low fat diet, as it seemed very hard to do without. I’ve continued to eat more starch this year in general, and tried some times lowering protein and increasing starch. Those times seemed to give some of the worst effects. I like protein, I like the more saturated fats, and I like sugar and fruits. Starches are okay, but it seems like one of the easiest things to cut out, if you make sure to get adequate sugar (which might be in the area of 300-500g for me).
This idea somewhat reminds me of the old Atkins Diet, only with adding high sugar foods. I still have a copy of the original “Diet Revolution,” and Atkins kept on mentioning that a client dubbed his diet “The Steak and Salad Super Diet.” I always thought that sounded pretty cool, and made the diet sound pretty appealing. I was thinking no starch needed a catchy name, and that’s what hit me today-
The Steak & Sugar Super Diet.
Now THAT sounds like a diet! I started thinking a bit more, and it makes sense to me to apply Atkins “Carb Rules” to starches alone. Consider “No Starch” 20 grams a day or less. This gives some wiggle room to use cornstarch or masa harina as a sort of breading or thickening agent, in some dishes.
It would be pretty easy to modify those original Atkins meals, too. Just have the main course, and add a sugary drink like juice or soda. The original “Diet Revolution” was written in the early 70’s, so even a higher fat diet would still be fairly low in PUFA back then.
I plan to try and limit things to 50 grams of starch a day or less for the month of December (really, for things like holiday meals, get togethers and such), and try a much stricter near zero starch diet come Jan and Feb.
Of note, it seems like pineapple and mango might be good sugary additions to meals in the place of something like a potato. I often used to cook ground beef, bell peppers, onions and potatoes as a simple meal. Swapping out potatoes for pineapple or mango seems like it would work pretty well.
@Zack Vegas “Of note, it seems like pineapple and mango might be good sugary additions to meals in the place of something like a potato.”
I like these two fruits for your steak diet because they have digestive enzymes in them, unlike the starchy slower to digest potato.
@Zack Vegas what were your unwanted symptoms from the lower protein higher starch diet? What are you trying to achieve with this steak and sugar diet, which by the way makes me feel great with this combo at lunchtime.
@Zack Vegas the beef and mango dish looks delicious with the sweet and salt contrast. I oils sun out the soy sauce for salted coconut aminos instead. I made this ground beef dish tgst was amazing with two of your components. He is my Instagram post on it…
“When I gave up seed oils a lot of the
Asian food I cooked went away too. I don’t use sesame oil or soy sauce anymore. Today though I put my mind to making myself something Asian-style despite my limitations. I had a pound of grain beef I defrosted and thought of my baking soda meat tenderizing hack and went with it. My idea here was to tenderize my pound of ground beef and fry it in beef tallow in one big chunk crispy and not breaking up the chunks much. Whew was this ever a good move! Halfway through my fry time I scooted the beef over and added in a bunch of sliced mushroom, tons of fresh minced garlic, a teaspoon of minced ginger from a jar and let that get good. Finally I added a teaspoon of salt and 3 tablespoons of coconut aminos and garnished this with fresh chopped green onion. I even ate it with chopsticks! Had I known this would come into existence today I may have bought some white or yellow rainbow carrots to add in. Tenderize the beef ahead of time. I added a teaspoon of baking soda, gently mixed it in with a wire potato masher and let it sit for about 45-minutes. I am going to go a couple of hours next time. This was so quick, easy and impressive to make that it is going on my guest list. Add in a little brown sugar to this and it is a teriyaki, maybe even scramble in a couple of eggs. If you are not a mushroom fan sub in broccoli instead.
When I was eating more starch and less protein, I tended to feel more sluggish, less energy, and maybe more bloated. It seems like starch is really the main food that just seems to sit in your stomach.
Intuitively, I just sort of want to give No Starch a second go, that’s the biggest reason. I enjoyed putting a very low fat diet to the test earlier this year (with high glycine and gelatin content), and while it did good things for weight and was okay with energy, I was most surprised at how the rough skin on my elbows and heels got really smooth.
As far as benefits I am looking for that others have mentioned, those would include weight loss, elimination of excess water weight, better energy, digestion and transit time. Plus, it just seems like it would be “fun.” I was re-reading some of the benefits of fructose in particular, and was wanting to experiment with things like pure fructose powder and agave nectar, along with all the other sugary foods.
One other thing, I’ve been dealing with the sort of “wheat belly” since I was about 8 years old. Have never been “lean” for pretty much as long as I can remember. I think there are probably several factors that contribute to this, including visceral fat, excess water/inflammation, fatty liver, and an inflamed intestine. One of the big contributors to all of those, I suspect, is excess bacteria in the gut, which would lead to excess amounts of endotoxin, serotonin, lactate and such. I’ve been thinking about a protocol that would lower the bacterial load would include antimicrobial foods (like carrot and coconut oil), better digestive enzymes and stomach acid, use of activated charcoal, biofilm disruptors, flowers of sulphur, raising metabolism overall and standard antibiotics. Going No Starch and opting for more sugar would help a couple of those things, plus it should cut back on the food for bacteria. sugars (mono and disaccharides) are much easier to break apart and digest than starches (which are long chains of glucose), plus starchy foods tend to have other problematic substances which could feed bacteria and/or lower metabolism.
@Zack Vegas “I was most surprised at how the rough skin on my elbows and heels got really smooth.
Low fat or no starch made your skin smooth?
Cari- The smooth skin happened when I was doing really low fat (most days below 10 grams), along with lots of gelatin/glycine. I had ramped up the gelatin/glycine a month and and a half prior to the super low fat period (I was aiming for 25-30 grams of glycine a day). Not sure if it would have happened with the glycine intake at that level after a few months regardless, or if it was the super low fat period that triggered it.
@Zack Vegas “The smooth skin happened when I was doing really low fat (most days below 10 grams), along with lots of gelatin/glycine. I had ramped up the gelatin/glycine a month and and a half prior to the super low fat period.”
Oh the glycine/gelatin making skin smooth makes sense.
@Zack Vegas – do you remember Firebrand Meats? That Low PUFA pork company the guy tried to get off the ground and kept running into obstacle after obstacle? Finally he sold it to Nourish Cooperative founded by those two sisters – 20’s and 30’s. Their story is fascinating. On the eve of her PhD defense in engineering, she suddenly decided she was not going to enter the field but buy a farm and create healthy food for people! She and her sister run it along with her sister’s husband who joined in the operation. Angel Acres. Then they went around to neighbors and talked them into joining her cooperative that she was building. She provides them the low PUFA feed she makes and they agree to pasture always and pasture rotation and no needles or hormones.
She bought Firebrand meets and moved the pigs from Chicago (I think it was) to Michigan where they are. You can order on Firebrand meats site or hers with their own pigs at Nourish Cooperative. We have tried the Firebrand Meats: whole hog sausage and the bacon and the bone in pork chops. All the food tastes so clean and I have zero reactions from eating the bacon or sausage. With the high PUFA options of these even from farms, I struggle.
We had Apple Pear sauce with the pork chops and ate a sliced sugar bee apple when we cooked the bacon. Bacon and apple was sumptuous. Also, with the whole hog sausage, I roasted some cauliflower which went so well together. I also had some blueberry preserves with the sausage as a side of sorts. Super tasty surprisingly.
You might check these food sources out. @Cari you also might be interested!
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