My favorite starch is definitely white potatoes, they are the safest starch to find oil-free. I work on a cruise ship, and there is essentially no option to prepare your own food, but there are of course 24/7 salad buffets and fruits, of the cooked foods, I usually only eat potatoes, since even the rice is prepared with oil! I tend to put a forkful of rice in a small saucer of water, you see the oil bubbles separate to the top of the water, and I won't touch the rice.
My daily diet is based around Jeff Novick's calorie density idea as much as starch solution plan. The main break from the McDougall diet, is I eat fruit ad libitum. I think whole fruits are probably quicker digesting than starches, but they are so hypocaloric, that it would be darn near impossible to gain appreciable body fat. Most days I eat
- *5-8 whole baked potatoes
*2 large green salads with cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, some vinegar
*5-8 fruits (apples, oranges, and some cantaloupe)
When I'm hungry, I EAT! I never like to feel deprived, or a dietary style feels too much like a "diet" in the conventional sense. I walk TONS, anywhere from 3 to 10 miles a day. At home in Portland, Oregon I don't even own a car, so I either take the amtrak train, or go on foot wherever I go. I figure I am improving my health while doing a small part for the environment by totally opting out of the traffic infrastructure/direct gasoline consumption.
I don't go to the gym any more, though several years ago I was a full-fledged bodybuilder, squatting 500+ lbs and deadlifting hundred pound dumbbells in each hand. Nowadays I do body weight exercise every day. My favorites are simple bar dips, wall-sits, pull-ups, decline pushups, and slow-motion lunges.
The hardest part about this dietary style is you kind of have to exclude yourself from some aspects of social behavior. People who find you're a vegan find themselves to be judged, even if you make no comment whatsoever about their dietary choices. When people press me for why, I explain calmly that plant foods are simply what were were evolved to eat. There are countless harmful things in animal protein. Cholesterol, saturated fats, environmental toxins and antibiotics, overload of protein and methionine etc. Not to mention the horrific environmental concerns of animal agriculture.
My mother and father both think I either have a terminal illness or anorexia. I explain to them I probably eat more volume by weight of food than they do, and the reason I'm so slender is that I am the weight that humans are naturally supposed to be at. Neither of my parents accept that my protein intake is adequate, nor that my BMI is well within the healthy normal range.
I also feel better than I've felt in my entire life. I am happy and well balanced. I have a very calm and measured outlook, and my joints and back feel no strain ever, because of my healthy body weight.
Dr. McDougall and all of the very influential low-fat vegan proponents, I sincerely thank you for the hard work you've put forth over the years in getting this critical message to the public. We need to tear down the broken American diet and start it from scratch. Animal foods are not healthy, dairy and eggs are not natural foods. Things made by a machine in a factory thousands of miles away are not food!
Thank you all for taking the time to read!
In Health,
Jake J. (Starchmonger)