Saturday, December 28, 2013



TO LOW-CARB or
NOT TO LOW-CARB ?
That is the question...


   So... you've decided that perhaps this whole Paleo/Primal thing might be of benefit, but you aren't sure what to do about the carbs...
Ok, that's a fair question. Here is my answer...

No sweets and/or baked goods of ANY kind, with the exception of really good dark chocolate (in small amounts/day), and the following:

White potatoes (peeled), not more than 3x per week...
Sweet potatoes/Yams (peeled), not more than 2x per week...
Tubers (malanga, boniato, yucca, etc.), not more than 2x per week...

Now, you have to pick and choose among these choices for not more than 5 meals per week... So, if you eat two meals a day, that means 14 meals per week, and of those 14, 5 can contain items mentioned above. The rest of your carbs should come from healthy fresh vegetables, limiting your intake of beets, carrots, and fresh fruit to three or four servings per week. AGAIN, I will re-iterate, fruit should never be eaten WITH a meal... two hours before, or half-an-hour after. (The only exceptions to this rule are papaya and pineapple, both of which should be consumed WITH protein !)  Limit your consumption of banana to 1/2 a banana, and make sure you are getting sufficient Mg (magnesium) to balance the P (potassium) in the banana.
Yes, I hear you... "but what about rice, quinoa, etc.?"
Consumer reports did a complete survey of commercially available rice in the U.S., and found arsenic contamination in ALL their samples*... arsenic, in both of its forms (organic and inorganic), is a slow deadly poison, almost as toxic as mercury or lead.** I have given up rice. As for quinoa, I don't consume it for "ethical" reasons.*** And as for other non-grain "grains" like quinoa, the research is not in yet, as far as I could find, so I choose to avoid these potential problems as well...

*http://consumerreports.org/cro/arsenicinfood.htm
**http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/12/27/toxic-metals-part-one.aspx
***http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/01/quinoa-good-evil-or-just-really-complicated

2 comments:

  1. Was reading through the above and have a question. Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes peeled. I was always under the impression that most of the nutrients were contained in the peel. If that is the case, why avoid the peel?

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  2. The reason is simple, in a complex way... All life has a survival "instinct"... plants, not being ambulatory like animals, have developed a sophisticated mechanism to avoid being consumed, and that is a chemical defense incorporating chemicals toxic to animals. Now, of course, everything is relative, so if you eat two sweet potatoes a year, don't worry about the skin, but if it is a major staple of your diet, avoid consuming the skin... almost all "root" crops have toxic chemicals incorporated into the outer layers, just as grains have toxins incorporated into the seed... and, in the case of yams and sweet potatoes, most of the nutrients available to humans are inside anyways.
    e.g., (solanine) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002875.htm

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