Your Thoughts On A Starch Diet. Dr McDougall

Still_Livin

Has anyone looked into his TED Talk on this diet. Pretty interesting. He witnessed people who changed from a high starch diet to a western based diet become obese and sickly.

This means less meat and dairy, but lots of rice, beans and potatoes. Some fruits and vegetables.

Interesting.

VioletRojo

I haven't seen the TED Talk, but people get obese on all kinds of diets, and people lose weight on all kinds of diets. If eating a high starch diet is satisfying to you, go for it. It wouldn't work for me and I don't like restricting any thing from my diet.

Phirrgus

I've been eating a western based diet for ~60 years and never been obese or sickly. That's just me though...

DaddieCat

Dr. McDougall is not very highly regarded by anyone outside of the vegan community due to the accuracy and veracity of his science and claims.

I'm a lifelong Vegan and I would definitely not point you to McDougall for any scientifically sound advice.

NovusDies

Still_Livin wrote: »

Has anyone looked into his TED Talk on this diet. Pretty interesting. He witnessed people who changed from a high starch diet to a western based diet become obese and sickly.

This means less meat and dairy, but lots of rice, beans and potatoes. Some fruits and vegetables.

Interesting.

Seems logical to me. You take even an intuitive eater out of their routine and give them different food it may end in many of them eating at a surplus and gaining weight.

Whole TED talk for stating the obvious?

ETA: Sickly for the same reason. If a person was intuitively balancing their nutrition with one style of eating it does not mean they will do it with something different.

MikePTY

The Ketoers say the opposite, that it is the evil carb that has made everyone get obese and sickly. The reality is this: weight loss is about calories in vs. calories out. Whether that is a high starch, high meat, high whatever diet, you will lose weight if you eat less calories than your body burns, and gain weight if you eat more than your body burns.

The truth is that society has gotten more obese as food as gotten less scarce so people eat more (more calories in), and technology has enabled us to move less (less calories out). It is a shift in the mathematical equation, not a choice of specific foods, that has caused this.

As far as being more "sickly", I'm really not sure that is true. The truth is we are now much better at diagnosing diseases, so it's not always that more people have these diseases, but that in the past we weren't able to identify them as easily. And to the extent that people get more sickly, it's largely due to the fact that we are aging as a population more. We've eradicated many of the diseases that killed people at a young age that were prevalent back in the day. Because of that, people are living longer, and as people age, they become more likely to get whole host of "sickly" conditions. Ultimately though, American life spans are the longest they've ever been.

If you want to eat a high starch diet, you certainly can. The one legitimate benefit of a diet like that is that it is likely environmentally friendly. But like any exclusionary diet, from a health perspective you would want to take care to make sure you are getting enough of the macro and micro nutrients that are not typically common in the foods on the diet. So just like Ketoers need to make sure that they get enough fiber and vitamins, someone on a starch based diet would need to make sure to get enough protein and iron in their diet.

Ultimately your weight loss will come down to taking in less calories than you burn, regardless of what you take in.

FireyChimera

I have 4 is his books in my bookshelf. (his wife also wrote them with him.) I have also watched many of his lectures and tried several recipes from the books/ his website. There have been many success stories with this way of eating as you already know. From personal experience, I prefer to eat lots of plants (70%) and then fill the other 30% with eggs and dairy. (I am vegetarian for 9 years now). Losing weight is simply calories in vs calories out, but certain ways of eating make us feel better compared to others.

Dr. McDougall is also very popular in the vegan/ whole food plant based community, but not well known in the "regular" world lol

FireyChimera

BecomingBane wrote: »

Dr. McDougall is not very highly regarded by anyone outside of the vegan community due to the accuracy and veracity of his science and claims.

I'm a lifelong Vegan and I would definitely not point you to McDougall for any scientifically sound advice.

He takes a lot of his info off of history and other countries. One big point he makes is how in Asian countries they eat lots of rice/ carbs and stay trim. (That the people who eat the most carbs and the least animal products are the most trim.) He also refers to the "China Study" and "Engine 2 Diet." The way he tends to explain things is a very friendly common sense approach. He doesn't give lots of study stats, but in stead talks with a common sense tone.

What him and his wife say in the books and lectures seems pretty rational, but at the end of the day it's all about calories in vs calories out. As a vegetarian for many years, I can say that I feel great with this way of eating

cwolfman13

Still_Livin wrote: »

Has anyone looked into his TED Talk on this diet. Pretty interesting. He witnessed people who changed from a high starch diet to a western based diet become obese and sickly.

This means less meat and dairy, but lots of rice, beans and potatoes. Some fruits and vegetables.

Interesting.

I eat quite a bit of meat and dairy...also quite a bit of beans, rice, potatoes, lentils, fruit, and veg, etc. I'm neither obese nor sickly.

FocusOnNutritionHolly

Love his books and experience he shares. I went Vegan for a month but settled with vegetarian for now. Dairy is rough. But when I want to shred the body fat I know I see results when I cut the dairy.