Yes another weight loss book titled the Starch Solution has hit the shelves, this one has been written by Dr. John McDougall a 12 times best seller on the subject of weight loss. What I can gather from my research is that the book is highly contradictive to the popular high protein diets such as the Paleo diet.
The Starch Solution is more in favour of… Well, you guess it, starch and carbs. The author claims it’s the diet of people, meaning that it’s a diet that we humans are design to eat, it provides our bodies with all the nutrients we need, making us strong enough to fight of diseases and live a long and healthy life.
He was interviewed on his believes by Hanna Brooks Olsen from BlissTree.com, here are the discussions they had around the subject of starch in our diets.
The Starch Solution Explained By Dr. John McDougall
There’s a lot of information in this book, but the starch part–which is that people need good starches and that they can encourage weight loss–is really the basic message. Can you tell me about that a little?
Well, it’s because starch is the diet for people. And that’s really basic. It is, studies have shown, what works best. But I think you need to start with some really basic understanding.
I think most well-educated people who have been around for a little bit realize that there are diets for every animal. The cat sitting next to me likes to eat meat. If I put a potato in front of that cat, he’d probably knock it around like a ball of yarn. He wouldn’t know what to do with it. And my dog eats some vegetables and some meat. I used to have parrots, and they ate fruits and vegetables and nuts. Every animal seems to have a diet that helps it look, feel, and function the best. The question that all consumers need to answer is, “What is the diet for people?” There must be a diet for people. I realize that people survive on Twinkies and Coca-Cola, but what it is that allows us to be our best?
That solution is a starch-based diet. It’s just what works. If you stick to it, it really does actually work.
And the reason the book is called The Starch Solution is because I wanted to take a sharp stick and poke it in peoples’ eye. And make them realize that what people have to focus on is this essential nutrient, which is starch. You could call the book a vegan diet, or a plant-strong diet, or any of those kinds of terms–but that really doesn’t get people to focus on what’s most important, which is that they eat rice, corn, potatoes, beans, peas, lentils, and other good starches.
The book explains how a starch based diet can both spur weight loss, and also fight diseases. How does it do that?
Well, the way it fixes it is by solving the problem. It’s just like if you have somebody with a bad cough and gunk coming out of their lungs. And you look them over carefully, and you see that they smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. You could stop that bad habit and, of course, you’d expect them to get well. It’s the same thing with common diseases in our society.
People suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, and type 2 diabetes, and constipation, and heart attacks, and so on, because they eat the wrong diet, which is the rich Western diet. People live on high-fat, high-calorie, high-sugar, high-protein meals that are way out of proportion with what the body was designed to consume. So the body makes all kinds of alterations to deal with it. The blood sugar goes up, they gain weight…it tries as hard as it can to fight the adversity, and, as a result, you end up fat and sick.
And you fight that as hard as you can, but until you actually relieve that burden from the body, and you give it nutrients and good food, it does what bodies naturally do. Which is attain excellent health.
You body doesn’t want to be sick. One of its underlying forces or drives is to be healthy and fit, so it can forage for food and attract mates. Looking good and feeling good is a survival mechanism. It’s innately built into the human body, that drive to survive. When you stop making it sick, it can just get well. It can heal and lose weight. There’s no more well-detailed explanation I can give you. Read full interview here.
I’m not sure I could fully commit myself to a plant diet, I do love my meat and am partial to a bit of diary now and again too. Though Dr. John McDougall claims that his diet is the diet of people and it’s the diet that mankind has eaten throughout the ages, I believe that we should be looking more at the environment we live in now, and how we have evolve to suit.
I do disagree with many of the foods we eat today, foods that are high in fat, high in sugar and foods that are packed with artificial preservatives, but we have become custom to eating meat, now I’m no scientist, but I’m sure our bodies have evolve in some way to accept and digest meat as a food source too, if that is not how we were designed in the first place.
Look, this is just my opinion I’m not a medical professional, I am also sure that the book could prove to be a healthy diet for those who are interested in a plant diet and quite certain that the diet is a healthy nutritious one too, however for me I like to mix things up and include a little meat every now and again alongside of following a well balanced nutritious diet.
Click the link to learn more on The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good!
No comments yet.