Boiled Potatoes - Why?

[TNT]

I heard that boiled potatoes have less starch than non-boiled potatoes. What does this mean? What happens to the starch in the boiled potatoes -- does it turn into sugar?

Also, would steaming in an Instant Pot have the same effect as boiling?

Any info you could give me on doing potatoes right would be helpful. Thanx!

 

[cremes]

I heard that boiled potatoes have less starch than non-boiled potatoes. What does this mean? What happens to the starch in the boiled potatoes -- does it turn into sugar?

Also, would steaming in an Instant Pot have the same effect as boiling?

Any info you could give me on doing potatoes right would be helpful. Thanx!

The potato starch leeches into the water. When you remove the potato and throw away the water then you are also throwing that starch away.

 

[mostlylurking]

I heard that boiled potatoes have less starch than non-boiled potatoes. What does this mean? What happens to the starch in the boiled potatoes -- does it turn into sugar?

Also, would steaming in an Instant Pot have the same effect as boiling?

Any info you could give me on doing potatoes right would be helpful. Thanx!

Yes, if cooked long enough, the starch breaks down into sugar. I think the important thing is to cook potatoes long enough. Yes, I think steaming would be the same as boiling. I boil small red potatoes 35 minutes, run them under cold water, slip the skins off, add salt and butter. They are very tender and fall apart if you aren't careful when tossing them around to coat with the salt and butter. For baked potatoes, I use medium sized white Irish potatoes. I wash two of them, put in a covered glass container, microwave on high for 7-8 minutes, then I bake them at 425 for 20-25 minutes in the same covered glass container. They come out very well cooked, soft and sweet. Then I put butter, salt, and sour cream on them.

 

[TNT]

Yes, if cooked long enough, the starch breaks down into sugar. I think the important thing is to cook potatoes long enough. Yes, I think steaming would be the same as boiling. I boil small red potatoes 35 minutes, run them under cold water, slip the skins off, add salt and butter. They are very tender and fall apart if you aren't careful when tossing them around to coat with the salt and butter. For baked potatoes, I use medium sized white Irish potatoes. I wash two of them, put in a covered glass container, microwave on high for 7-8 minutes, then I bake them at 425 for 20-25 minutes in the same covered glass container. They come out very well cooked, soft and sweet. Then I put butter, salt, and sour cream on them.

Thank you. So sugar is good and starch is bad? What's bad about starch?

 

[GTW]

For better and for worse...
Glycemic load, glycemic index, resistant starches.
My grandmother who lived to 103 boiled potatoes in the evening, fried them with lard or bacon in the morning.
I prefer baking several pounds then eat them cold or reheated following meals.

Resistant Starch Production and Glucose Release from Pre‐Prepared Chilled Food: The SPUD Project

With an increasing prevalence of diabetes worldwide, effective dietary strategies for blood glucose control are crucial. As carbohydrates make up approximately 50% of the diet, it is neither practical nor advisable to avoid them altogether. Most of the ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[GTW]

For better and for worse...
Glycemic load, glycemic index, resistant starches.
My grandmother who lived to 103 boiled potatoes in the evening, fried them with lard or bacon in the morning.
I prefer baking several pounds then eat them cold or reheated following meals.

Resistant Starch Production and Glucose Release from Pre‐Prepared Chilled Food: The SPUD Project

With an increasing prevalence of diabetes worldwide, effective dietary strategies for blood glucose control are crucial. As carbohydrates make up approximately 50% of the diet, it is neither practical nor advisable to avoid them altogether. Most of the ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Interesting article but it's for prospective study. Can't find any results. Derailed by the Scamdemic?

 

[AdR]

For better and for worse...
Glycemic load, glycemic index, resistant starches.
My grandmother who lived to 103 boiled potatoes in the evening, fried them with lard or bacon in the morning.
I prefer baking several pounds then eat them cold or reheated following meals.

Resistant Starch Production and Glucose Release from Pre‐Prepared Chilled Food: The SPUD Project

With an increasing prevalence of diabetes worldwide, effective dietary strategies for blood glucose control are crucial. As carbohydrates make up approximately 50% of the diet, it is neither practical nor advisable to avoid them altogether. Most of the ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Do you recommend refrigerating over night or just leaving them on the counter?

 

[mostlylurking]

Thank you. So sugar is good and starch is bad? What's bad about starch?

Starch, especially complex starch, is difficult to digest so it winds up feeding your gut bacteria instead of feeding you. This is the reason why it is good to cook starches for a long enough time to break down the starch so it's easier to digest.

 

[TNT]

Starch, especially complex starch, is difficult to digest so it winds up feeding your gut bacteria instead of feeding you. This is the reason why it is good to cook starches for a long enough time to break down the starch so it's easier to digest.

Thank you. I'm a little confused, because everyone else is so gung ho about feeding gut bacteria, because our microbiome is so important, etc. So Ray basically says less gut bacteria is better?

 

[LucH]

Thank you. I'm a little confused, because everyone else is so gung ho about feeding gut bacteria, because our microbiome is so important, etc. So Ray basically says less gut bacteria is better?

I won't say it like that.
Starch is problematic if your MMC fails and you got problems of transit: flatulence and stagnation of feces. 2x stools a day is requested, as optimum situation.
There are two kinds of carbs in potatoes: one kind is digested thanks to our enzymes, to become glucose. One kind is insoluble fibers and is going to feed bacteria. If stagnation, there is overgrowth. Otherwise, it's not a problem. Question of variety and frequency.
Edit: It's better to vary the source of carbs: from vegetables, fruits and starches. If not enough varied, with meat and polyphenols (...), microbiote won't be varied. Problems may then happen.

 

[mostlylurking]

Thank you. I'm a little confused, because everyone else is so gung ho about feeding gut bacteria, because our microbiome is so important, etc. So Ray basically says less gut bacteria is better?

Yes, Ray Peat believed that minimizing gut bacteria is a good thing. He liked to recommend taking small doses of penicillin or old fashioned tetracycline to minimize gut bacteria. He warned against eating difficult to digest food like complex carbohydrates.

However, I personally don't agree with the idea that you should use antibiotics to deal with gut bacteria issues. I don't believe in taking probiotics either. I lived with leaky gut and SIBO for many years; I was pretty sick all the time. All my digestive tract problems resolved themselves from my taking high dose thiamine hcl. I'm not saying EVERYBODY needs to take high dose thiamine hcl, but supplementing with thiamine does do miraculous things for digestive tract function and for the gut biome.

When I was at my sickest, Ray Peat advised me to supplement with thiamine and magnesium to heal my gut lining. He was right; it worked.

SIBO, IBS, and Constipation: Unrecognized Thiamine Deficiency? - Hormones Matter

Is it possible that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is simply a symptom of an underlying vitamin B1 or thiamine deficiency?

www.hormonesmatter.com

Thiamine and the Microbiome - Hormones Matter

Health depends on the 70-100 trillion single-celled organisms that live in our intestines.

www.hormonesmatter.com

 

[Apple]

Yes, Ray Peat believed that minimizing gut bacteria is a good thing. He liked to recommend taking small doses of penicillin or old fashioned tetracycline to minimize gut bacteria. He warned against eating difficult to digest food like complex carbohydrates.

However, I personally don't agree with the idea that you should use antibiotics to deal with gut bacteria issues. I don't believe in taking probiotics either. I lived with leaky gut and SIBO for many years; I was pretty sick all the time. All my digestive tract problems resolved themselves from my taking high dose thiamine hcl. I'm not saying EVERYBODY needs to take high dose thiamine hcl, but supplementing with thiamine does do miraculous things for digestive tract function and for the gut biome.

When I was at my sickest, Ray Peat advised me to supplement with thiamine and magnesium to heal my gut lining. He was right; it worked.

It could be d-lactic acidosis what you had. Starches/sugars in combination with wrong gut bacteria (like in most people) produce too much d-lactate. Even milk/yogurt have the same issue. High-dose thiamine (500 mg daily) is known to help quickly normalize lactate levels.
D-Lactic Acidosis is more prevalent than we think.

 

[mostlylurking]

It could be d-lactic acidosis what you had. Starches in combination with wrong gut bacteria (like in most people) produce too much d-lactate. Even milk/yogurt have the same issue. High-dose thiamine (500 mg daily) is known to help quickly normalize lactate levels.

Thiamine deficiency causes systemic lactic acidosis which is what happened to me. High dose thiamine hcl resolved the problem. It's not the gut bacteria; it is the blockage of oxidative metabolism on the cellular level which causes the end product to be lactic acid instead of carbon dioxide.

I discovered that my problem had to do with thiamine deficiency/functional blockage by taking 300-350 mg of thiamine hcl; within 45 minutes, all my pain went away and my body temperature increased a full degree to normal (98.6).

 

[TNT]

Yes, Ray Peat believed that minimizing gut bacteria is a good thing. He liked to recommend taking small doses of penicillin or old fashioned tetracycline to minimize gut bacteria. He warned against eating difficult to digest food like complex carbohydrates.

However, I personally don't agree with the idea that you should use antibiotics to deal with gut bacteria issues. I don't believe in taking probiotics either. I lived with leaky gut and SIBO for many years; I was pretty sick all the time. All my digestive tract problems resolved themselves from my taking high dose thiamine hcl. I'm not saying EVERYBODY needs to take high dose thiamine hcl, but supplementing with thiamine does do miraculous things for digestive tract function and for the gut biome.

When I was at my sickest, Ray Peat advised me to supplement with thiamine and magnesium to heal my gut lining. He was right; it worked.

SIBO, IBS, and Constipation: Unrecognized Thiamine Deficiency? - Hormones Matter

Is it possible that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is simply a symptom of an underlying vitamin B1 or thiamine deficiency?

www.hormonesmatter.com

Thiamine and the Microbiome - Hormones Matter

Health depends on the 70-100 trillion single-celled organisms that live in our intestines.

www.hormonesmatter.com

How high a dose of thiamine, @mostlylurking ?

Oh, never mind -- I just saw where you answered it.

 

[Apple]

Just mentioning it . I read this paper and remembered you offerening thiamine for all kinds of problem.
I couldn't understand what was wrong with yogurt, more than a cup of yogurt and I had a headache. Same with raw potato starch or any other starch in excess...
I figured it was related to gut bacteria producing d-lactate.
Thiamine fixes it quickly but doesn't really eliminate the issue longterm. Ray Peat was definitely right , there is no good bacteria

The principal source of D-lactate production in the human gut is due to Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteri species. E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Candida freundii also produce significant quantities of D-lactate while producing minimal amounts of L-lactate. Some lactobacillus species are able to catalyze one lactate isomer to the other.

 

[mostlylurking]

How high a dose of thiamine, @mostlylurking ?

I'm taking 1 gram of thiamine hcl 2Xday. Higher doses of thiamine hcl are required because it has a poor absorption rate through the intestinal wall whereas TTFD thiamine gets into the bloodstream easily. My husband takes 100mg of TTFD thiamine 2Xday, which works for him.

 

[mostlylurking]

Just mentioning it . I read this paper and remembered you offerening thiamine for all kinds of problem.
I couldn't understand what was wrong with yogurt, more than a cup of yogurt and I had a headache. Same with raw potato starch or any other starch in excess...
I figured it was related to gut bacteria producing d-lactate.
Thiamine fixes it quickly but doesn't really eliminate the issue longterm. Ray Peat was definitely right , there is no good bacteria

If your lactic acid is high in your body (from poor oxidative metabolism), then you will be more sensitive to lactic acid if you eat it.

Raw potato starch needs to be cooked (assuming you mean the potato juice?).

Starch becomes sugar very fast (less than 10 minutes from eating it). Sugar can deplete thiamine stores because thiamine is used when converting sugar to energy (oxidative metabolism).

I continue to supplement with high dose thiamine hcl (1 gram, 2Xday). I've been at it for 3 years. So long as I supplement thiamine hcl this way I'm fine. Otherwise I'm in trouble. I have heavy metal poisoning (mercury from mercury amalgam fillings, remove the dangerous way 50 years ago). Mercury depletes the body's thiamine supply. Thiamine resolves the symptoms of mercury poisoning.

Gut bacteria is an enormous topic. I posted an article above about it. My gut bacteria got straightened out after taking high dose thiamine hcl for several weeks.

 

[Apple]

If your lactic acid is high in your body (from poor oxidative metabolism), then you will be more sensitive to lactic acid if you eat it.

Raw potato starch needs to be cooked (assuming you mean the potato juice?).

Starch becomes sugar very fast (less than 10 minutes from eating it). Sugar can deplete thiamine stores because thiamine is used when converting sugar to energy (oxidative metabolism).

I continue to supplement with high dose thiamine hcl (1 gram, 2Xday). I've been at it for 3 years. So long as I supplement thiamine hcl this way I'm fine. Otherwise I'm in trouble. I have heavy metal poisoning (mercury from mercury amalgam fillings, remove the dangerous way 50 years ago). Mercury depletes the body's thiamine supply. Thiamine resolves the symptoms of mercury poisoning.

Gut bacteria is an enormous topic. I posted an article above about it. My gut bacteria got straightened out after taking high dose thiamine hcl for several weeks.

I mentioned raw potato starch on purpose. It acts as a probiotic , there are threads on RP forum about it and it was mentioned in Dr Kellogg's autointoxication book as a possibly good thing to keep acid forming bacteria which curbs other pathogenic bacteria. But they didn't know about difference d-lactate vs L-lactate and other stuff back then.

Thiamine deficiency is a comorbid condition for d-lactate acidosis but the main issue is bacteria/endotoxin/LPS...
Thiamine helps to handle lactate directly , others use antibiotics /carrot salad, others control it by limiting carbs.

 

[mostlylurking]

Thiamine deficiency is a comorbid condition for d-lactate acidosis but the main issue is bacteria/endotoxin/LPS...

I disagree.

 

[mostlylurking]

Thiamine deficiency is a comorbid condition for d-lactate acidosis but the main issue is bacteria/endotoxin/LPS...

What exactly is "the main issue" you speak of? Is this a semantics thing? Are we speaking of two entirely different things? I'm referring to mitochondrial oxidative metabolism going awry without thiamine that is needed as a co-enzyme in the process for several steps. Without thiamine, oxidative metabolism gets derailed which causes lactic acid to be made as the end product instead of ATP+carbon dioxide. I'm talking about systemic lactic acidosis. I'm not talking about the thiamine that gets made in the gut by some bacteria that hopefully reside there.