Category: Educational

Are Rice and Potatoes Safe Starches?

For those who are on a low-carb diet, they know that bread, pasta, pastries, and flour products are among the bad starches to avoid.  And they contain the anti-nutrient gluten from wheat.

But there is some debate as to whether rice and potatoes are okay to eat — in which Paul Jaminet termed “safe starches”, where “safe” refers to free from toxins like gluten.   However, whether a person can eat them depends on their level of hyperglycemia and their level of low-carb diet.  Certainly healthy people can eat them.

There is debate about safe starches between Paul Jaminet, Jimmy Moore, and Ron Rosedale about it.  Dr. Mercola summarize in an article.  And in interview with Jaminet, Dr. Mercola tended to side with Paul that we do need at least a little bit of carbs from safe starches.    Kurt Harris weighs in by saying …

“I also have come to see most starchy plant organs as perfectly legitimate fuel sources.”

 

In conclusion, yes, I think rice and potatoes (including sweet potatoes) are safe.

Using Glucometer as a heath tool

A glucometer is a small home device that you can purchase for less than $50 that helps you monitor your blood glucose level.  This tool is not just for diabetes, but healthy people can find it helpful.  And can help detect pre-diabetes.

The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show podcast episode 591 has guest Angela Ross talking about how a glucometer will help make you healthy and lean.   She say to start with the lancet at level one.  And if it doesn’t draw blood, dial it up to 2.  And so on.

Angela Ross is the author of the book “The Glucometer”.

Chris Kresser wrote article “How to Prevent diabetes and heart disease for $16” where he recommends ReliOn Prime.

We do not have free will

We do not have free will.  Our mental construct of our self makes us think we do.  At least that is what neuroscientist Julian Keenan says when he talked with Ann Strainchamps on the radio episode titled “You and Your Brain” on NPR’s To The Best Of Our Knowledge.

You can listen to this enlightening episode in the above link.

Experiments showed that when you reach for a cup, you hand moves before your brain is aware.  When the brain catches up, it then comes up with the reason as to why it “decided” to move the hand.

Another experiment used electromagnets to bias a subject’s decision one way or the other.  But the subject will come up with a “rational” explanation of why he/she decided that way when in fact the magnet biased the subjects decision.  And the subject will not believe that the decision was influenced by anything else beside self.

Documentary of Obesity Epidemic

BBC Documentary titled “The Men Who Made Us Fat” contains 3 episodes.

Host Jacques Peretti describes the market forces, politics, and environment that contributes to the world wide obesity epidemic.  It contains clips of interviews with Dr. Robert Lustig and Gary Taubes.

You can find it on YouTube by searching the title.  For example, here is one.

Brain At Work and Mindfulness

David Rock explains how the brain works and a bit about mindfulness in this Google Talk video …

In the talk, he mentions that in order to be successful, one has to have good emotional control.

He wrote the article “The Neuroscience of Mindfulness” which explains that we have two modes of thinking: (1) the default narrative thinking, and (2) direct experience.

When you switch into the direct experience, the narrative dampens. This is in essences mindfulness.

Chris Masterjohn explains fats and cholesterol in relational to heart disease

Chris Masterjohn presents at the Ancestral Health Symposium that it is the oxidation of the lipids and cholesterol that is what is damaging to heart disease.

Lipids gets oxidized and LDL goes from large fluffy to the more dangerous small dense type as they stay in the blood longer and more likely to get oxidized. Why causes the lipids to stay in the blood? Because the LDL receptors of the cells are not taking them up fast enough or low thyroid hormones.

He says that having nutritional abundance would offset the oxidation process.

The difference between relative versus absolute risk reported in studies

New reports often reports the relative risk or benefits between two groups (say a control group versus treatment group).   This number is usually deceptively higher than the absolute risk or benefit.

What is the difference between relative risk versus absolute risks?

KnowBreastCancer.org has a good explanation.   Suppose that 2 person out of 100 in a control non-treated group ended up with cancer.  And supposed that only 1 person out of 100 in a treatment group ended up with cancer.  Hence the relative risk would be a 50% decrease in breast cancer in the treatment group.  This is arrived at by taking the change and dividing by the initial value:  (2 – 1) / 2 = 0.5 = 50%    This is the number often reported.   Sounds pretty good right?

But consider the absolute risk.   Since the risk of cancer is 2% in the non-treated group, and the risk of cancer in the treated group is 1%, the treatment only reduced the risk from 2% to 1%.  This is only a 1% reduction in absolute risk.  Now it doesn’t sound that great.   This number is arrived at by taking the change in percentage divided by the overall percentage: (2-1)/100 = 0.01 = 1%.

Presentation by Sally Fallon-Morell also gives examples of how distorting the reports of relative risk are.  Video presentation on YouTube.

Tom Naughton is a comedian that did a bit at the Ancestral Health Symposium called “Science for Smart People” in which among the other topics talked about relative risk versus absolute risk…

Video Explaining Why Cholesterol and Saturated Fat do not cause heart disease

Sally Fallon-Morell presents the research of Marg Enig PhD.

The video is called “The Oiling of America” and explains why cholesterol and saturated fats do not cause heart disease. It debunks some of the studies that shows otherwise, including Ancel Keys “Seven Country Study”.

It explains how sometimes studies are either intentionally or unintentionally misleading due to things like “varying the scale”, “relative risk”, and “omitting data”.

It also explain about fats. Some studies lump trans fats with saturated fat. And saturated fats incorrectly get the blame. Trans fats really is bad because of a translocation of an atom which creates dead spots in the electron cloud and hindering cellular reactions. Polyunsaturated fats are bad because they break upon heat and causes uncontrolled reactions (inflammation).