The Potato Manifesto - Part 1/2: A (Re-)Evaluation of the Contemporary Discrimination of "the" Ordinary Potato

Image 1: The grunty regular (left) and the cute sweet potato (left), which one would you commit your health to? (img. menshealth.co.uk)

This is a blogpost, which eventually turned out to be the first part of a series, is a post with a history, a rather complex one, to be precise. It is rooted (not tubered ;-) in my amazement over the contemporary craving for sweet potatoes within the ever-growing neo-paleolithic community on the Internet and was sparked by the recent publication of a study on sweet potatoes, I stumbled upon on my daily tours of the most recent scientific literature. To make long story short, instead of immediately summarizing the data, drawing some graphs and commenting on the real-world implications of this study, I decided to use the holiday to descend into the archives and take a closer look at what science has to say on the bitter truth about the grunty regular and the starchy promises of cute sweet potato (cf. image 1 ;-)...

When wheat was devils excrement, would regular potatoes then be his horns?

According to the official obesity statistics of the European Union, British women are the fattest in Europe (Eurostat. 2011): 23.9% were classified as being obese (BMI > 30) in the year 2008 to 2009. This certainly raises the not altogether serious question, whether the British obesity problem (the obesity rate among the men was 22.1% and thusly topped only be the Maltese with 24.7%) is due to the fried fish or the fried (regular) potatoes in the unofficial British national dish, fish & chips.

Image 2: Obese British woman's rear view (img. BBC.co.uk)

A note to my dear American friends: Don't crow too soon, the obesity rate in the US tops the one in the UK by more than just a margin. According to a 2010 paper by Flegal et al. that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the estimated obesity rate in the US amounts to 35.5% among the women and 32.2% among the men (Flegal. 2010). And a constantly increasing percantage (currently 4.7%) of the American population is already "extremely obese" and has a BMI > 40! Just to put that into perspective. A man or woman with a BMI beyond 40 and a height of 5 foot and 7 inches (170cm) would weigh at least (!) 254.85lbs (115.6kg) - this is already "Kig-Size Homer"-territory (cf. Intermittent Thoughts).

If we follow the current dietary paradigms and ignore the frying procedure, the answer to this question does not appear to be very difficult. I mean, when wheat was devil's excrement, then regular potatoes would be his horns or even nastier body parts, I do not want to mention here... and though a reasonable explanation for the widespread vilification of potatoes still escapes me, the contemporary nutritional paradigm within the health and nutrition blogosphere suggests that regular white potatoes have an awfully high glycemic index, will spike your blood sugar levels and have your neolithic body pump out tons of insulin - even if the rest of your diet is 99% paleo, as many of the listeners of Robb Wolf's podcast like to describe the way they are eating after having read his (widely read, yet controversial - esp. wrt to starches / carbs, fish oil and a few other topics) book ;-)

Figure 1: Names and characteristics of eight common potato cultivars in the British diet (left) and experimentally evaluated area under the glucose curve and glycemic indices (right; data based on Henry. 2005)

If we take a look at the data in figure 1, which shows both the incremental area under the glucose curve (AUC) and the GI of eight commercially available and commonly consumed British potato cultivars, it should however be quite obvious that the concept of the bad high-GI regular potato is about as misguided as the racist or religious prejudices some of our fellow human beings are still harboring against other members of the human race. With glycemic indices that range from 56 for the "waxy" Marfona to 94 for the "firm" Maris Peer, the "bad" regular potatoes cover the exact same GI range as their "healthy" sweet cousins (come back tomorrow for Part II of this series with more information on sweet potatoes).

Cultivar, processing, serving temperature and more have profound influences on the GI

The type  (=cultivar) of the (classic) potato, is yet neither the only, nor the most important determinant of the glycemic index of a potato meal. The processing method and, to my own surprise, even the food temperature have considerable influence on the glucose response to otherwise identical test meals, as well:

Figure 2: Incremental areas under the curve (AUC) and glycemic index values for 50 g available carbohydrate portions of white bread and seven potato meals tested in a cohort of 12 healthy subjects (data adapted from Fernandes. 2005)

On the left = "better than white bread"-side of figure 2, we have cold, boiled red potatoes (GI 56.2) and, surprise, frensh fries (GI 63.6) and roasted Californian white potatoes  (GI 72.3, but lower AUC than white bread). On the right = "worse than white bread"-side, instant mashed potatoes (GI 87.7) and the hot variety of the "low GI" red potatoes (GI 89.4) are competing for the red lantern.

With regard to the unexpected differences between cold and hot red potatoes, it is important to note that the results of a 2011 study by Kinnear et al. confirm that the latter is not an artifact of the Fernandes study. In their trial, the scientists from the University of Toronto found an average GI reduction of -37% (mean GI for the tested cultivars ~47), when the freshly boiled potatoes were refrigerated at 4°C for 24–28h before they were served to the 10 healthy study participants (Kinnear. 2011). As far as the reasons for this temperature-dependence of the glycemic index is concerned, Kinnear et al. speculate that it is an effect "due to starch retrogradation", which is a process that takes place in gelatinized starch, when the amylose and amylopectin chains realign themselves and thusly causes the liquid to gel. This is quite interesting, as it stands in line with the low GI of the Marfona potato (cf. figure 1), the texture of which is described as "waxy". The long-established relation of the phosphate content and the degree of starch gelatinization (and thusly digestibility and GI), on the other hand, could explain difference between crops and differences between identical crops grown on soil with different phosphate contents.

Figure 3: Areas under the glucose curves (AUC) in 32 healthy volunteers to 50g carbohydrates from mashed potatoes with or without 10g fructose administered 0, 30 or 60min before the meal. Measure by Accu Check finger-prick glucometer and YSI glucose oxidase analyzer (data adapted from Heacock. 2002)

Did you know that fructose, of all, is able to reduce the postprandial increase in serum glucose in nondiabetic adults (mean age: 26)? In their 2002 study, Patricia M. Heacock and her colleagues were able to show that pre-ingestion of 10g of fructose 60min and 30min before the ingestion of a 50g carbohydrate meal (from potatoes) reduced the area under the glucose curve (glucose AUC; cf. figure 3) by 25% and 27%, respectively (Heacock. 2002). The immediate co-administration of 10g of fructose with the potato meal (figure 3, 0 min), on the other, did not induce any statistically significant changes in the glucose AUC of the 13 male and 19 female study participants whose blood glucose levels were measured by finger-prick capillary blood (Accu Check) and glucose oxidase analyzers (YSI).

Furthermore, a 1999 study by Soh and Brand-Miller from the University of Sidney (Soh. 1999) shows that the real-world glucose responses of different individuals to differently processed and stored potato cultivars cover an even broader spectrum (especially on the low GI side) than the results of the previously cited studies suggested. The GI values, the Australian scientists calculated based on the glucose response to a 50g carbohydrate portion of eight different potato meals (three varieties, four cooking methods, two states of maturity) differed by as much as +/- 55pts, with canned new potatoes (GI 65) at the upper and boiled Desiree potatoes (GI 10) at the very lower end of the spectrum. And as if things were not complicated enough, already, Soh and Brand-Miller also introduce yet another variable into the equation - the size of the tuber, which showed a statistically significant correlation with the glucose response of the study 10 healthy participants (correlation between GI and tuber size: r=0.83, p < 0.05).

Black-and-white thinking and ineradicable prejudices

If we base our argumentation solely on the glycemic index, which is in fact the main argument that is brought forward against "regular" potatoes in the public debate, it is quite clear that the poor (regular) potato is another victim of the human propensity to black-and-white thinking and the public's stubborn adherence to convential nutritional wisdom. With reference to the "unjustified generalization" that "all potatoes have a high glycemic index", Anette E. Buyken and Anja Kroke, two researchers from the Research Institute of Child Nutrition in Dortmund, Germany, write in their letter to the editor of the British Journal of Nutrition (Buyken. 2005):

Figure 4: GI values (glucose reference) for potatoes by different cooking methods; the horizontal bars indicate the minimal and maximal glycemic index; the dotted vertical lines mark the conventionally accepted  "low GI" <55 (left) and "high GI" >70 (right) cut-off points (the figure was taken directly from Buyken. 2005)

[...] as with all GI data, the GI values of potatoes may depend on cooking method, processing, variety and the composition of the meal. This fact deserves attention since mashed potatoes, French fries, baked potatoes and potatoes cooked in a microwave are characterised by GI values mostly exceeding the upper limit for a high GI value of 70; whereas conventionally boiled potatoes appear to have a GI value on average below 70. The values of conventionally boiled potatoes do vary considerably though, so it may also be that some potato varieties have an inherently low GI what-ever the cooking method (Najjar. 2004; Fernandes. 2005). In this context, it should be considered that most currently available GI values are based on mature potato varieties (Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Desiree, Pontiac, Sebago). The starch of more mature potatoes is, however, easier to digest, presumably due to increased amylopectin branching and hence lower resistance to gelatinisation, which in turn results in a higher GI (Soh. 1999).

Buyken and Kroke support their argument by the means of an illustration of the broad range of the glycemic responses (and respective GI) of study participants to 46 different potato meals (cf. figure 4) and emphasize that there are significant differences in both the preferred potato cultivars, as well as the respective cooking / processing methods between European and US customers. While the former "prefer potato varieties characterised by a lower GI", the prevailing potato varieties in the US are mature and exhibit significantly higher glycemic indices. This trend toward higher glycemic indices in US potato meals is reinforced by the average American's preference to fry, bake, mash, roast or microwave his potatoes, so that it would  be "thoughtless" for any European, or American who selects less mature, low GI cultivars and refrains from frying, baking, mashing, roasting or microwaving his potatoes to follow the grossly over-generalized recommendation to eat less potatoes.

Ok, not all regular potatoes are made equal, but sweet potatoes are still king, right?

Against the background that my grand father who lived a 100% healthy, diabetes-free life into his late 90s, competed in track and fields and swam laps until about 6 months before he died, had regular potatoes with every dinner, I may be somewhat biased as far as the "bad potatoes" are concerned. This does yet not compromise the value of the rational arguments and scientific evidence against the unjust and, above all, over-generalized vilification of regular potatoes I have brought forward in this first installment of the Potato Manifesto. If you are interested in how the "holy" sweet potato which is currently hailed as the savior of the neo-paleolithic race compares, come back tomorrow for Part II of the Potato Manifesto ;-)

The Starch Satiety Shootout: Potatoes, Baked or Mashed, Pasta, Brown Rice or Even White Bread? What's the Best After a 12h Fast? Plus: Science Round-Up Preview!

Pasta! From a satiety perspective even white bread would be a better choice for breakfast.

It's one of those Thursday's where I am alone here at the SuppVersity - no Adelfo Cerame Jr. guest lecture today. But don't worry, there will not only be another guest post next Thursday, but both, today's SuppVersity post, which is actually related to Adelfo's "Carbophobia" post from last week, as well as the SuppVersity Science Round-Up  with Carl Lanore (live at 1PM EST on the Super Human Radio Network), will compensate at least somewhat for Adelfo's absence.

Apropos Science Round-Up, I am absolutely not sure where today's show will be heading to, but I can tell you that by now it looks as if we would start out with a very recent study on the leucine <> leptin connection and it's role in getting big and ripped.

It stands to reason that the big "L"s are not going to get the job done without some sort of workout, we will then segue into the acute hormonal effects of doing cardio before vs. after a workout - something I suppose many of you who have listened to the last installment and read the follow-ups (the Seconds and the post on PGC-1 alpha-4), here at the SuppVersity, will be intrigued to hear and something on which I want to provide a little more background information with respect to the role of fasting, overall energy intake, glyogen depletion, stress and a couple of other things that will primarily effect your luteinizing hormone levels and are thus equally important for male and female SuppVersity students.

I am honestly not sure how much time will be left, afterwards, but either live at 1PM EST, or as part of tomorrows "Seconds" you will also get the chance to learn something about the little known link between nicotine (as in cigarettes) and brain aromatase, the muscle building effects of exercise induced nNOS and the certainly not advisable, but probably likewise anabolic effects of capsaicin injections. And while there is more on the list, I guess this is enough for a preview... unless you were waiting for me to mention the endocrine disrupting effects of bottled water? No!? Well, then let's finally get to the actual post ;-)

Judging carbohydrates by their GI is like adopting another man's prejudice

As I already mentioned today's post is in a way an indirect follow up on Adelfo's confession that his love-and-hate affair with carbohydrates turned into a true friendship now. I mean starches are carbs and though Adelfo explicitly said that he says a place (in moderation) for all of them in his diet, it would be nice to know a little more about the differences between the dreaded potatoes, of which I have argued before that it is in your own hands whether they will (French fries, meshed potatoes, puree, etc.; "The Potato Manifesto") turn into a problem, or not, the demonized white bread and the "healthy" - since organic and brown - starch from pasta and rice.

I guess Allan Geliebter Michelle, I.-Ching Lee, Mariane Abdillahi and James Jones from the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center at the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center that's part of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, when they devised the experimental procedures for their latest study (Geliebter. 2012). And in fact their approach to the problem appears to be pretty down to earth. Instead of just measuring insulin, glucose and what-not - we have had other scientists do that before - they simply fed their twelve healthy normal-weight participants (6 male, 6 female; mean age 25.6 years,  mean BMI 22.4kg/m², mean percent body fat 19.0%) who were recruited from the Columbia University community equienergetic portions (240kcal) of starch-rich side dishes:

• baked potato, no skin - nutrient composition as
• mashed potato, instant - Betty Crocker Idaho potato buds
• brown rice - Carolina natural whole grain brown rice
• pasta - Bionature organic pasta
• white bread - Wonder Classic Giant*

As the (*) indicates, the white bread was in there mainly as a GI standard (you usually supply GI values w/ reference to either glucose or white bread) and in order to make sure that it had it's 50g of carbs, just like all the other meals, the scientists needed so much that the overall caloric value of this "standard" meal was 33kcal higher (keep that in mind, thats ~12.5% and could therefore very well make a difference). In order to exclude any confounding variables, the water content (400g) and salt content were likewise standardized - both were added if necessary.

Pasta, rice and potatoes for breakfast?

In know, its not realistic that you have only pasta, rice, potatoes or white bread ... hold on, I know a couple of people in fact a large amount of my students eats nothing but white bread right from the baker for breakfast in their first lecture of the day :-( So it's not that unrealistic: At least we could ask ourselves would they be better off, if they ate potatoes, pasta or rice as their first meal after a 12h overnight fast, when maximal satiety is what we are looking for?

Figure 1: Hunger ratings and desire to eat from 10min before to 120min after the breakfast (Geliebter. 2012)

Well let's see, what do we have here? First off, one thing that's not in any of the graphs is the statistically significant gender bias, with the women experienced greater fullness across the test meals than men (p < 0.01). As far as the rest is concerned, the ...

• AUC of the appetite ratings from 10 minutes before to 120min after the ingestion of the meal did not differ, and still there was a...
• lower ‘desire to eat’ AUC following bakedpotato compared to pasta (p = 0.027) and brown rice (p = 0.004) and a much less significant advantage for rice over pasta (p = 0.041);
• changes in fullness, however, did not differ between test meals (not shown in figure 1)

So, obviously the baked potato, which was incidentally the only food that had no nutrition label (all the rest was packaged branded and labeled), was the subjectively most satiating starch source, followed by rice and trailed by the mashed potatoe and the distant (given the overall difference) "healthy" pasta.

So, to get back to my research question, whether my real students (not you, but those at the University), would be better off eating another bland starch instead of their buns, the answer would be yes - in the long run, both brown rice and baked potatoes would qualify. 

Potato-ish insulin spikes and low GI white bread

What is interesting though, is that the spike in the "How much food could you eat now?" graph in figure 2 coincides with the early insulin spike in response to the potato meals. If you are into grazing like a cow, i.e. if you like to eat bazillions of small meals, all day long, potatoes may therefore be not your best choice.

Figure 2: Insulin after breakfast,estimation how much the participants believe the could eat and calculated GI values (based on the measured glucose response; Geliebter. 2012)

What could be downright surprising for some of you, I guess, is yet probably the fact that anyone adhering to a low GI diet, would actually have to copy my students and eat the white bread, which had the lowest GI of all the test meals ... but I guess this and the fact that pasta by far the least satiating of the 4 meals had an only 7.6% higher GI should be the nail to the real-world relevance of the glycemic index, anyway.

The non-significance of the glycemic index  was also evident during the following lunch, where the subjects were allowed to chose or simply eat both of an on an individual base already non-manageable amount of chicken or tuna salad with mayonnaise, celery, salt, and pepper that were served "in covered serving containers with openings on top to reduce visual feedback" (Geliebter. 2012) and bundled with six slices of wheat bread and six slices of seedless rye bread:

"The group mean IAUC glucose and GI using the white bread standard and adjusted for the glucose load standard are listed in table 2 . Mashed potato had the highest GI of the side dishes. The correlation between the group mean fullness AUC and the group mean GI was 0.59. The correlation between the group mean fullness AUC and the group mean lunch energy intake was –0.21. These corrrlations are not significant." (Geliebter. 2012)

Remember Peter Czerwinski, aka Furious Pete's 900g of protein in 3:30min binge (Furios Pete, 2010)? No? In that case the fact that whey is more insulinogenic than white bread is probably news to you, as well, after all, the video was part of the SuppVersity post discussing that.

So, if you intend to become friends with starches and other carbohydrates, just like Adelfo did, don't judge them by the GI value you've found in whatever online or print source. Don't fear potatoes and if you need something to count to satisfy your OCD tendencies, count total amount carbohydrates (not the rice crumbs), keep the simple sugars in check and match both of them to your personal preferences / needs.

The GI is not the "unit of food quality"

And if that's not enough counting for you, what about counting the nutritional labels on the stuff you buy? The less you have, the better your diet - after all, whole foods you buy at the farmer's market or wherever else you can still get non-industrialized real food, does not have nutritional labels ;-)

References:

• Geliebter A, Lee MI, Abdillahi M, Jones J. Satiety following Intake of Potatoes and Other Carbohydrate Test Meals. Ann Nutr Metab. 2012 Dec 4;62(1):37-43.

Natural Resistant Starch Reduces Body Fat & Weight Gain in Obesity Prone & Lean Rodents. 8% RS2 Necessary for Weight Loss Effect, Only 4% for Increases in GLP-1 and PYY

Potatoes! I don't suggest you eat them raw, but if you did they would make a good source of resistant starch. You don't eat potatoes at all? Read the Potato Manifesto and learn why regular potatoes are not as black as they are portrait!

I guess, you will remember my post on WM-HDP from back in the day. As usual you, as a SuppVersity reader were in the know, way before the ThermiCarbs and its identical clones hit the supplement market. It has however gotten relatively quiet around these purported super starches, which bypass enzymatic breakdown in the small intestine and get converted to short-chain fatty acids (SFCA) in the colon. Why? Well, my best bet is that people expected some sweet junk of which they could eat as much as they wanted with the only side effect being increased muscularity and decreased body fat levels. I am well aware that you knew better than that, but you know how people are: Always on the look-out for the magc pill... or in this case, the magic starch ;-)

Cutting fat by eating more: The old adage of the "fat burning foods"

Be that as it may, a soon to be published study by researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization in Australia confirms: If you exchange a high enough amount of regular carbohydrates with resistant starches (even regular ones, lower resistance to enzymatic breakdown that WM-HPD), this can be a viable tool to shed some body fat.

Unfortunately, though, the results of the very this study do also suggest that the effectiveness of this regimen will largely depend on (a) your phenotype and (b) your willingness to follow your hopefully not totally messed up satiety response and decrease your caloric intake voluntarily, just as the male Sprague-Dawley, the 'subjects in this study by Belobrajdic, King, Christophersen and Bird.

Figure 1: Energy intake and final body weight (left) and relative changes in fat mass and total liver weight after 6 weeks on diets with different resistant starch content (based on data from Belobrajdic. 2012)

Both (a) and (b) could however be major caveats when it comes to the practical realization of similar results in human beings, to whom I would not suggest that they follow a standardized diet with ~15% fat, 19% protein and ~66% carbohydrate, either - regardless of whether they exchange 0%, 4%, 8%, 12% and 16% of the mostly high GI carbs in their diets by resistant starch or not (the values are relative to the weight of the chow).

Just as raw potatoes, green bananas contain RS-2, the natural form of fermentable resistant starch. When you cook them, the RS2 content is continuously reduced.

Note: The "2" in "RS2", indicates that RS2 is, contrary to WM-HDP, which belongs to the "RS4" variety of resistant starches, a naturally occurring molecule. And though this is the case for WM-HDP vs. high amylase maize starch, the latter does not necessarily mean that one is more resistant to enzymatic breakdown than the other. You could for example think of special applications, where you want to have a starch that of which roughly 75% will be broken down into glucose in the small intestine, while the other 25% are fermented further down in the large intestine. This would be a synthetic molecule and therefore categorized as RS4, but still relatively easily "digested".

What I consider especially problematic, though is the fact that people who like to eat, let alone those, who use food as a, if not the only way to experience pleasure in their lives (eating for reward), are going to have a very hard time to satisfy their cravings with this blatant "food". I mean, we all know that "satiety" is not really an issue for most people with weight problems, so it remains questionable to which degree those who actually need a crouch like this will eventually benefit from a resistant starch which exerts its fat loss effect in rodent experiments at least partly via dose-dependent decreases in food intake -- 3%, 6%, 9% and 11% in the 4%, 8%, 12% and 16% resistant starch groups, respectively.

Ok, I have to admit there is more to it than just eating less

Figure 2: For the lean rodents, body weight gain and feed efficacy (weight gain per gram of chow) favor different "optimal" RS2 levels.

Allegedly, the reduction in food intake alone cannot explain the decrease in weight gain in either the obese or lean rodents, but if you take a closer look at the data I plotted in figure 2, it does still become obvious that  the ameliorative effects weight gain in the obesity resistant (i.e. naturally lean) rodents don't obey the "more is more" rule, as the scientists would have it in their abstract:

"Obesity prone rats (OB) gained less weight with 4, 12 and 16% RS compared to 0% RS, but the effect in obesity resistant [lean] animals was significant only at 16% RS. Irrespective of phenotype, diets  containing ≥8% RS reduced adiposity compared to 0% RS. Energy intake decreased by 9.8 kJ/d for every 4% increase in RS. [...] Insulin sensitivity was not affected by RS." (Belobrajdic. 2012)

In the naturally lean animals, the "optimal", i.e. the lowest feed efficacy would be achieved with 8% of RS2 in the chow and not as the "≥8% RS" implies with 16% of resistant starch in the diet.

Ok, I have to admit there is more to it than "minimal feed efficiency"

In the scientists defense, it must however be mentioned that the plasma lipid and gut / satiety regulating hormone levels they measured did in fact show an almost linear increase with the amount of fermentable resistant starch in the diets (see figure 3). Since Belobrajdic et al. do not provide individual data from the two groups, but settle for a table that will tell you that there were no treatment x group interactions  (this means that the outcome was not different for obesity resistant and prone animals) and a phenotype interaction with the overall outcome was only present for leptin, there is no way to tell for sure.

Figure 3: Inter-group comparison (not differentiated for lean vs. obese, because there were no significant interactions, except for leptin) of plasma lipid and gut derived hormone levels (data adapted from Belobrajdic. 2012)

So, with all these "admission" (as in "I have to admit..."), I have to admit *lol* that using high-amyolse starch as a part of your contest prep, maybe to bake pancakes or use it in another food, where the "taste" does not matter that much is could in fact be a viable dietary tool. It won't get you stage ready on its own, though and has one major caveat I have not even mentioned yet: You better make sure you always know where the next clean toilette is. Assuming that those 16% RS2 have the same effect on the volume of your feces as they had on that of the rodents in the study at hand, you may be spending 5-times more time on the loo thhan usually ;-)

If you can't remember what WM-HDP was, click on the image to go back to the article. Regardless of whether you pick up a natural or an artificial starch, this stuff is not "zero calories"! The high amylose maize starch in the study at hand has 10.45kJ (WM-HDP should be similar), i.e. 2.5kcal/g you will have to make up for by cutting out real foods.

Bottom line: Assuming that the results from the study at hand translate to human beings the incorporation of resistant starches in your diet seems - at least to a degree at which your bowel can handle it - to entail a lot of health benefits. The problem I see, is that you will have to force down these empty calories instead of eating healthy foods if you want to benefit.

If you simply add resistant starches (natural or artificial) to your diet, without cutting back on calories, elsewhere, you will become fatter, not leaner.

You will also have to take into account that adding resistant starch to the high sucrose diet of the rodents in this study will necessarily entail greater benefits than exchanging some tubers, rice, fruit and other non-sugary carbohydrate sources from a healthy diet with resistant starch powder - not to speak of all the beneficial micro-nutrients you will be missing!

References:

• Belobrajdic DP, King RA, Christophersen CT, Bird AR. Dietary resistant starch dose-dependently reduces adiposity in obesity-prone and obesity-resistant male rats. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2012 Oct 25;9(1):93.

New Results From the "Test Tubers": Paleolithic Men Could Have Been Healthier Had They Microwaved Their Potatoes.

Image 1: Potato roasting caveman-style - probably not the best way to "cook" your potatoes

As a non-native-speaker, I must admit that the first time I heard someone talk about "tubers" was on Robb Wolf's famous podcast, back in the day, when I was "listener #6" (or seven ;-). Contrary to common (foreign) belief, not all Germans subsist on potatoes and sauerkraut and, what's more, even those who do, don't really care that a potato is a "tuber", i.e. a "Knolle" in German - I suppose the idea that it grows in the dirt is not too appealing to some, while the large majority probably just doesn't care as long as those "tubers" make a good addition to their Schweinebraten... yet, whatever the reasons may be, my first encounter with "tubers" has ingrained the link of these "underground structure[s] consisting of a solid thickened portion or outgrowth of a stem or rhizome, of a more or less rounded form, and bearing ‘eyes’ or buds from which new plants may arise" (OED.com), as the venerable Oxford English Dictionary would have it, to the paleo style of eating so deeply into my brain that I have been seeing cavemen with roasted sweet potatoes on their sticks in front of a fireplace in my mind's eye, ever since. Now, if that really was the way life went, back in the paleolithic days, our ancestors did probably miss about 32% of the antioxidant magic of the tuberous roots - at least this is what the results of a recent study on the effects of different cooking methods on polyphenols, pigments, and antioxidant activity in potato tubers from the San Luis Research Center at the Colorado State University  would suggest (Perla. 2011).

In their experiment, Venu Perla, David G. Holm, and Sastry S. Jayanty

• boiled - 1h in a sieved double-boiler,
• microwaved + cooked - 10min in a commercial microwave oven at max. highest level +10min boiling, and
• baked  - 1h at 204°C in a commercial pre-heated oven

six months old stored potato tubers of 5 cultivars and 9 advanced selections of Colorado state (skin-color: 4x russet; 6x red; 1x white; 3x purple) and analyzed the samples for total phenolics, total flavonoids, total flavonols, and DPPH (2,2-Diphenyl-1-pikryl-hydrazyl) radical scavenging activity.

Figure 1: Loss in total polyphenol content of 5 cultivars and 9 advanced selections of Colorado state potato tubers due to cooking, microwaving, and baking (data calculated based on Perla. 2011).

As the data in figure 1 shows, all three preparation methods led to profound reductions of the potatos' total polyphenol counts. With Purple Majesty being most and Russet Nugget being least perceptible to the heat induced reduction in total polyphenol count. The cultivars CO97222-IR/R and CO97226-2R/R exhibited the highest total polyphenol counts (+77% and +137% above average in the raw state), with the former being particularly resistant to cooking (+119% above average) and the latter being particularly resistant to microwaving and baking (+154% and +169% above average, respectively).

Figure 1: Loss in polyphenol, flavenoid and flavenol content of 5 cultivars and 9 advanced selections of Colorado state potato tubers due to cooking, microwaving, and baking (data calculated based on Perla. 2011).

The superior resistance of these red-fleshed potato cultivars to cooking treatments is yet relative polyphenol-specific, due to their extraordinary high flavenoid and flavenol content in the raw state, CO97222-IR/R and CO97226-2R/R do yet retain a 241%, 155%, 199% and 243%, 331%, 395% higher flavenoid and 78%, 34%, 17% and 80%, 98%, 181% higher flavenol content  than the average potato (in the study) even after cooking, microwaving and baking, respectively.

The scientists also observed that, contrary to the white and yellow fleshed tubers, where the major pigment was lutein, the "dominant pigments in the red and purple fleshed tubers were anthocyanins", the antioxidant activity of which has been implicated in the prevention (by some even the treatment) of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and even cancer. Unfortunately, these pigments are just as susceptible to cooking, microwaving and baking as the polyphenols, flavenoids and flavenols, so that the total anti-oxidant activity (as measured by DPPH free radical scavenging assays) of the tubers that were tested in this study was reduced by -26%, -32% and -38% by boiling, microwaving and baking, respectively.

Please note: While it is unlikely that you will die from eating a single raw potato. The solanine that can be found in all parts of the plant, including the leaves, fruit, and tubers, is a natural fungicide and pesticide the plant produces to protect itself from insects, the ingestion of which can potentially be fatal!

Now, despite the fact that microwaving is only slightly less damaging that baking, I assume that putting the potatos directly into the fire, like the paloelithic men and women in my daydreams use to do it, probably is the worst way to prepare your tubers. Yet while even microwaving would have been a healthier option, the best and, from an evolutionary perspective, more natural solution would be to boil your potatoes.

Adelfo Cerame - Road to Wheelchair Nationals '12: Don't Simply Ignore the Signals of Your Body! Starving Yourself is not a Sign of Mental Toughness, but Plain Stupidity

Image 1: Huge sleeping, huge eating, huge training, huge progress and a HUGE back ;-)

I know this is not really the place to discuss recent studies, but in this case a study I read about three days ago fits in way too nicely into what Adelfo is going to tell you in about 30 seconds (or how long it may take you to read the next few lines) not to briefly mention it... in the latest issue of PLoS ONE a group of researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School report the results of a few rodent experiments they did (Su. 2012), results, which clearly show that the over-expression of AMPK in response to acute glucose expression directly inhibits leptin signalling - or put simply, if you don't fuel your workouts appropriately / refuel afterwards, you can carry as much body fat as you want, your body will ignore its existence and thusly refuse to burn it... but enough of that for today, let's get to the more practical side of things - Adelfo, take it away!

Four weeks out and time to eat some more!

I guess, one could say, broke down... I just could not resist the urge to tweak my caloric intake and macros  again ;-) I know I said that I would just leave it alone until the last week and a half, but that was to stop me from dropping the calories even further and in this respect I did not go back on what I said last week, because I increased - not decreased - my caloric intake by roughly 300kcal. This got me back up to ~1,700kcal from the 1,400kcal I had originally planned for.

The majority of those calories come from the carbohydrate content of my post workout shake and meal. I am currently at ~140g of carbs total, of which I have ~65-70g with a shake immediately post workout. Food-wise those additional carbs from a 5oz. potato I added to the ripe banana and the honey to get a more balanced ratio of fast to slow acting carbs and a more even influx of glucose into my system in the time it takes me to get home and prepare my whole-foods post workout meal, with which I ingest the remainder of the carbs (50g) in the form of fruits like pineapples and papayas.

Long live the zigzagging... well, as long as it matches your training schedule

You could use some advice on your  training, diet and supplementation regimen? Reach out to Adelfo via Facebook.

With the increasing number of workout (I currently train 5x/week) and the additional cardio training, I have given up on "zigzagging" my calories. It does not really make sense to reduce your caloric intake on days where you "just" do cardio. After all, you want to avoid mebabolic shutdown and with a highly glycolytic HIIT regimen, you better make sure you get at least some glycogen back into the muscles to avoid hypoglycemic episodes, which will bring down your resting energy expenditure, as well as your thyroid, testosterone and DHEA levels and flood your body with epinephrine and cortisol. On, Wednesday, which aside from Sunday (my re-feed day) is currently my only rest day, I do still cut back on calories a little (to 1,300-1,400kcal) - this happens almost automatically, since without working out, there is no post-workout shake and thusly a staple of my daily energy intake is missing, anyways.

Although your may safely assume that the decision to increase my caloric intake was not exactly easy for me (see last episode), it did pay off immediately. My energy and the intensity of my workouts is up and I feel stronger than ever. I see no signs of irritability or sleepiness, ain't lazy during the day, which is something I have been noticing over the last week or so... most importantly, though, I am not thinking about food anymore - let me tell you that: When all of a sudden your loved ones starts to look like a bunch of juicy steaks, you know that you are dieting to hard ;-) Yet even if it's just that you are looking forward to your re-feeds all week. Thinking about nothing else than the sweet treats you will be giving you and how great those pancakes will taste and start watching "Best Food Ever", a show hosted by John Goodman about the best eateries in the country on NetFlix, ... I mean if you are at this point, it is either a few days before the contest or high time to ramp your calories back up!

Making the right decisions is tough, but it is going to be rewarded - sooner and later!

If you are like me, that is going to be a tough decision - a battle against remorses and... yes, fears! But trust me, you will be glad once you made the necessary adjustments. Being four weeks out is one thing, being insane another one and four weeks of insanity are not getting you any closer to winning the competition than four weeks in which you still have the physical and psychological stamina to improve your physique... I have been there before and let me tell you, even if you look spot on on contest day, the aftermath is horrible - trust me!

Recipe of the week:  

Banana Coconut Cream Pie

Ingredients:

• 2 bananas dipped in lemon juice
  (slice in circles to top over the filling)
• organic vanilla pudding mix
• ½ cup of organic condensed milk
• ¼ cup of coconut milk
• egg whites and dried coconut flakes

How to prepare it: Mix and blend everything (minus the sliced bananas) in a food processor, or do it manually with a whisker if you want the filling with more thickness and chunk. This is a crust less pie, so just pour the filling in an empty pie tray. Put and fill the sliced bananas on the top surface of the filling, then, once the filling is covered completely, sprinkle the fresh coconut flakes on top. Put in the freezer for about 30-45 minutes or until the pie has the desired thickness. Then eat!

There was one year, where I went on a one-week straight binge, and it started right after my show on Saturday night, from when I touched down in Cali from the airport on Sunday afternoon:.. I ate, ate and when I stopped do wash everything down with some soda, I started all over again until next Sunday. Imagine bar hopping for 7 days straight? Well that’s what I did, but with restaurants. I ate myself ridiculously silly for 7 days straight! And when I mean ridiculously silly, I mean going to bed in fetal position every night, because my stomach hurt so bad that I couldn’t sleep straight, because I was so full! And I guess, I do not have to mention that this one week cost me three months worth of hard work. Not just the striations on my muscle, everything, my whole definition was gone and I basically looked like I did in the first week of the preceding prep.

You don't need to learn from your mistakes, if you learn from mine ;-)

It seems as if I have finally learned from my mistakes and it would be great if this blog would help some of you who read this avoid being similarly stubborn, when your body is telling you that he is shutting down. This feeling of ravenousness, it is more than just "hunger", it is the result of a complex interplay of hormonal signals within you, signals you may be able ignore, yet at what costs? Moreover, while your mind may be strong and does not give in, your body does - without you even noticing it will shut down its caloric expenditure to zero and start burning energetically costly lean, instead of fat tissue.

So, if your body start rebelling, you better take it serious. It is a sign that it needs something so urgently that it feels that your life literally depends on it. In my case, this was probably a mixture of an overall too low caloric intake and the latest drop in carbohydrates, which combined with the long haul of my prep gave my body the impression that a famine broke lose and I better make sure that I get some of the little food that may still be around here... and in fact obeyed, but in a controlled fashion being well aware that this also leaves me with more leeway to cut the calories back down slowly to peak just right before the show. If I had hovered along this way, in four weeks time, even cutting back to zero calories would probably not have made a difference anymore.

Ravenousness is a poor adviser - even on a re-feed day

Here are some pictures I took during my re-feed this past Sunday. Getting rid of the permanent thoughts of "all things junk food" really helped cleaning the mess of the past weeks up a bit. I returned to whole foods, like fruits and potatoes, and ate my gluten-free chips and bread more consciously - hey, I mean, it is a re-feed and without at least some junk, it would be beside the point ;-) 

< Meal 1 >


• Homemade Philly steak sandwich - grass-fed beef, grilled onions, bell peppers & cilantro on a gluten/wheat free bun
   
• A bowl of fresh fruit - bananas, kiwis, strawberries & pineapples
   
• A handful of cassava root chips
   
• 6 honey dates & 2 dried fruit papayas
   

< Meal 2 >


• 2 homemade burgers - grass-fed ground beef 94%, grilled onions & mushrooms, low-fat havarti cheese on a gluten/wheat free ciabatta bread
   
• Baked steak cut potato fries - used 2 organic russet potatoes
   
• A handful of cassava root chips & organic ketchup
   

< Meal 3 >


• 1 fried egg & 4 egg whites on top of an Ezekiel bread
   
• 2 slices of homemade banana coconut cream pie

In case you are now worried about what happens, when you let yourself go "like that" (let me tell you: this is nothing ;-) - no reason to worry, my dear readers! All that bloat and water weight subsided by Tuesday, and on Wednesday, I already looked better than ever before. Sounds, awkward but is in fact pretty logical from a physiological stand point: Suck up the water, jack back up the energy expenditure and wash out and burn more than the little (watery) damage you did on the re.feed day itself - you don't believe me? Well, I got evidence photos ;-)

Image 3: Bloated, full & happy (left) and back to normal, with a noticeable increase in my physique  just a few days later (right) - that is what "re-feeding" is all about, folks!

From the images above you can see that my strengths, which, as I said on Super Human Radio three weeks ago, are my abs are already shining in almost full glory, my back, on the other hand, has alway been a problem area of mine, but I have been working hard to bring it up and finally see some improvements, I want to share with you before I call it quits for today:

Image 4: My back has always been my weakest body part and before I shot these photos and put them together in a small collage, I felt that I did not improve on it in the past 10 months... now looking at these images, I am honestly stunned - I must have done something right, I think ;-)

If you are judging your own physique on a weekly, let alone daily base, you often do not notice your own progress... after putting together the mini-collage in image 4, I realized that even though I am telling this my clients time and again, I often don't think of it, myself. I mean, in all modesty, the difference between the way ma back looked in April last year, when I did my last show and the way it looks now is... I guess, HUGE! is the right word ;-) I have definitely made big improvements within the past 10 months. But, to be honest, I don’t know who to give credit to for this!? I guess I would have to thank Dr. Andro & Rob Regish, for really pouring into me their knowledge, and giving me awesome advice on how to train smarter, and improve my training. So to those two gentlemen… Thank you!