NOOO NOT THE STARCHES: Plantains and cassava

I usually like this girl's writing, but... um... yeah, easy for YOU to mock 'carbophbia' when you're, what, 25 and 9%BF? That kills me. I know paleo is the newest thing among urban intellectuals, but do they have no clue that paleo has a huge appeal to older, obese people with insulin resistance? No need to taunt the people who believe that starches aren't ideal.

Yeah, that's true. I did find the info about the uncontacted tribe eating cassava interesting.

I agree with you. I like her blog a lot, but when you are a size 2 soaking wet, it's easy to generalize that Paleo starches should be okay for everyone.

Yeah, it's not the carbophobia. It's the strategic reduction of carbohydrate in the diet. Maybe other strategies would work. Maybe not. It would be cool to see a paleo-inspired study that did include these types of starches, where the diet was actually paleo. Lindeberg did some studies, sort of inspired by the Kitivan diet (not really Paleo, I know..), it sort of bothered me that he didn't use a diet in the study that was a bit closer to what the Kitivans actually eat. It seems to me, that should sort of be the starting point.

I'm okay with organic tubers in limited amounts, if there are no negative effects on an individual's body.

But are they for everyone, even those who have a lot of weight to lose or have increased arthritic pain? Mmm, nope.

I eat them every day, love cassava especially. I have only lost weight. It works for me.

I might try some paleo starches in 3 weeks, when I get to phase 4 on my hcg diet. I haven't ever eaten cassava, at least not as plain old cassava. Don't they make tapioca from it?

Yes, but I usually boil and roast it.

A pudding made from the actual tuber might be neat.

I occasionally eat a small amount of Brazilian rolls made from Manioc (Also called Cassava, Yuca (- not "yucca",) and Tapioca flour)

Chebe Bread mixes: http://www.chebe.com/

This is my favourite snack food ever, but each roll has a gazillion calories, so I don't make it any more. It's what David Kessler would call an addictive combination of salt, fat and sugar (but with starch instead of sugar) and I would avoid it. The original recipe uses manioc starch (fermented or not), milk, butter or oil, eggs, lots of cheese, salt. It's a dairy fest, super rich.

Yes, I eat them only about once every couple of months. Not worth the carb count to eat them more often than that.

There's really no question about these types of tubers being Paleo, as I believe they are. I wonder, however, despite my anthropological ignorance, if tribes who eat a lot of this type of food actually have a "preferred food," but eat the starch because, as other resources dwindle, the tubers appear more accessible? It is my understanding that the starches in question require a lot of processing, which further illuminates my perplexity.

Just blubbering here...

The Highland New Guineans eat sago palms which require an utterly enormous amount of work to extract the starchy interior. But they don't have a lot of sources for protein.