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Ray Peat quotes:

The half-life of fats in human adipose tissue is about 600 days, meaning that significant amounts of previously consumed oils will still be present up to four years after they have been removed from the diet.”

“Heavy drinking inhibits cellular respiration and sets up an inflammatory process, involving iron, which will still be harmful, but less so than in the presence of PUFA. If absolutely none of the dietary PUFA were in the body, no one really knows what that metabolic stress would do, maybe nothing cumulative.”

“When the polyunsaturated fats in the diet are reduced, the amount of them stored in the tissues decreases for about four years, making it progressively easier to keep the metabolic rate up, and stress hormones down.”

“The use of adequate protein and saturated fats during pregnancy will prevent many of the problems of pregnancy and infancy, but since the unsaturated fats remain stored in the tissues for many years, and are mobilized during stress, it’s important to eat correctly long before pregnancy. The requirement for vitamin E remains high for years after the diet has contained an excess of the polyunsatured fats. The diet which protects the developing fetus happens to be the diet that protects adults from all sorts of stress, and prevents many of the worst symptoms of aging.”

“The quantity of PUFA in the tissues strongly determines the susceptibility of the tissue to injury by radiation and other stresses. But a diet rich in PUFA will produce brain damage even without exceptional stressors, when there aren’t enough antioxidants, such as vitamin E and selenium, in the diet.”

“‎The larger the quantity of “toxic fat” stored in the body, the more careful the person must be about increasing metabolic and physical activity. Using more vitamin E, short-chain saturated fats, and other anti-lipid-peroxidation agents is important.”

“Although thyroid, progesterone, and a high quality protein diet will generally correct the epilepsy problem, it is important to mention that the involvement of unsaturated fats and free radicals in seizure physiology implies that we should minimize our consumption of the unsaturated fats. Even years after eliminating them from the diet, their release from tissue storage can prolong the problem, and during that time the use of vitamin E is likely to reduce the intensity and frequency of seizures.”

“But when tissues contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fats, every episode of fatigue and prolonged excitation leaves a residue of oxidative damage, and the adaptive mechanisms become progressively less effective.”

“It’s the stored PUFA, released by stress or hunger, that slow metabolism. Niacinamide helps to lower free fatty acids, and good nutrition will allow the liver to slowly detoxify the PUFA, if it isn’t being flooded with large amounts of them. A small amount of coconut oil with each meal will increase the ability to oxidize fat, by momentarily stopping the antithyroid effect of the PUFA. Aspirin is another thing that reduces the stress-related increase of free fatty acids, stimulating metabolism. Taking a thyroid supplement is reasonable until the ratio of saturated fats to PUFA is about 2 to 1.”

“The saturated fats protect against the body’s stored PUFA, and keeping the blood sugar up keeps the stored fats from being mobilized.”

“It was the body’s load of polyunsaturated fats which made it very susceptible to inflammation, stress, trauma, infection, radiation, hormone imbalance, and other fundamental problems, and drugs like aspirin and cortisone, which limit the activation of the stored “essential fatty acids,” gain their remarkable range of beneficial effects partly by the restraint they impose on those stored toxins.”

“Since stored fats are usually mostly polyunsaturated, the thyroid gland will keep being suppressed as long as weight is being lost, since the PUFA are being released into the blood stream. If a person has enough cholesterol, thyroid, and vitamin A, and keeps estrogen low, progesterone supplements shouldn’t be needed, but since adipose tissue is a source of estrogen synthesis when there’s inflammation, stress, or low thyroid, the need for progesterone is likely to recur. Aspirin helps to inhibit estrogen synthesis.”

“People with a significant amount of fat in their body, who have in the past eaten foods containing vegetable oils, are likely to draw unsaturated fats out of storage, with toxic effects unless vitamin E, thyroid, and coconut oil are used protectively until tissue stores of unsaturated fats are depleted. Typically, body stores of fat take four years to completely reflect the change to a different type of dietary fat.”

“Eliminating polyunsaturated fats from the diet is essential if the bystander effect is eventually to be restrained. Aspirin and salicylic acid can block many of the carcinogenic effects of the PUFA. Saturated fats have a variety of antiinflammatory and anticancer actions. Some of those effects are direct, others are the result of blocking the toxic effects of the PUFA. Keeping the stored unsaturated fats from circulating in the blood is helpful, since it takes years to eliminate them from the tissues after the diet has changed. Niacinamide inhibits lipolysis. Avoiding overproduction of lipolytic adrenaline requires adequate thyroid hormone, and the adjustment of the diet to minimize fluctuations of blood sugar.”

“In a young person, good food, sunlight, and a high altitude can often overcome severe and progressive inflammatory conditions. In an older person, whose tissues contain larger amounts of polyunsaturated fats and their breakdown products, it takes more environmental support to get out of the inflammatory pattern.”

“Sugars, if they are consumed in quantities beyond the ability to metabolize them (and that easily happens in the presence of PUFA) are converted into saturated fatty acids, which have antistress, antiinflammatory effects. Many propaganda experiments are set up, feeding a grossly excessive amount of polyunsaturated fat, causing sugar to form fat, specifically so they can publish their silly diet recommendations, which supposedly explain the obesity epidemic, but the government figures I cited show that vegetable fat consumption has increased, sugar hasn’t. My articles have a lot of information on the mechanisms, such as the so-called ‘Randle cycle,’ in which fatty acids shut down the ability to oxidize sugar. Polyunsaturated fats do many things that increase blood sugar inappropriately, and my articles review several of the major mechanisms. Several years ago, medical people started talking about the harmful effects of insulin, such as stimulating fat production, so ‘insulin resistance’ which keeps a high level of insulin from producing obesity would seem to be a good thing, but the medical obesity culture really isn’t thinking very straight. One factor in the ‘insulin resistance’ created by PUFA involves estrogen—chronic accumulation of PUFA in the tissues increases the production of estrogen, and the polyunsaturated free fatty acids intensify the actions of estrogen, which acts in several ways to interfere with glucose oxidation.”

“Our innate immune system is perfectly competent for handling our normal stress induced exposures to bacterial endotoxin, but as we accumulate the unstable fats, each exposure to endotoxin creates additional inflammatory stress by liberating stored fats. The brain has a very high concentration of complex fats, and is highly susceptible to the effects of lipid peroxidative stress, which become progressively worse as the unstable fats accumulate during aging.”

“The polyunsaturated fatty acids differ from the saturated fats in many ways, besides their shape and their melting temperature, and each type of fatty acid is unique in its combination of properties. The polyunsaturated fatty acids, made by plants (in the case of fish oils, they are made by algae), are less stable than the saturated fats, and the omega-3 and omega-6 fats derived from them, are very susceptible to breaking down into toxins, especially in warm-blooded animals. Other differences between saturated and polyunsaturated fats are in their effects on surfaces (as surfactant), charges (dielectric effects), acidity, and their solubility in water relative to their solubility in oil. The polyunsaturated fatty acids are many times more water soluble than saturated fatty acids of the same length. This property probably explains why only palmitic acid functions as a surfactant in the lungs, allowing the air sacs to stay open, while unsaturated fats cause lung edema and respiratory failure.

The great difference in water/oil solubility affects the strength of binding between a fatty acid and the lipophilic, oil-like, parts of proteins. When a protein has a region with a high affinity for lipids that contain double bonds, polyunsaturated fatty acids will displace saturated fats, and they can sometimes displace hormones containing multiple double bonds, such as thyroxine and estrogen, from the proteins that have a high specificity for those hormones. Transthyretin (also called prealbumin) is important as a carrier of the thyroid hormone and vitamin A. The unsaturation of vitamin A and of thyroxin allow them to bind firmly with transthyretin and certain other proteins, but the unsaturated fatty acids are able to displace them, with an efficiency that increases with the number of double bonds, from linoleic (with two double bonds) through DHA (with six double bonds)…

Cells are lipophilic, and absorb molecules in proportion to their fattiness; this long ago led people to theorize that cells are coated with a fat membrane…

Since most people believe that cells are enclosed within a barrier membrane, a new industry has appeared to sell special products to “target” or “deliver” proteins into cells across the barrier. Combining anything with fat makes it more likely to enter cells. Stress (which increases free fatty acids and lowers cell energy) makes cells more permeable, admitting a broader range of substances, including those that are less lipophilic.

Linoleic acid and arachidonic acid, which are said to “make the lipid membrane more permeable,” in fact make the whole cell more permeable, by binding to the structural proteins throughout the cell, increasing their affinity for water, causing generalized swelling, as well as mitochondrial swelling (leading to reduced oxidative function or disintegration), allowing more calcium to enter the cell, activating excitatory processes, stimulating a redox shift away from oxidation and toward inflammation, leading to either (inappropriate) growth or death of the cell.

When we don’t eat for many hours, our glycogen stores decrease, and adrenaline secretion is increased, liberating more glucose as long as glycogen is available, but also liberating fatty acids from the fatty tissues. When the diet has chronically contained more polyunsaturated fats than can be oxidized immediately or detoxified by the liver, the fat stores will contain a disproportionate amount of them, since fat cells preferentially oxidize saturated fats for their own energy, and the greater water solubility of the PUFA causes them to be preferentially released into the bloodstream during stress.

Saturated fatty acids terminate the stress reactions, polyunsaturated fatty acids amplify them.

In good health, especially in children, the stress hormones are produced only in the amount needed, because of negative feedback from the free saturated fatty acids, which inhibit the production of adrenalin and adrenal steroids, and eating protein and carbohydrate will quickly end the stress. But when the fat stores contain mainly PUFA, the free fatty acids in the serum will be mostly linoleic acid and arachidonic acid, and smaller amounts of other unsaturated fatty acids. These PUFA stimulate the stress hormones, ACTH, cortisol, adrenaline, glucagon, and prolactin, which increase lipolysis, producing more fatty acids in a vicious circle. In the relative absence of PUFA, the stress reaction is self limiting, but under the influence of PUFA, the stress response becomes self-amplifying.

When stress is very intense, as in trauma or sepsis, the reaction of liberating fatty acids can become dangerously counter-productive, producing the state of shock. In shock, the liberation of free fatty acids interferes with the use of glucose for energy and causes cells to take up water and calcium (depleting blood volume and reducing circulation) and to leak ATP, enzymes, and other cell contents (Boudreault and Grygorczyk, 2008; Wolfe, et al., 1983; Selzner, et al, 2004; van der Wijk, 2003), in something like a systemic inflammatory state (Fabiano, et al., 2008) often leading to death.

The remarkable resistance of “essential fatty acid deficient” animals to shock (Cook, et al., 1981; Li et al., 1990; Autore, et al., 1994) shows that the polyunsaturated fats are centrally involved in the maladaptive reactions of shock. The cellular changes that occur in shock–calcium retention, leakiness, reduced energy production–are seen in aging and the degenerative diseases; the stress hormones and free fatty acids tend to be chronically higher in old age, and an outstanding feature of old age is the reduced ability to tolerate stress and to recover from injuries…

Since healthy cells are very lipophilic, saturated fatty acids would have a greater tendency to enter them than the more water soluble polyunsaturated fats, especially those with 4, 5, or 6 double bonds, but as cells become chronically stressed they more easily admit the unsaturated fats, which slow oxidative metabolism and create free radical damage. The free radicals are an effect of stress and aging, as well as a factor in its progression.”

Am J Clin Nutr. 1980 Jan;33(1):81-5.

A mathematical relationship between the fatty acid composition of the diet and that of the adipose tissue in man.

Beynen AC, Hermus RJ, Hautvast JG.

Based on literature data, the hypothesis is advanced that in human subjects a direct mathematical relationship exists between the average fatty acid composition of the habitual diet and that of the lipid stores of subcutaneous adipose tissue. Since the half-life of adipose tissue fatty acids in man is in the order of 600 days, the fatty acid pattern of depot fat provides a qualitative measure of the fat intake over a period of 2 to 3 years. It is concluded that in long-term experimental and epidemiological nutritional surveys the adipose tissue fatty acid pattern of the subjects is a useful index of the average composition of their habitual dietary fat.

Adv Nutr November 2015 Adv Nutr vol. 6: 660-664, 2015

Increase in Adipose Tissue Linoleic Acid of US Adults in the Last Half Century

Stephan J Guyenet and Susan E Carlson

Linoleic acid (LA) is a bioactive fatty acid with diverse effects on human physiology and pathophysiology. LA is a major dietary fatty acid, and also one of the most abundant fatty acids in adipose tissue, where its concentration reflects dietary intake. Over the last half century in the United States, dietary LA intake has greatly increased as dietary fat sources have shifted toward polyunsaturated seed oils such as soybean oil. We have conducted a systematic literature review of studies reporting the concentration of LA in subcutaneous adipose tissue of US cohorts. Our results indicate that adipose tissue LA has increased by 136% over the last half century and that this increase is highly correlated with an increase in dietary LA intake over the same period of time.

Long ago, people knew that polyunsaturated fats blocked proteolytic enzymes. The first effect of too much PUFA is to block the ability of the thyroid gland to secrete the hormone by breaking down the thyroid globulin. If the thyroid does manges to secrete it, the transport of it on proteins in the blood is inhibited in proportion to the unsaturation. Fish oils with 5 and 6 unsaturated double bonds are the most powerful, almost total inhibitors of thyroid transport. Linolenic acid (omega -3) fats with 3 double bonds inhibits about 50%, linoleic acid (omega -6) with 2 double bonds inhibits about 30%. So the inhibition is proportional to the amount of double bonds. The responsiveness of the cell to thyroid is inhibited in proportion to the amount of unsaturated fats. Carotene is highly unsaturated and it has the same effect of interfering with thyroid function because of this series of unsaturations. The accumulated unsaturated fats in the body turn on other anti-thyroid processes, so it isn’t all immeidate and direct. They make you more susceptibel to turning on prostaglandins which promote inflammation and increase the tendency to produce lactic acid, and they interfere with the mitochondrial oxidative energy production. After you are 30 or 40 years old almost everyone has accumulated enough PUFA to cause a whole range of metabolic problems.”

“To reverse this process, it’s necessary to avoid doing the things that caused the problem to develop. The accumulation of heavy metals and of the unstable unsaturated fats (linoleic, linolenic, and arachidonic acids) can be slowed or reversed by careful dietary choices. The calorie restricted diets that slow the aging process reduce the accumulation of the unstable fats and the heavy metals. Vitamin E reduces the vascular leakiness and the free radical peroxidation that are so closely involved in fibrosis. Since serotonin and nitric oxide are involved in these processes, they should be minimized by keeping carbon dioxide production high (by optimizing thyroid function), and by eating protein that have a safe balance of the amino acids. Too much arginine increases nitric oxide formation, and too much tryptophan increases serotonin production. Too much glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and cysteine can be directly excitotoxic, and the metabolites of cysteine include proinfiammatory homocysteine, which can disrupt collagen structure.”

“All phases of development, from gestation to aging, are altered by the presence of the unsaturated fats, and these effects correspond closely to the loss of regenerative capacity, the ability to replenish and restore tissues.”

“But many very useful drugs that already existed, including cortisol and aspirin, were found to achieve some of their most important effects by inhibiting the formation of the prostaglandins. It was the body’s load of polyunsaturated fats which made it very susceptible to inflammation, stress, trauma, infection, radiation, hormone imbalance, and other fundamental problems, and drugs like aspirin and cortisone, which limit the activation of the stored “essential fatty acids,” gain their remarkable range of beneficial effects partly by the restraint they impose on those stored toxins.”

“EFA Deficiency” found in Newborns:

The fatty acids of newborn humans, and other non-ruminants, reflect their mothers’ diets more closely, but Mead acid is still present in human newborns (Al, et al., 1990). -Ray Peat, PhD

On starches:

1. Because of their glycemia, starches tend to cause blood sugar dysregulation compared to fructose and sugar (sucrose), promoting the effects of adrenaline, cortisol, stored PUFA, endotoxin, and estrogen.

“If you take orange juice with some fat it will be more stabilizing to your blood sugar than the grits and potatoes. Starches increase the stress hormones, interfering with progesterone and thyroid.”

“The polyunsaturated fatty acids, which break down into toxic fragments and free radicals and prostaglandin-like chemicals, are–along with bacterial toxins produced in the intestine–the source of the main inflammatory and degenerative problems. Sugar and the minerals in fruits are fairly effective in keeping free fatty acids from being released from our tissues, and the fats we synthesize from them are saturated, and aren’t likely to be stored as excess fat, because they don’t suppress metabolism (as polyunsaturated fats and some amino acids do). The minerals of fruits and milk contribute to metabolic activation, and prevention of free-radical damage.”

“Rather than the sustained hyperglycemia which is measured for determining the glycemic index, I think the “diabetogenic” or “carcinogenic” action of starch has to do with the stress reaction that follows the intense stimulation of insulin release. This is most easily seen after a large amount of protein is eaten. Insulin is secreted in response to the amino acids, and besides stimulating cells to take up the amino acids and convert them into protein, the insulin also lowers the blood sugar. This decrease in blood sugar stimulates the formation of many hormones, including cortisol, and under the influence of cortisol both sugar and fat are produced by the breakdown of proteins, including those already forming the tissues of the body. At the same time, adrenalin and several other hormones are causing free fatty acids to appear in the blood.”

“It’s the stored PUFA, released by stress or hunger, that slow metabolism.”

2. Starches can feed bacteria in the lower portion of the intestines if not digested quickly, increasing intestinal toxin burden and fermentation of carbohydrates which can stress the liver and produce changes in the metabolic rate, mood, and mediators of inflammation (like serotonin, estrogen, endotoxin). Excessive endotoxin exposure affects the liver’s production of cholesterol (not favorable).

“The upper part of the small intestine is sterile in healthy people. In the last 40 years, there has been increasing interest in the “contaminated small-bowel syndrome,” or the “small intestine bacterial overgrowth syndrome.” When peristalsis is reduced, for example by hypothyroidism, along with reduced secretion of digestive fluids, bacteria are able to thrive in the upper part of the intestine. Sugars are very quickly absorbed in the upper intestine, so starches and fibers normally provide most of the nourishment for bowel bacteria…Thyroid hormone increases digestive activity, including stomach acid and peristalsis, and both thyroid and progesterone increase the ability of the intestine to absorb sugars quickly; their deficiency can permit bacteria to live on sugars as well as starches.”

“Bacterial endotoxin increases serotonin release from the intestine, and increases its synthesis in the brain (Nolan, et al., 2000) and liver (Bado, 1983). It also stimulates its release from platelets, and reduces the lungs’ ability to destroy it. The formation of serotonin in the intestine is also stimulated by the lactate, propionate and butyrate that are formed by bacteria fermenting fiber and starch, but these bacteria also produce endotoxin. The inflammation-producing effects of lactate, serotonin, and endotoxin are overlapping, additive, and sometimes synergistic, along with histamine, nitric oxide, bradykinin, and the cytokines.”

“Starches and fibers support bacterial growth and can increase serotonin.”

“Since cholesterol is the source of progesterone and testosterone (and pregnenolone, DHEA, etc.), and sugar increases it, having fruit rather than starch might increase the hormones. Those hormones, antagonistic to cortisol, can help to reduce waist fat.”

“Sugar helps the liver to make cholesterol, switching from starchy vegetables to sweet fruits will usually bring cholesterol levels up to normal.”

“Besides avoiding foods containing fermentable fibers and starches that resist quick digestion, eating fibrous foods that contain antibacterial chemicals, such as bamboo shoots or raw carrots, helps to reduce endotoxin and serotonin.”

“Bacteria thrive on starches that aren’t quickly digested, and the bacteria convert the energy into bulk, and stimulate the intestine. (But at the same time, they are making the toxins that affect the hormones.)”

“Polysaccharides and oligosaccharides include many kinds of molecules that no human enzyme can break down, so they necessarily aren’t broken down for absorption until they encounter bacterial or fungal enzymes. In a well maintained digestive system, those organisms will live almost exclusively in the large intestine, leaving the length of the small intestine for the absorption of monosaccharides without fermentation. When digestive secretions are inadequate, and peristalsis is sluggish, bacteria and fungi can invade the small intestine, interfering with digestion and causing inflammation and toxic effects.”

3. Starches tend to be more fattening than sugar because of their effect on blood sugar and insulin. A starchy diet in conjunction with the consumption of polyunsaturated fats is a reliable way to produce obesity.

“When the idea of “glycemic index” was being popularized by dietitians, it was already known that starch, consisting of chains of glucose molecules, had a much higher index than fructose and sucrose. The more rapid appearance of glucose in the blood stimulates more insulin, and insulin stimulates fat synthesis, when there is more glucose than can be oxidized immediately. If starch or glucose is eaten at the same time as polyunsaturated fats, which inhibit its oxidation, it will produce more fat. Many animal experiments show this, even when they are intending to show the dangers of fructose and sucrose.”

“Starch is less harmful when eaten with saturated fat, but it’s still more fattening than sugars.”

“Starch and glucose efficiently stimulate insulin secretion, and that accelerates the disposition of glucose, activating its conversion to glycogen and fat, as well as its oxidation. Fructose inhibits the stimulation of insulin by glucose, so this means that eating ordinary sugar, sucrose (a disaccharide, consisting of glucose and fructose), in place of starch, will reduce the tendency to store fat. Eating “complex carbohydrates,” rather than sugars, is a reasonable way to promote obesity. Eating starch, by increasing insulin and lowering the blood sugar, stimulates the appetite, causing a person to eat more, so the effect on fat production becomes much larger than when equal amounts of sugar and starch are eaten. The obesity itself then becomes an additional physiological factor; the fat cells create something analogous to an inflammatory state. There isn’t anything wrong with a high carbohydrate diet, and even a high starch diet isn’t necessarily incompatible with good health, but when better foods are available they should be used instead of starches. For example, fruits have many advantages over grains, besides the difference between sugar and starch. Bread and pasta consumption are strongly associated with the occurrence of diabetes, fruit consumption has a strong inverse association.”

“When starch is well cooked, and eaten with some fat and the essential nutrients, it’s safe, except that it’s more likely than sugar to produce fat, and isn’t as effective for mineral balance.”

“Per calorie, sugar is less fattening than starch, partly because it stimulates less insulin, and, when it’s used with a good diet, because it increases the activity of thyroid hormone.”

“In an old experiment, a rat was tube-fed ten grams of corn-starch paste, and then anesthetized. Ten minutes after the massive tube feeding, the professor told the students to find how far the starch had moved along the alimentary canal. No trace of the white paste could be found, demonstrating the speed with which starch can be digested and absorbed. The very rapid rise of blood sugar stimulates massive release of insulin, and rapidly converts much of the carbohydrate into fat.”

4. Starches lack fructose. Fructose helps raise the metabolic rate and regulate insulin secretion.

“Starch is the only common carbohydrate that contains no fructose.”

“Here’s a currently often cited article which claimed to show that fructose causes ‘insulin resistance’ compared to a starch diet, but careful reading would show that it confirms the powerful protective effect of fructose (and sucrose), since if the greater weight gain of the starch eaters continued beyond the short 5 weeks of the experiment, after a year the starchy rats would have weighed twice as much as the lean sugar eaters. The fructose limits insulin secretion, but intensifies metabolism, burning calories faster.”

5. Starch can irritate the gut lining, and starch granules can enter the bloodstream and urine (persorption) inappropriately. Chronic irritation of the gut lining makes serotonin, endotoxin, nitric oxide, and estrogen serious threats to the metabolism, the liver, and overall well being. Persorption promotes tissue injury and circulatory issues.

“Persorption refers to a process in which relatively large particles pass through the intact wall of the intestine and enter the blood or lymphatic vessels. It can be demonstrated easily, but food regulators prefer to act as though it didn’t exist. The doctrine that polymers–gums, starches, peptides, polyester fat substitutes–and other particulate substances can be safely added to food because they are “too large to be absorbed” is very important to the food industry and its shills.

When the bowel is inflamed, toxins are absorbed. The natural bacterial endotoxin produces many of the same inflammatory effects as the food additive, carrageenan. Like inflammatory bowel disease, the incidence of liver tumors and cirrhosis has increased rapidly. Liver damage leads to hormonal imbalance. Carrageenan produces inflammation and immunodeficiency, synergizing with estrogen, endotoxin and unsaturated fatty acids.”

“In the presence of bacterial endotoxin, respiratory energy production fails in the cells lining the intestine. Nitric oxide is probably the main mediator of this effect.”

“Intestinal inflammation is often behind recurrent tooth infectons, and a daily raw carrot can make a big difference (along with avoiding legumes, undercooked starches and raw or undercooked vegetables).”

“Volkheimer found that mice fed raw starch aged at an abnormally fast rate, and when he dissected the starch-fed mice, he found a multitude of blocked arterioles in every organ, each of which caused the death of the cells that depended on the blood supplied by that arteriole. It isn’t hard to see how this would affect the functions of organs such as the brain and heart, even without considering the immunological and other implications….”

“Tiny particles of insoluble materials — clay, starch, soot, bacteria — are all potential sources of serious inflammatory reactions, and the ultra-small particles are potentially ultra-numerous and harder to avoid.”

“Around 1988 I read Gerhard Volkheimer’s persorption article, and after doing some experiments with tortillas and masa, I stopped eating all starch except for those, then eventually I stopped those. Besides grains of starch entering the blood stream, lymph, and cerebral spinal fluid, starch feeds bacteria, increasing endotoxin and serotonin.”

“For people with really sensitive intestines or bad bacteria, starch should be zero.”

6. In some cases, they are high in phosphorus relative to calcium as in grains, beans, and legumes. Sugar is more friendly on mineral balance and bone health relative to starch.

“The foods highest in phosphate, relative to calcium, are cereals, legumes, meats, and fish. Many prepared foods contain added phosphate. Foods with a higher, safe ratio of calcium to phosphate are leaves, such as kale, turnip greens, and beet greens, and many fruits, milk, and cheese.”

7. Some are reactive to starches, like the potato, because they are nightshade vegetables.

“When a person has limited money for food, potatoes are a better staple than beans or oats. Starches associated with saponins, alkaloids, and other potentially pro-inflammatory things make them a less than ideal food, if you have digestion-related health problems, and if you can afford to choose. New potatoes are tastier, less starchy, and probably less likely to cause digestive irritation.”

#ray peat #pufa #o-6 #fuck vegetable oil #high animal low plant