FAQ

Q: What on earth is a starchivore/starchitarian?

There’s no formal definition yet in Webster or Oxford Dictionaries. The Urban Dictionary cites:

“a starchitarian as somebody who eats a “primarily vegetarian, low fat, high carbohydrate diet based on resistant starches. Popularized and promoted by Dr. John McDougall”

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However, a starchivore or starchitarian is someone who consumes starches (largely unrefined carbohydrates, like potatoes, rice and wheat) as the main part of their diet, alongside vegetables and fruits, and more optionally, legumes, nuts and seeds.

Most starchivore practitioners (including me) try and avoid wholesale any meat, dairy, fish, fowl, eggs, or added/refined oils. If any of these foods are eaten, they can only form a small part of the diet. This is up to and preferably less, than 5% of total food calorie intake.

If 5% at most can be sustained, that person can still be called a starchivore. I personally though would find doing “only” 5% at most difficult, ethically and practically. Most people can’t moderate their intake of foods like meat, dairy, fish, fowl, eggs and oils easily. Excluding these foods most people find easier, and better for their health, in the long run.

Q: Ok, I can get the emphasis on wholemeal and wholegrain. What about white flour, white rice, and white pasta though? Why can I not include these?

Refined white flours and refined sugar should be minimised and not eaten wherever possible. They are much more like white table sugar than wholegrains: they’re absorbed more quickly into the bloodstream, and appear to make a person more likely to develop conditions like type-2 diabetes and heart disease.

However, that having said, refined grains and flours doesn’t have as bad an effect on health in the short term as the foods above.  White bread, white rice, and white pasta (without greasy and oily sauces) are better for you at least than chips, bacon, fried eggs, and beefsteak! Wholegrain though is preferable wherever possible.

Q: Are you a vegetarian, or a vegan?

I wouldn’t be called a vegetarian or vegan: part of the reason being that many vegetarians and vegans may not eat in a way that promotes health. That used to be me. From Dr John McDougall:

“Avoiding meat (vegetarian) or all animal foods and products (vegan) is not necessarily healthful. Cakes, candies, cookies, French fries, pies, and potato chips can all qualify as vegan. Painlessly, one can become an ethical vegan, overnight, by replacing beef with soy burgers or mozzarella with soy cheese. All four of these foods are high in fat and/or protein and none contains the health-supporting ingredients that are required for strength, good looks, and longevity” (McDougall Newsletter Vol 12, Issue 4, April 2013).

Q: Starches and carbs I've been told are fattening, and cause weight gain/cancer/diabetes/heart disease, tiredness, etc. I lost weight through coming off carbs, and felt better! What you’re saying can’t be true.

Are you sure? Take people who eat lots of starchy foods, vegetables and fruits, and only very small amounts of animal protein and added fats (like the rural Chinese, South Americans, and Indians). If they eat this way, they end up being fit, trim and lean! They do not tend to put on weight at all. I’ve eaten this way myself for 2 years, eating large amounts of starchy foods, and have not become overweight maintaining a steady BMI (Body Mass Index), even when I’ve not been in a period of extensive exercising.

People often misunderstand the difference too between refined carbohydrates (often called sugar) and unrefined (complex) carbohydrates – found in starchy foods.  They have very different effects on the body. While excess sugars CAN be converted to fat within the body, the body actually does this very reluctantly - and typically only when it’s been filled to the brim with added, refined sugars by its owner.

Weight gain can happen for some people who gorge themselves on refined sugar, but they often tend to do this too on TOP of fats they eat as well. Research supports that if people do not add in fatty foods on top of simple refined carbs, the sugars they eat are not easily turned to fat.

For most people, going on a low carb diet means cutting the energy amount in total in the food they eat (they eat less calories overall) so they lose weight, along with burning off water in the body. But that kind of weight loss folks, no matter how many books and conference fees this idea sells, is not sustainable long term folks - at least not without increasing dramatically the odds of contracting disease.

For most people “the fat they eat (pork, beef, chicken, egg, fish, and, nut, olive and vegetable oil fat) is the fat they wear”.

Q: What about gluten, and wheat intolerance, and allergy? Nobody can be a starchivore when so many people are allergic to wheat and gluten!

The figure of how many people have celiac disease, and cannot ingest wheat gluten, is about 1 in 100 of the population. This is a serious condition, and should not be minimised. Gluten is found in wheat, barley and rye, all of which actually can be avoided on a starchivore diet (e.g. rice, potatoes, corn etc. can be main foods instead).

However, some people who are intolerant or sensitive to what gluten may have damaged their intestinal walls through repeated consuming meat, dairy, fish, fowl, eggs, or added/refined oils. Related to this initial damage, they are then sensitive to the proteins in wheat. They be able to reintroduce wheat later if and when their intestines have healed, but this needs a period of course in coming away the foods animal foods and oils known to put people at higher risk for damage, and time to heal the intestine, without wheat.

This kind of healing can require very specific diets even beyond a starchivore diet, such as Kempner’s Rice Diet, or medically supervised water only fasting, such as provided by the True North health centre.

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Q: Do you feel that your running performance has gotten better or worse as a result of this, or has it stayed the same?

It’s gotten slightly better. My fastest half marathon time, as a firmly part time athlete, decreased with no additional training, after I adopted a starchivore diet. My recovery periods were also better, with reduced soreness and fatigue. I can honestly say I felt like a gazelle on a number of my runs! If this way harms people, over 2 years in, I’ve felt no evidence of that.

Q: What are the risks of deficiencies as a starchivore? Do I need to take supplements?

Deficiencies don’t normally occur in protein, energy, fat, and most vitamins and minerals (including calcium) - despite what industry funded studies might be slanted to say - so long as people are getting enough starches to eat. For people who have relatively normal liver and kidney function, there are no deficiencies: and in fact, there is evidence of a starch based diet improving many kidney and liver function with liver and kidney problems.

Only a few nutrients should be of any special concern. Aside from people making sure they get vitamin B12 from fortified foods or a supplement (as all B12 is made by bacteria, rather than by plants or animals omnivores need to be wary of this as well see below); enough vitamin D from sunlight or fortified foods; and perhaps iodine - from foods rich in it, or from a supplement (iodine is often added to animal feed which is how omnivores get this, or in iodised salt) in normal circumstances you will have no problems.

Q: A “natural diet” shouldn’t need any supplements. How can you then say that a starchivore diet is healthy?!

B12:

Realise that vitamin B12 is made by bacteria, not animals or plants. The reason that vitamin B12 supplements are needed as a starchivore is related to people now cleaning and sanitising food and their environments, in ways we never used to decades ago. The same process that helpfully makes sure our food is free from infections such as E.coli, listeria and salmonella also means that B12 bacteria is not in it either now.

Some people in certain parts of the world, where there is less cleaning and sanitation still get their B12 through environmental contamination, will never take supplements. Obviously though, they also risk of other diseases if their environment or food gets contaminated.

While it’s needed by us all, very little B12 by volume is actually needed daily. The needs of a hundred people for their entire lives would be more than met by a couple of teaspoons of vitamin B12. That amount shows you how much we're aiming at each day. Clearly, we’ve been created or evolved to need very little B12.

Vitamin D:

As people are not spending anywhere near as much time in sunlight and outdoors as they used to in history, and as we have moved north and south from the Earth’s equator to darker and colder regions of the world, this means less sunlight and less vitamin D made.

Iodine:

Similarly, as we have moved away from coastal areas and fresh and saltwater sources, we not able to eat directly each day rich sources of iodine: edible seaweeds and lichen. Good thing there is iodine then in other foods!

Given a famous recent case of an Australian man (Andrew Taylor) living off potatoes and nothing more for a year, in good health and no deficiencies recorded at least over this time, suggests that this is sustainable and endurable, is a win scenario.

Q: Have any famous people, or athletes been on this regime?

At least two athletes have been starchivores: track star Carl Lewis, and Monica Seles, the tennis player. There are a number of other athletes that almost certainly eat a mainly starch centred diet in competition, but might call themselves mainly plant based or vegan instead. These include Dave Scott, who maintained a vegan diet for many years whilst competing in Ironman Triathlons); ultrarunner Scott Jurek; and tennis players Novak Djokovic and Martina Navratilova, when she was active.

Q: Aren’t you some kind of health freak? That seems impossible to follow to me

That’s a comment I can understand: I think that was definitely my reaction to this when I first came across it!  I can definitely understand people think this is strange when starting out (remember most everything that’s new or novel is seen as strange by us, when we first come across it).

“Health freak” is often a statement when we’re trying to shame somebody, and not think about or focus much on what they’re doing.  Yes, it requires some discipline and experimenting to start with, and willingness to try new things, but it’s not dangerous. The studies of Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselsyn and John McDougall among others have conclusively supported this diet can and should be followed long term by people in just about every case, with excellent results.

Many people may have been told that eating a plant based way is unhealthy or impossible. That’s not true, and what most people in the West have not been told is that in fact, throughout most of recent human history, mankind has gotten the majority of food and calories from starches. We have, through choice or necessity, been starchivores for thousands of years, with no significant cost to our health. In fact, this usually gives important improvements to our health over the standard Western diet. Think of people in rural places doing hard, strenuous work with nothing other potatoes to fuel them (Poland, Ireland).

Q: I don’t want to give up my favourite foods. They taste good. I love my cheese/beefsteak/ice cream etc.

You have a choice I guess. It definitely takes courage to try something new, and that your family or friends might feel is strange too, which can also be scary. But these changes are going to give you the best chance for health and getting better of some diseases, and developing disease in future.

We like tasty foods. There is a trade-off between taste and health, which people know about usually. It’s not enough though until severe health problems develop, that they crack on that they should change. By that time, it might be “late in the game” to make life saving choices. However, whatever point in time you’re at, it’s never too late to start. The result of eating starchivore for the vast majority of people is greatly decreased risk of not just diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke, but also dementia and behavioural disorders as well.

We also know that producing these foods that can taste good are often causing environmental pollution and damage, and harm the welfare of the animals they come from and the people that produce them. Sticking to plants for your food is far more ethical and sustainable.

Q: Aren’t starches bland?

Q: Aren’t starches bland?

People might think of potatoes, pasta, rice, corn etc. as bland, and they can be without adding anything. But so are meat and fish dishes: would you eat plain boiled beef, or plain boiled haddock? But when you flavour them however with tasty spices, herbs, and fat-free sauces (not with lots of salt if you have heart disease, high blood pressure etc. though), it gets a whole lot tastier!

Here are a few examples of tasty “starchivore” adaptable meals you probably enjoy right now! :

• Spicy tomato, or herb and tomato, spaghetti and sauce

• Herbed mashed potatoes, peas (garden or mushy) with mushroom gravy

• Vegetable curry (can be made for example with hemp or rice milk base, if you like a creamy type curry)

• Bean chilli, with cornbread and guacamole

• Muesli with non-dairy yoghurt

Q: Ok, I’d like to give it a try. Where do I start?

Head over to https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/free-mcdougall-program, which can help you start on the information that you need to do this in a fun and nutrient filling way! Please e-mail me though for any additional support you need, and I’ll try and help out.