Saturday, February 28, 2009

Dr. McDougall's New Book - The Starch Solution


Each month, at the beginning of the month, I receive a very informative, and provocative, newsletter from John McDougall, M.D. In this month's issue, he provides an introduction to his new book The Starch Solution. I looked on his website to see how to buy his book, but no information is yet available.

From my perspective, this book is quite timely and I look forward to reading it. Some recent posts on this Blog have discussed the nutritional value of starches and I intend to pursue this topic after I do more research. There is confusion, at least on my part, as to how starches stake up nutritionally. I enjoy my eating plan of vegetables, fruit, beans/legumes, and whole grains. I eat potatoes (white and sweet), rice lentils, garbanzo beans, but have deemphasized the starchiest of these foods during the past several months because I thought they were nutritionally inferior to the the less starchy vegetables. I decided to do more research, when became aware that it would be hard to meet my daily calorie requirements, especially during the cycling season, without more starch foods. Substituting lots of nuts,seeds and fruit to gain the extra needed calories, may not be the best solution due to high amounts of sugar and fat. Nuts/seeds and fruit are obviously great nutrition-packed foods also, but eating too much of these foods has drawbacks. My reading thus far has caused me to conclude that an great eating program should be well balanced among starches, vegetables, fruit, beans/legumes and whole grains and that each person needs to find the appropriate balance among these fine foods.

I intend to pursue the starch question further and I am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Dr. McDougall's book.

No comments: