Live data from Hacker News

Potato diet community trial

slimemoldtimemold.com

71–80 of 240 posts

Re: Potato diet community trial

#71
post #63

My long-running pet theory is that eating a large variety of foods is bad for our gut biome. Between breakfast, lunch, and dinner, our intestinal flora cycles through blooms and die-offs of different bacteria. The blooms interfere with bacteria diversity, while the die-offs create waves of toxins that trigger our immune systems. To give an analogy, it's a bit like an ecology having its climate messed with. Imagine a…

There are research studies exploring the link between dietary diversity and gut biome, such as the following:

A healthy gastrointestinal microbiome is dependent on dietary diversity

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4837298/#:~:tex...

Re: Potato diet community trial

#72

Aussielent did a nutritional comparison. Potato, potato and more potato: surviving on spuds https://aussielent.com.au/blogs/news/potato-potato-and-more-...

This made me wonder whether potatoes are really this expensive in Australia? In the UK buying 2000 calories worth of potatoes from a major supermarket would cost the equivalent of AUD2.12 not AUD9.90 ...

Though by comparison rice gets you 2000 calories for AUD1.03, spaghetti AUD0.92, carrots AUD2.51, "pure vegetable oil" AUD0.059 so a more varied diet could be cheaper.

Actually I'd like to propose the carrot-only diet... Trying to eat 5kg of carrots a day is bound to make you lose weight, though your skin may turn orange ;)

Re: Potato diet community trial

#73
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you! Keto doesn't work like that for me. We need many different diets that work for some people, because no diet works for everyone.

I assume it depends on your gut microbiome and physical habits.

Or just preference. I just would be bored and unsatisfied on a real keto diet, I'd rather fast or die an extremely low cal diet on raw veggies.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#74

“Potatoes, milk, butter and the occasional piece of meat” is apparently a nutritionally complete diet, but you need to be able to eat something like 10-lb of cooked potatoes a day, which is hard work and also not that inexpensive either.

Potatoes are cheap af what do you mean?

Quick back of the envelope numbers.

At Tesco's you can get potatoes for £0.36/kg. 1kg = ~2.2lb, so ~£0.165/lb. Even at the higher daily consumption in this thread, 10lb/day, that's £1.65 daily cost of food.

I imagine the only way to go cheaper is by dumpster diving.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#75
post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

"Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy." Strictly spoken, true, but being overweight definitely is causal to decreased health.

It does not help that we are colloquially using the "overweight" label as an euphemism for morbid obesity, because we do not want to offend anyone including ourselves. I have never met a person who claimed to be merely "overweight" and wasn't actually massively obese.

In doctor's parlance, overweight means BMI between 25 and 30. This tends to correlate with the lowest all cause mortality in older people [0], so it might not be a big deal.

But outright obesity (BMI > 30) and morbid obesity (BMI > 40) are definitely a health problem.

[0] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/99/4/875/4637868

Re: Potato diet community trial

#76

i consider myself a potato connoisseur. i have been eating and loving potatoes ever since i can remember and even before as far as my family can tell me. "don't you get bored from eating potatoes"? i am asked on a regular basis. my answer is a standard "potatoes are life, potatoes are my comfort food. now get off my lawn" edit: i am willing to do an all potato diet but its not like i hate anything else, i just cant h…

One of the first solid foods I remember eating is my grandpa's fried potatoes. Fried potatoes in general were a staple in our household, always server with a glass of milk. I don't consume potatoes that much now (and am lactose intolerant), but those fried potatoes will always be my favourite food. I can never make them taste the same.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#77
I ate only potatoes (+oil/butter and spices) for years and was happy (I really love potatoes) but then got too tired of washing potatoes many times a day (you have to wash them because even a clean-looking potato has a serious chance to have a particle of sand stick to it and that's very unpleasant to bite). My mass (rather humble) never changed during those years, mo matter how much I ate, slept or moved.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#78
post #7

I don't doubt this works, but I'd rather do e.g. keto where I can eat delicious meals and still feel fully satiated.

I did this for a year. Its not sustainable, you'll loose muscle mass. I eat potatoes daily now, but not exclusively - complex carbs are harder to burn, so they are fattening, so I have gained some weight. Maybe I'll eliminate the rice and see how that goes. I'd recommend against olive oil and for coconut oil, frying potatoes needs a lot of heat. Add parsley, bacon, caraway, onions and serve with pickled white cabbage…

> complex carbs are harder to burn, so they are fattening, so I have gained some weight.

That isn't how it works. A calorie of complex carbs is the same energy as a calorie worth of glucose.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#79
post #48

“Potatoes, milk, butter and the occasional piece of meat” is apparently a nutritionally complete diet, but you need to be able to eat something like 10-lb of cooked potatoes a day, which is hard work and also not that inexpensive either.

More like 7lbs for an average man, but that's probably the point. You realistically can only eat something like 4lbs a day (I guess - I haven't tried), and thus you lose weight. If that amount is enough to make you feel full, that would plausibly explain why these people have success with this weight loss strategy. Note that the article recommends refraining from consuming dairy products, albeit without any reasoning…

Dairy products are usually high in fat and cholesterol, and are generally considered to be unhealthy. They are high in calcium, but the absorption rate (how much calcium you actually get from consuming it) is very low, and according to some research it's even negative (as in, it costs your body more calcium to consume dairy than what you get from it).

Dairy is also a relatively new addition to our diet, and was exclusively for babies for most of our history. A lot of people hate on vegans for being "unnatural", but at least when it comes to eating dairy that's just silly.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#80
In the UK we had a very successful chain called Spud-U-Like. Oddly it was super trendy mid to late 80s as I was a teenager, and I can recall it being an acceptably cool thing to go with some mates there.

One of the options "plain potato", for about 2 quid IIRC, was literally just the spud with a sachet of butter and pepper to add if you wanted.

I found that quite addictive TBH.

Don't recall there ever being much or any TV, radio or billboard marketing. They just sprung up in the high street in premium spots and out-competed McDonald's, KFC, Subway, PizzaHut and whatnot, which are all total junk-food in my reckoning.

Sadly they couldn't weather the property hike and probably over-reached on prime location real estate [2] (but that does how location is everything).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spudulike

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/04/spudulike-c...

Post reply on HN