Only potatos, squash, rice and gluten free oats?

Hi!

In the lesson Carbs 101 Jeff only talk about potatos, squash, white rice and gluten free rolled oats as valuable sources of starches, but it doesn t say you should eat only this or you should stop eating any other starches. For variety purposes having just 4 types of starches are very few options for me, specially because I have to eat a ton of potatos to feel satisfied and two tons of squashes for the same. And oats are more like a dessert for me so that left me only with rice.

So my question is: Should I eat only this 4 types? Should I simply priorized them but eat sometimes others? Or can I eat 50/50 (recommended/mine). I m going to write all the starches that I m eating currently and I d appreciate if someone could tell me if I can continue eating them for Thrive purposes or if at this step is fine.

Whole grain rice (brown rice), quinoa, buckwheat, lentils, cheakpeas and beans.

I also have a question regarding rice cakes and corn cakes. I m used to eat this because I am gluten intolerant and I switched from bread to corn and rice cakes. Are they good? Good, medium or bad source of starches?

What is your perceived value in those "starches"? Do you just want the variety? If you search Ive covered all those. 

2 hours ago, Jeff Serven said:

What is your perceived value in those "starches"? Do you just want the variety? If you search Ive covered all those. 

I just want variety, not a special perceived value. I am sorry but I read every topic in the forum and still not sure about it, that s why I asked. I don t know if I didn t find it or I didn t understand it so I d really appreciate if you can tell me please.

OK, so I read every topic again and I came to the next conclusions:

Beans, cheakpeas, lentils: Ok to eat 1-3 times a month, but while first in Thrive completely avoid them (extremely hard for me since I am eating them almost everyday!)

Buckwheat: at this step we can add from time to time until it s adressed later in the program.

Gluten free rolled oats: Ok to eat once a week or so.

Brown rice: seems to have aninutrients (all my believes are falling down so I really hope this will be adressed later to understand why).

Quinoa: not sure about this one. I just remember you saying in some post is not the super grain some say.

Potatos, squashes, white rice: to eat as ofently as possible (I was NEVER eating them so Thrive is really hard for me in this sense, it changes my nutrition 180º, it s in fact the opossite of how I ate).

Corn cakes and rice cakes: didn t find anything but I guess white rice cakes should be good because they are done with white rice...

One thing I don t understand is what I read about grains. Something about that they are not good... Isn t rice a grain?

Am I right in the above? Could you specify on the issues that I couldn t find about? I think I should make a stop in steps and eat first the not approved products that I have at home like buckwheat, quinoa and beans. If I have them I eat them because I like it.

Grains are avoided because of relatively poor nutrional value coupled with antinutrient content (gluten for wheat, phytic acid for most of them, etc.), which mean they 'take away'. White rice doesn't contain much micronutrients but most (or all, I can't remember) antinutrients are removed with the hull, bran and germ. Which is why rice is the only 100%-approved grain in Thrive.

It s extremely hard for me to believe in this since the last 4 years for years I have follow a whole grain diet. I completely changed my diet 4 years ago when I read "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Tradition and Modern Nutrition" from Paul Pitchford. I loved the book and how was written. In this book they recommend a diet based mainly in whole grains. Grains were the priority, followed by beans, nuts, vegetables and fruits. But basically it speaks amazingly about grains. And not very good about meat or fish. I ve been eating like this during 4 years and have felt very good. When I changed my diet 4 years ago I had more levels of energy.

I started eating fish on my diet 2 months ago. I was never an extremist vegetarian in the sense that I never never never tried to convince anyone to become vegetarian. It was just my bussiness. And also I didnt believe as almost every vegetarian believe that by eating meat or fish you are killing yourself. But it s true I believed it was healthier not to eat. Each one bealieve his nutrition is the best.

So in the same sense that I didn t like to say all fish and all meat is so bad for you, you shouldn t eat it. I don t like to hear all grains are bad, they have anti nutrients. I know here comes into play the part of me that has made a lot of effort in the past to have a better nutrition but other part is that if you skip grains you almost have no carbs options! Also even before been vegetarian, here in Spain we eat a lot of beans and cheakpeas and lentils! Around 3 times a week! It s part of our gastronomic culture.

When I started Thrive everyone was saying is not going to take away your foods... but if grains should be avoided then you take away 50% of my diet. if you take beans to the minimum you take another 20% away. I am just feeling a bit dissapointed and frustrated about it. I really want to follow Thrive but don t want to feel I m making so many restrictions in my diet. I m having a hard time with this. Maybe I shouldn worry so much about it... I don t know.

Vegetables have antinutrients too (but way more nutrients), it's not like it's killing you outright. So you can still eat grains and legumes. I don't exactly recall how the task/lesson is written, but it never says stop eating grains/legumes. I said rice is the only 100%-approved grain, but people have mentioned meals with other grains/legumes and Jeff has said that they were pretty good. Don't overthink it if you don't want to stop them, but keep it in mind and as the lessons progress, you'll be able to make up your mind. And I've lived in Spain, so believe me, I know what you mean about legumes. 

3 hours ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

When I started Thrive everyone was saying is not going to take away your foods... but if grains should be avoided then you take away 50% of my diet. if you take beans to the minimum you take another 20% away. I am just feeling a bit dissapointed and frustrated about it. I really want to follow Thrive but don t want to feel I m making so many restrictions in my diet. I m having a hard time with this. Maybe I shouldn worry so much about it... I don t know.

Thrive has two aspects to it. One is completion of tasks and the other side is education. To "pass" thrive earlier on, you HAVE to eat the approved food, whether it's just a bite or a cup. Later on you will need to also eat a specific portion but don't worry about that now. Don't make it any harder for yourself and set yourself up for failure. If you're still hungry after that half a potato (or whatever), feel free to eat anything else to fill your stomach. At this point the tasks are just to introduce you to these new food so you can take some time experimenting how you can incorporate them to your usual meals/recipes.

Education side, it's recommended that you avoid the other bad carbs. No where in the course itself does it tell you to stop eating all your other favorite food. Yes, Jeff will look down on your choices, but you'll have to live with that.  Once you finish the course, and with understanding of the risk in having a beans/lentils dish, you still want to have it once or twice a week because it makes you happy and you still have great energy level, go ahead.

I've never read that book, but anecdotally, I'm Southern Chinese and grew up with many other Chinese households who all have some knowledge of TCM-healing style cooking (you get knowledge passed down from grandparents and mothers and TV shows). If that's a good TCM book then it probably would touch on the fact that there's no specific set of food that's good for everyone. Not locking yourself to specific ingredients is especially important for maintaining balance. I don't remember any whole grain specific recommendations. We eat lots of white rice, and rice derived product (noodles) and sometimes wheat noodles. I did notice some shift to whole grain rice in recent years due to media saying it's good for you. Beans are definitely eaten (or made into beverage), especially soy beans, mung bean sprouts, green beans but they are always rotated with other vegetable meal choices, not a staple like rice. There are a lot of beans and nuts based dessert, but they are considered a treat. We ate a lot of pork and fish, and are told to eat less of other seafood. Most of TCM is not very scientific however, and while I believe some of it I think you should also consider that most of the trials and errors discoveries were largely tested on Asian people who grew up with certain availability of food in their region.

I'm actually interested in why you started looking into the Thrive diet? It sounded like you had great result with Pitchford's diet.

22 hours ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

OK, so I read every topic again and I came to the next conclusions:

Beans, cheakpeas, lentils: Ok to eat 1-3 times a month, but while first in Thrive completely avoid them (extremely hard for me since I am eating them almost everyday!)

Buckwheat: at this step we can add from time to time until it s adressed later in the program.

Gluten free rolled oats: Ok to eat once a week or so.

Brown rice: seems to have aninutrients (all my believes are falling down so I really hope this will be adressed later to understand why).

Quinoa: not sure about this one. I just remember you saying in some post is not the super grain some say.

Potatos, squashes, white rice: to eat as ofently as possible (I was NEVER eating them so Thrive is really hard for me in this sense, it changes my nutrition 180º, it s in fact the opossite of how I ate).

Corn cakes and rice cakes: didn t find anything but I guess white rice cakes should be good because they are done with white rice...

One thing I don t understand is what I read about grains. Something about that they are not good... Isn t rice a grain?

Am I right in the above? Could you specify on the issues that I couldn t find about? I think I should make a stop in steps and eat first the not approved products that I have at home like buckwheat, quinoa and beans. If I have them I eat them because I like it.

Thorough. Nice work. 

9 hours ago, Briac Roquet said:

Vegetables have antinutrients too (but way more nutrients), it's not like it's killing you outright. So you can still eat grains and legumes. I don't exactly recall how the task/lesson is written, but it never says stop eating grains/legumes. I said rice is the only 100%-approved grain, but people have mentioned meals with other grains/legumes and Jeff has said that they were pretty good. Don't overthink it if you don't want to stop them, but keep it in mind and as the lessons progress, you'll be able to make up your mind. And I've lived in Spain, so believe me, I know what you mean about legumes. 

Thanks a lot Briac for your answer. I was quite worried and overthinking a lot about it. I ll start eating more of the approved food to get use to it and will go step by step.

6 hours ago, Ching Yin Leung said:

Thrive has two aspects to it. One is completion of tasks and the other side is education. To "pass" thrive earlier on, you HAVE to eat the approved food, whether it's just a bite or a cup. Later on you will need to also eat a specific portion but don't worry about that now. Don't make it any harder for yourself and set yourself up for failure. If you're still hungry after that half a potato (or whatever), feel free to eat anything else to fill your stomach. At this point the tasks are just to introduce you to these new food so you can take some time experimenting how you can incorporate them to your usual meals/recipes.

Education side, it's recommended that you avoid the other bad carbs. No where in the course itself does it tell you to stop eating all your other favorite food. Yes, Jeff will look down on your choices, but you'll have to live with that.  Once you finish the course, and with understanding of the risk in having a beans/lentils dish, you still want to have it once or twice a week because it makes you happy and you still have great energy level, go ahead.

I've never read that book, but anecdotally, I'm Southern Chinese and grew up with many other Chinese households who all have some knowledge of TCM-healing style cooking (you get knowledge passed down from grandparents and mothers and TV shows). If that's a good TCM book then it probably would touch on the fact that there's no specific set of food that's good for everyone. Not locking yourself to specific ingredients is especially important for maintaining balance. I don't remember any whole grain specific recommendations. We eat lots of white rice, and rice derived product (noodles) and sometimes wheat noodles. I did notice some shift to whole grain rice in recent years due to media saying it's good for you. Beans are definitely eaten (or made into beverage), especially soy beans, mung bean sprouts, green beans but they are always rotated with other vegetable meal choices, not a staple like rice. There are a lot of beans and nuts based dessert, but they are considered a treat. We ate a lot of pork and fish, and are told to eat less of other seafood. Most of TCM is not very scientific however, and while I believe some of it I think you should also consider that most of the trials and errors discoveries were largely tested on Asian people who grew up with certain availability of food in their region.

I'm actually interested in why you started looking into the Thrive diet? It sounded like you had great result with Pitchford's diet.

Wow! Thanks a lot Ching Yin! I appreciate very much your post. I just brought from my grandma s place a big bag of potatos. I ll start with the white rice as soon as i finished the whole grain rice packet that I have at home.

This book is very spiritual and I would say not the most scientifical, although there are some scientific facts from time to time on it. It also says there is not one option for everyone. You can find the carachteristics of foods related to yin and yang and the four elements (those related to seasons and organs). I never had the chance to talk with any asiatic to know if all this stuff was true, but I already doubt many times about the rice, because I know in China is white rice what is eaten so I thought maybe many years ago it s when was eaten whole grain. But it seems that always has been white rice...

And now i ll tell you why started on Thrive. 5 years ago I was a fat guy, eating everything. I lost some weight just by doing some sport. 4 years ago I changed a lot my diet into Pitchford perspective (vegetarian). I lost more weight, more energy levels and after 2 years on it my digesting problem were solved. Few months ago I started feeling tired of my diet, eating outside many times and it simply come to my mind: "eat fish again" and I did it 2 months ago. So when I read a Thrive review I realized that maybe now I could follow, so I asked and take the advantage. The reason is because I love all GB courses and trust them a lot, so thought that if Thrive is in here too, it should be very good. I read that is good for performance. I m not fat any more, not lean either, so I wasn t looking for just a weight lost program. So to sum up I would say I was bored of my diet and actually I wasn t following any more Pitchford diet too much.

Thanks again for taking your time to answer.

3 hours ago, Jeff Serven said:

 

Thorough. Nice work. 

Great. Hey Jeff, will your answer become longer as I progress in Thrive or is simply your style? I hope is not because I ve been vegetarian. I m out of it now so... don t worry, I m legal.

Haha! 

Sorry, I wasn't intentionally being short. 

To add to the mix, preparation (i.e. soaking) of those legumes/grains also has impact on said phytic acid content, worth taking into account in making your food decisions.

So, Jeff is making his replies longer by adding more empty lines ;).