Potatoes and Human Health, Part II

Glycoalkaloids in Commonly Eaten Potatoes

Like many edible plants, potatoes contain substances designed to protect them from marauding creatures. The main two substances we're concerned with are alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine, because they are the most toxic and abundant. Here is a graph of the combined concentration of these two glycoalkaloids in common potato varieties (1):

We can immediately determine three things from this graph:

• Different varieties contain different amounts of glycoalkaloids.
• Common commercial varieties such as russet and white potatoes are low in glycoalkaloids. This is no accident. The glycoalkaloid content of potatoes is monitored in the US.
  
• Most of the glycoalkaloid content is in the skin (within 1 mm of the surface). That way, predators have to eat through poison to get to the flesh. Fortunately, humans have peelers.

I'll jump the gun and tell you that the generally accepted safe level of potato glycoalkaloids is 200 mcg/g fresh weight (1). You can see that all but one variety are well below this level when peeled. Personally, I've never seen the Snowden variety in the store or at the farmer's market. It appears to be used mostly for potato chips.

Glycoalkaloid Toxicity in Animals

Potato glycoalkaloids are undoubtedly toxic at high doses. They have caused many harmful effects in animals and humans, including (1, 2):

• Death (humans and animals)
  
• Weight loss, diarrhea (humans and animals)
  
• Anemia (rabbits)
• Liver damage (rats)
  
• Lower birth weight (mice)
  
• Birth defects (in animals injected with glycoalkaloids)
  
• Increased intestinal permeability (mice)

However, it's important to remember the old saying "the dose makes the poison". The human body is designed to handle a certain amount of plant toxins with no ill effects. Virtually every plant food, and a few animal foods, contains some kind of toxic substance. We're constantly bombarded by gamma rays, ultra violet rays, bacterial toxins, free radicals, and many other potentially harmful substances. In excess, they can be deadly, but we are adapted to dealing with small amounts of them, and the right dose can even be beneficial in some cases.

All of the studies I mentioned above, except one, involved doses of glycoalkaloids that exceed what one could get from eating typical potatoes. They used green or blemished potatoes, isolated potato skins, potato sprouts or isolated glycoalkaloids (more on this later). The single exception is the last study, showing that normal doses of glycoalkaloids can aggravate inflammatory bowel disease in transgenic mice that are genetically predisposed to it (3)*.

What happens when you feed normal animals normal potatoes? Not much. Many studies have shown that they suffer no ill effects whatsoever, even at high intakes (1, 2). This has been shown in primates as well (4, 5, 6). In fact, potato-based diets appear to be generally superior to grain-based diets in animal feed. As early as 1938, Dr. Edward Mellanby showed that grains, but not potatoes, aggravate vitamin A deficiency in rats and dogs (7). This followed his research showing that whole grains, but not potatoes, aggravate vitamin D deficiency due to their high phytic acid content (Mellanby. Nutrition and Disease. 1934). Potatoes were also a prominent part of Mellanby's highly effective tooth decay reversal studies in humans, published in the British Medical Journal in 1932 (8, 9).

Potatoes partially protect rats against the harmful effects of excessive cholesterol feeding, when compared to wheat starch-based feed (10). Potato feeding leads to a better lipid profile and intestinal short-chain fatty acid production than wheat starch or sugar in rats (11). I wasn't able to find a single study showing any adverse effect of normal potato feeding in any normal animal. That's despite reading two long review articles on potato glycoalkaloids and specifically searching PubMed for studies showing a harmful effect. If you know of one, please post it in the comments section.

In the next post, I'll write about the effects of potatoes in the human diet, including data on the health of traditional potato-eating cultures... and a curious experiment by the Washington State Potato Commission that will begin on October 1.


*Interleukin-10 knockout mice. IL-10 is a cytokine involved in the resolution of inflammation and these mice develop inflammatory bowel disease (regardless of diet) due to a reduced capacity to resolve inflammation.

What I'm going to do with 10,000 pounds of tomatoes.

Well, not 10,000 pounds exactly, but close.  This is what I have starting at me right now, and I have another box just like these in the house we've been working on that I forgot to include in the following picture.

Did I mention that the vines outside are already ready for a picking too?  Please don't think I'm complaining, I'm not.  I am a little overwhelmed, but I'm not complaining.  Our CA summer was so mild the tomatoes didn't get the heat they needed to ripen, so we are having a late harvest.  (On the plus side, fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving)

So today, I'm doing what other garden growers do this time of year who lack large freezers and time to can.

I'm getting creative.

List of High Fiber Foods and Fiber Content

Here are typical High Fiber Foods along with the approximate number of grams of fiber they contain.

A list of high fiber foods helps you know which foods to include in daily meal planning. Obtaining adequate fiber is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

The recommended daily fiber consumption should be about 25-30 grams for an adult. The walls of plant cells are the sources of dietary fiber.

Fiber contents shown below on the list of high fiber foods are for a food quantity of 1/2 cup unless otherwise noted:

• Bananas, 3 grams - medium 8" long
• Beans, 6-10 grams - baked beans, black beans , great northern beans, kidney beans, garbanzos, pinto beans, white beans
• Berries, 4-5 grams - blackberries, raspberries
• Bran Cereals, 5-10 grams - All-Bran, Bran Buds, 100% Bran, Raisin Bran
• Bread, 4-7 grams - 2 slices whole wheat, pumpernickel, seven-grain
• Broccoli, 4-5 grams
• Brussels Sprouts, 2 grams
• Carrots, 3-4 grams
• Dried Figs, 10 grams - 3 figs
• Fruit, 4 grams - medium apple, medium pear
. Green Beans, 2 grams - broad beans, pole beans, snap beans
• Greens, 4-6 grams - beet greens, collards, kale, spinach, turnip greens
• Lentils, 6 grams
• Lima beans - 4-6 grams
• Peas, 7-9 grams - black-eyed peas, green peas
• Potatoes, 4-5 grams - medium baked Idaho or sweet potato
• Sweet Corn, 5 grams

The best fiber supplements are rice bran or psyllium made from ground-up psyllium seeds.

Be sure to have a print out of High Fiber Foods list so you can always have the best choice which healthy fiber foods to include in your daily diet.

Three Red Flag Warnings Leading to Weight Gain After Bariatric Surgery

By Kaye Bailey

Before undergoing bariatric surgery for weight loss it is hard to imagine that we could possibly ever become one of "those people" who gain weight after losing it with the help of surgery. Sadly, at some point most patients who have gastric surgery as their last hope for weight loss eventually regain some weight back. It can happen quickly and without fanfare. Here are three red

Calorie free and tasty snack: Kim Chi Cucumber

We have such a variety of vegetables right now, to prevent burnout, we are creating different meals.  Just last night my hubby made a variation of  lasagna using several veggies from the garden.  I am proud of him, he's still eating zucchini after several months of cooking with it.

At our favorite Japanese restaurant, we enjoy a dish called Tako Kim Chi.  It's cucumber and octopus covered with kim chi sauce.  Such an easy recipe to recreate, but since I'm not proficient in octopus preparation, I will leave that treat for when we eat out.  

What we do instead is chop up cucumbers from the garden and drizzle kim chi sauce over it.  The sauce was hard to find because you typically can't find it at your local grocery store.  I had to go to an Asian market to find it.  

You know what shocked me the most at the market?  It wasn't the embryonic, purple eggs or the numerous bottles of fish parts pickled, fermented, salted, etc.  What shocked me the most was the isle of bagged MSG.  I try to avoid every trace of the stuff in my diet and yet there were bags and bags of it up and down the isle.

  

The only downer with the sauce is that it does have MSG in it, so I use it sparingly and not very often.  What I would like to do is make my own sauce with natural ingredients.  I'm on a quest for a recipe.

Getting Rid of Cellulite: Goodbye Cellulite

How to get rid of cellulite on thighs without exercising:

"Cellulite treatments can indeed make a difference in reducing the appearance of dimply fat"

That's the word from expert dermatologist Jeannette graf, M.D. To get rid of cellulite, she recommends a combo of Endermologie, a massage treatment that thickens connective tissue to give skin a firmer appearance, plus stimulates the lymph system, and VelaShape, which combines radio waves, infrared light, massage and suction to boost lymph drainage and shrink fat cells.

Three hitches: It generally takes four weeks to see real results, cellulite treatments must be continued or dimples will return and each treatment costs about $100.

For a low-tech solution to getting rid of cellulite, take a cue from Brazil's bikini-beautiful women, who rub sand on problem spots as they lounge on the beach. The massage helps stimulate the lymphatic system to release trapped toxins, while the rough sand helps smooth the skin's surface.

Pre-beach season, try a body bar that features sand-like granules such as Buffy Body Butter by LUSH. It contains ground almonds, rice and aduki beans, and you'll say goodbye cellulite just in time for the beach season.

It's not a project, it's called life

Another incredibly long day. I think it's been about 16 hours with maybe a half hour break that I've been staring at this computer. My eyeballs feel like burned out sockets.

I managed to get in a good workout this morning and my eating has been great. Mainly because I don't really have time to think much about food. That gives you a clue as to how busy my work has been. Food is always on my mind!

I've been thinking about what I wrote yesterday, Monday. About how I couldn't handle another project right now, referring to my weight loss. The truth is that I can't look at it as a "project". That's been my problem (or part of it) my entire life. If I couldn't give it 100% of my focus I would fail. When I'm 100% on and it's my entire focal point, I'm good. When things, like life, get in my way, that's when I really have problems.

My goal this time during this work stress is to just to get through it the best I can. Get to the gym, even if it's only thirty minutes, which lately there's been a few days that was all I could squeeze into my day. Today it was an hour and a half, which felt great, but thirty minutes is my minimum, an hour is better, and an hour and a half is optimal. Of course, watch my eating. Maybe I can't journal every bite, but I know what to do and what not to do when it comes to food. I'm not new at this game. :)

One of these days, soon I hope, things will be back to normal. Right now, I just have to make the best of it.