Posted on by Cian

There’s No Starch in March…

What a beautiful day it was yesterday and today is Mother’s day another happy day when we will feast and celebrate our wonderful mammies.

Take a look outside  though, beyond the comfort of modern society,  do you notice that there is very little vegetation out there for us to snack on.  In particular there are very few carbohydrates (what are carbs) to be found in nature right now.

– Find me an apple or other type of fruit in nature?
– Where are the potatoes, where are the grains like wheat and corn and oats, which are used to create breads, cereals, cookies and so on?

The answers of course are based on the following fact:

THEY SIMPLY DO NOT EXIST AT THIS TIME OF YEAR IN NATURE

THERE’S NO STARCH IN MARCH…

…or January, February, April etc.

Here is the bell curve I discovered when plotting the GI (how fast foods cause a blood sugar spike) of foods appearing in nature over the the course of the year, which lead me to the concept that it is these types of foods in particular that trigger processes in our bodies and brains to encourage fat storage in order to prepare stone-age people for the oncoming winter. Essentially they begin to appear in May and by September they peak in terms of sugar content, then by December, they’re back down to the low GI again.

I’ve often wondered about how I would survive in nature when the foods we have around us would become less available? What would I eat? I suppose I would be hunting fawn, fowl and fish and stealing eggs from nests most of the year and eating whatever was harvestable at that time of year.

Today we can eat for every season every single day. We are caught in stasis; a permanent amplified autumn, where not only natural autumnal foods are available, but also their more potent refined versions. As a society we are addressing the sugar concern now through taxation and education, but I think that starches are being overlooked, when you consider a spud has a higher gi than a coke!

I wish to help in the fight against the global obesity epidemic, especially childhood obesity and my book Don’t Eat for Winter contains a section called The DEFoW Diet, which gives 10 sensible guidelines to empower the reader with knowledge of what to eat and when, as well as other guidelines on exercise and getting out into nature in order to more closely mimic the environment we adapted to.

I don’t think it’s feasible to eat by the seasons as our ancestors did, when all foods are available at all times in our society (it is both a blessing and a curse).  However, I do think it’s feasible to eat seasonally on a daily basis and that is encouraged through the DEFoW diet.

More about the book Don’t Eat for Winter here…

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Cian

Cian Foley is a Software Engineer from Waterford, Ireland and also a 2 time European, pan-American and World amateur kettlebell champion. Cian was a 115kg (256lb) obese 35 year old and has completely transformed into to a fit and healthy 78kg athlete through his 8 year journey of discovery around nutrition and exercise. He now competes as a natural bodybuilder at the age of 43 to prove that it is never too late to get into great shape without the use of steroids.