The Starch Solution Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    Genetic testing has demonstrated that humans thrive best on starch. 16 Human and chimpanzee DNA is roughly identical; one of the minor differences is that our genes help us to digest more starch, a crucial evolutionary adjustment.
     
    Studies of the gene coding for amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starch into simple sugars, found that humans have on average six copies of the gene compared to two copies in other, “lesser” primates. 16 This difference means that human saliva produces six to eight times more of the starch-digesting enzyme amylase. Their limited ability to utilize starch confined chimpanzees and other great apes to tropical jungles around the equator, where they found abundant fruits and perishable vegetables all year long to meet their caloric needs. It was our ability to digest and meet our energy needs with starch that allowed us to migrate north and south and inhabit the entire planet.
     
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Nonfood Uses of Starch
     
    The term “starch” comes from the Middle English word
sterchen:
to stiffen. In its pure form, starch is a white, odorless, tasteless powder. Starch granules don’t dissolve in water, but heat causes them to swell and turn gelatinous. The starch gel cools into a paste that can be used as a thickener, stiffener, or glue. (Remember those flour-and-water paste projects in elementary school? Or papier-mâché? You might also have noticed that your cooked oatmeal or polenta turns stiff and gluelike after it cools.)
     
    Starch is a principal ingredient in laundry products, medicines, cosmetics, and powders, with the largest nonfood use being paper production. The construction industry uses it to make gypsum wallboard, stucco, adhesives, and glues. Starch is a versatile substance in industry!
     
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    As early humans ventured north and south from Africa to colonize the rest of the planet, we relied on our ability to eat starchy tubers and grains for concentrated calories to last through the winter, after the fruits of summer and fall were gone. These starchy foods were widely available around the world and easy to gather from underground (roots, tubers) and aboveground (grains, beans). Starch’s abundant calories also supplied the extra energy we needed to increase our brain capacity and size (threefold compared with that of lesser primates). 17
     

R ECLAIMING S TARCH
    With the exception of wealthy aristocrats, humans throughout history have derived most of their energy from starch. Life began to change with the colossal wealth created during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s. As we began to successfully harness fossil fuels, millions and then billions of people began to eat from tables heaped high with meat, fowl, and dairy—foods that previously were eaten only by royalty. You can easily see the result: We’ve inflated to resemble the rotund images of aristocrats.
     
    When we consume too much fat, the body looks for a place to store it, typically in the belly, buttocks, and thighs. The fat you eat is the fat you wear, quite literally. Starches provide energy and an abundance of nutrients without being stored visibly as fat. Quite the opposite: They fuel us with the proteins, essential fats, vitamins, and minerals that make our bodies run like the efficient machines they were meant to be.
     
    Starches are a clean-burning fuel, with just a small fraction (1 to 8 percent) of their calories coming from fat. They have insignificant amounts of cholesterol. Unless they have come into contact with them from animal waste or tissue, they do not harbor pathogens like salmonella, E. coli, or mad cow prions (agents causing bovine spongiform encephalopathy). They don’t store up poisonous chemicals from the environment, like DDT or methyl mercury. Unless they become contaminated by pesticides directly introduced by farmers, starches are squeaky clean.
     
    Some starches, like potatoes and sweet potatoes, are complete foods: By eating these foods alone you will