Sweet Potato Power: Smart Carbs; Paleo and Personalized

310 Pages·2012·3.51 MB·English

by  Ashley Tudor

SWEET
POTATO
POWER
SMART CARBS
PALEO AND PERSONALIZED
VICTORY BELT PUBLISHING INC LAS VEGAS
First Published in 2012 by Victory Belt Publishing Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Ashley Tudor
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN 13: 978-1-936608-78-2
The information included in this book is for educational purposes only. It is not
intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The
reader should always consult his or her healthcare provider to determine the
appropriateness of the information for their own situation or if they have any
questions regarding a medical condition or treatment plan. Reading the
information in this book does not create a physician-patient relationship.
Victory Belt ® is a registered trademark of Victory Belt Publishing Inc.
Photography by Bryan Alberstat
Graphic design of cover and book by Ann Liu Alcasabas
dedication
TO MOM AND DAD
acknowledgments
James, thank you for your contagious love of sweet potatoes. Sweet Potato
Power started with you. Your excitement over this humble root, which
resembled that of a child on Christmas morning, and your commitment to a
healthy lifestyle inspired this journey. Beyond the sweet potato, your friendship,
encouragement, and feedback are the foundation of this book.
Dr. Dick Thom, you are the Sherlock Holmes of health. You are willing to jump
down the rabbit hole and explore all the issues and possibilities until they are
resolved. With your clinical guidance, my passion for self-monitoring and
experimentation can now be helpful to others. Your dedicated work, with
patients and twenty years of clinical experience, lends this book credibility.
Thank you for countless calls and your graceful and patient way of coaching.
Badier Velji, you have the remarkable talent of understanding complexity and
communicating simply. Thanks for your patient teaching, pointing me to
interesting studies, and painstakingly reading over the science again and again.
The world needs more passionate health thinkers like you who can toggle
between cutting edge theory and practical application.
Bryan Alberstat, your photography skills brought out the beauty of real food.
Our long days of styling, shooting, and editing photos seemed more like play
than work. You are talented, creative, and one of the most delightfully quirky
people I know.
Ann Liu Alcasabas, years ago when we worked together, I never imagined our
paths would be so intertwined. Thank you for your support, design eye, and
sharing your great talent. You are a shining star, and I feel so fortunate to have
you on my team.
Caleb Ward, I have always dreamed of having someone like you in my corner to
polish my prose. Thanks for your willingness to tackle this project and work
tirelessly until it was done.
Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly, the first time I attended a Quantified Self meeting, I
felt as if I had come home. The forum opened up a group of eccentric people at
the edge of technology who, like me, enjoyed digging deep to uncover insight.
Exposure to the tools, minds, and visualizations pushed my thinking. I eagerly
awaited your monthly meetings—always insightful, surprising, and loaded with
brain candy. The self-experimentation/monitoring sections of this book were
inspired by you.
Karen Boyd, thank you for your invaluable help with the logic and flow of the
copy, and for assisting in the development of more than a few recipes. Your
internationally trained palette gave a depth of flavor that all food deserves. Your
friendship is truly valued.
Dave, my brother, who has always hated sweet potatoes—your hard-to-please
palate was the bar that these sweet potato recipes aimed to jump over. When we
started CrossFit in its infancy four years ago, I could never have imagined it
would serve as the foundation from which our adult relationship would blossom.
You have been the most staunch observer of paleo, and also the biggest cheater.
Through it all we have shared this crazy, fun, health journey together, one pint of
ice cream at a time.
Farah Maloof, thank you for your adamant encouragement in everything I do.
Your recipe ideas, coaching, and cheerleading have been invaluable in every step
of this process.
Dr. Jordan Schlain, your innovative spirit is changing the way health care is
delivered to patients. Your tireless dedication and energy are an inspiration.
Thanks for being my partner in health and writing all the prescriptions for my
experiments.
Erich Krauss, my publisher, thank you for giving me the freedom to make this
book what it is. When we started out, neither of us knew what a book about
sweet potatoes looked like. What a journey it has been to see it unfold.
Robb Wolf, Dr. Jeoff Dropbott, Brendan Mahoney, James Fitzgerald, Matt
Lalonde, and Dr. Lucas Tafur, your thoughts, comments, and critique have been
invaluable. Mary Gallent and Tara Smith, thank you for your research assistance.
March Pantry, thank you for the use of your beautiful dishware. Your
minimalistic design inspired the photography. Your gracious staff was full of
brilliant design ideas and they were always eager to assist. When I grow up, I
want to have a kitchen just like yours.
Dad, you are the biggest carb monster I have ever met. Your considerable weight
loss, which resulted from making no change other than eating sweet potatoes, is
testament that I did not make this up. I am the luckiest girl in the world, and I
have the life I live today because of the gentle man that you are.
The San Francisco Public Library—long before Internet searches there were
libraries. I am indebted to the staff at the Presidio Branch, who helped me sleuth
out resources. Full of natural light and comfortable chairs, your domain made
countless hours of endless reading and research melt into effortless productivity.
Also, thank you, Jennifer Harbster, at the Library of Congress, for your
informative posts and helping to search out difficult-to-find information. Our
libraries and their staff are a treasure.
Finally, Mom, you have been my supporter; my cheerleader; my proofreader;
and, through all, my friend. Without you this book would be one run-on sentence
devoid of commas. Because of you this book has become more than I could have
ever imagined. Thank you for patience and commitment that mirrored my own.
INTRODUCTION
Carbohydrate-conscious diets are here to stay. While many people believe that
low-carb diets are a passing trend, the idea of limiting carbohydrates has been
around for centuries. When Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina in 1873, one of his
characters made explicit reference to the power of low-carb diets. Anna’s lover,
Count Vronsky, “avoided starchy foods and dessert” to lean out for an upcoming
horse race. Countless books about low-carb diets have rehashed and modified
the concept.
Recently the paleo diet, focusing on foods our biology was designed to consume,
has emerged as a refined version in the low-carb world. Instead of the amount of
carbs (low vs. high), the diet emphasizes the quality of carbohydrates—
vegetables, some starch, and little fruit—and eliminates health culprits, such as
grains, legumes, and high-carb processed food.
With the paleo diet, food has once again become a powerful drug in the arsenal
of health. Patients have been cured of diabetes. Prediabetics have taken control
of their diets so they do not need medical intervention. Markers for heart
diseases have disappeared. Autoimmune disease is brought under control.
Overweight men and woman lean out. People are coming out of their diet-
induced mental fogs—regaining energy in body and mind. Kids are less prone to
temper tantrums. And athletes are seeing gains in their performance. Individual
by individual, the merits of this way of life are spreading and becoming
mainstream.
So, what does a carb-conscious diet have to do with sweet potatoes? The answer
is simple. For all of the benefits of a paleo diet, it can leave you feeling depleted,
as if there is not enough gas in the tank, while at the same time requiring the
constant eating of low-energy, dense foods. A sweet potato is a smart carb—a
nutritionally-packed food source that gives your cells the energy they need
without the negative side effects that accompany other energy-dense foods, such
as wheat, rice, and corn. Sweet potatoes can be a powerful ally in our efforts to
eat primal in a modern world.
Beyond the story of the humble sweet potato (a smart carb all-star that is often
underappreciated and underutilized), this book arms you with easy-to-understand