It's Eric Bakker, the naturopath from New Zealand.
We're back.
Thanks for coming back.
Let's talk about starchy vegetables and non-starchy vegetables.
So there are two main groups.
Starchy vegetables today have got a bad rep, okay?
They've been beaten around the head.
They've been kicked up in butt, they've been punched in the face.
It's really sad how these starchy vegetables have been complaining to me about how everyone's
moaning about them all the time.
They feel unloved.
They feel sad.
They feel depressed.
Starchy vegetables, they're on Prozac.
People are so depressed about it, okay?
Don't be like that.
Just because you read some crap online that something's not good for you, or it's bad
for you, you immediately avoid it like the plague, okay?
Peas, corn, potatoes, squash, zucchini, courgettes.
These are all considered starchy foods.
People now sort of look at them in a bad way.
The non-starchy foods, there's tons of them.
Beans, brassicas.
There were so many greens, for example, that a non-starchy.
But what are some of the better non-starchy foods?
Because for the starchy folks out there, we'll talk about that the non-starchy food.
In my opinion, the best non-starchy ones would have to be the brassica family because of
their serious nutrient dense composition.
These are going to give you a bang for your buck.
They're seriously powerful food to eat.
It's why I we grow lots of brassicas.
We grow lots of Brussels sprouts, cauliflower.
We've got the purple cauliflower.
I think that one comes from Sicily.
A beautiful purple cauliflower.
It's nice when you're cooking.
Of course, the green one.
We grow one called green dragon, sort of big one.
And we also grow the smaller ones, the sprouts and broccoli.
The brocco sprouts, which are great for stir fry's in there.
Cauliflowers, which I love also.
But these, in my opinion, give you such incredible composition of nutrients that you shouldn't
forego.
Fresh green beans are the same.
So there's ample research now to show that people who eat high amounts of brassicas long-term
have quite a way lower incidents of all cancers than people who don't eat them at all.
We're talking about prostate cancer, bowel cancer, all those cancers, breast cancer.
So you certainly want to be looking at brassicas in your diet if you're serious about your
health.
If you grow them like I do, I'll need to do some videos, certainly on growing brassicas
to show you a lot of tricks and tips I've learned over the years on how to grow these
things.
Because a lot of people have problems getting good size vegetable, and they don't understand
about watering and fertilizing and digging and composting.
There's tips I've picked up over life, 30, 40 years of growing vegetables and you soon
learn what works and what doesn't.
But the flavor, again, on these, you can't compare home grown broccoli or cauliflower
to what you buy in the shop.
You get excited with these vegetables when you grow your own, because taste is there.
The texture's there.
You'll certainly understand that the health benefits are there when you eat them too.
So if you were to say to me, "Eric, what's the best non-starchy I can eat?"
I wouldn't say there's one best, but in my opinion, the three top ones would have to
be Brussels sprouts, which everybody hates, but I love.
I usually love what people hate.
I find it wonderful to eat.
They're nice with a bit of grated nutmeg on top.
That's top of the tree, in my opinion, for nutrition and starchy, particularly male and
the prostate.
The Brussels sprouts are important.
Broccoli under that cauliflower under that.
Leeks, some people consider starchy, some consider non-starchy.
Same with onions.
Onions, and garlic I couldn't live without those.
We eat them every single day.
Onions and garlic in some type of meals.
Again, the flavonoids in onions, incredible quercetin in onions.
So good for your body for so many different aspects of your circulatory system.
But when you take a deeper look, you'll see what I mean with the vegetables.
The starch don't have to be a four letter word, okay?
Is starch a four letter word?
Six letter word.
But you know what I mean.
Potatoes, again, people have a morbid fear of a potatoes and that's probably because
of a type they eat and how they eat them.
Deep fried potatoes are not really good.
The boil potatoes, there's nothing wrong with eating boiled potato if your tummy is fine
like mine.
Pumpkin's the same.
Butternut squash, beautiful foods to eat.
But if you've got bad IBS, of course, if you've got inflammatory bowel disease or bad case
of Candida, you may have problems with these starchy foods at the beginning.
But as you progress, you should easily be able to eat these foods.
Most all people I've worked with in the clinic could eat starchy food within three to six
months without too many problems.
They may be had a few niggly problems.
And these are the seriously bad cases, but I will not, for one minute, believe that everybody
should avoid gluten, starchy foods, dairy products, because they're bad.
Get out of here.
Anyway.
I hope you got something out of that video.
So remember the brassicas.
Probably the onions, probably the green beans.
These are the nutrient dense ones, which I think you should seriously look at to give
you bang for your buck.
Thanks for tuning in.