Starch is the Answer?
Published 3.4.2025: The impetus to read this book came from the video linked in the last piece about Chef AJ. AJ was a big proponent of Dr John McDougall's Starch Solution diet, crediting it with making her and keeping her thin. McDougall died last year at the age of 77. Others have commented about the efficacy of his diet given that fact, but I am not going to comment on that.
TL;DR: Starch (and VERY low fat) is only the answer if you cherry pick results. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Dr Joel Fuhrman's plan is better.
McDougall believed that starch was the most natural human food, not meat or fat, or fruit. So McDougall's said that to test his starch solution, you should add a ton of starch to your diet, while changing nothing else… and by a ton I mean 4 cups of potatoes, 4 cups of corn or 4 cups of rice, etc. He gives other examples in the book. Interestingly, only 3 cups of legumes are to be added in this experiment. And to be clear it's just ONE type of starch that gets added.
The thing is that if you do that, you will have to replace some of the food you are currently eating. No one (at least, not me) could eat that much. The result of replacing higher calorie dense foods (meat and dairy) with lower calorie dense foods (starches) is that you will lose weight. Energy balance for the win!
In my opinion, McDougall would have been better off focusing on fiber. Because that’s what eating starch leads to… increased fiber consumption. Potatoes have starch, but also fiber. Corn has starch, but also fiber. Even white rice has fiber as well as starch! He does mention fiber, but it’s called the starch solution for a reason.
Chef AJ avoids beans and seeds, but that's because she over eats them if she does. McDougall notes that nuts are high in fat in the chapter devoted to fat, while noting the fat you eat is the fat you wear.
Interestingly, McDougall’s eating was disordered before the Starch Solution. One could argue the eating only starches is a tad disordered… To his credit, he recognizes his immoderation. So what if moderation works for you? Or eating high fiber works for you…. I'm unconvinced that nuts and seeds aren't necessary. They are packed with nutrients.
And of course, because McDougall was a vegan, he spends pages waxing eloquent about how meat and dairy are actually poisonous to people. He laments that the bad effects of food are not acute, but rather take decades to become apparent. And most people don't think that milk and meat are poison.
Chapter 4 is about spontaneously healing while eating "his way," but I think weight loss on any diet would benefit most people. Even those fools doing a "keto" diet. Weight loss hides a LOT of sins. All of the chronic illnesses he lists as being solved are related to excess weight… and any diet that causes weight loss will result in improved markers and illness reversal. Dr Fuhrman makes many of the same claims… while letting people eat nuts and seeds….
McDougall does have this over Dr Fuhrman: on his diet people can eat to satiety. Fuhrman still wants people to pay attention to portion size. Of course, McDougall said to never eat fat… how many people could do that? Fuhrman has changed his tune about fat, so long as it comes from whole plant foods. Oils and animal fats are still out.
Eventually he gets to environmental effects of animal agriculture, which are substantial. This book was written in 2012 (well, published that year) and the effects have not gotten better. But his answer is to demand that more people become vegans… I think you can get a significant effect if people just ate less animal food. Animal protein doesn't have to be the focus 7 days a week, or even at every meal (most people eat more often than just once a day). But he isn't interested in that, for him it's all or nothing.
Now, in a way I understand that. If you think that ingesting animal foods is toxic (and McDougall did) then any amount is still harmful. But just as people live with the risks of smoking or alcohol, they would live with the small amount of toxicity of the animal products they did eat. And eating, like drinking alcohol would only harm themselves. I've made this point before, but breathing is not an optional activity, and I'm going to breathe whatever you spew out of your mouth and nose. Smoking is different, because you don't only affect you when you do it. That's why smokers lost. As soon as there was evidence that others were being harmed, not just the smoker, they couldn't do it just anywhere.
Oh my… he points approvingly to China's one child policy? I think it's generally accepted now that the unintended consequences for China were not a positive. Did not see that one coming, though I suppose I should have as he was talking about population growth and the need to control it. Huh. Wonder if he'd still say that in 2024? Apparently he's Team Thanos (that's a Marvel reference), believing that 50% of the world's population needs to go. Yikes.
TL;DR: Starch (and VERY low fat) is only the answer if you cherry pick results. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Dr Joel Fuhrman's plan is better.
McDougall believed that starch was the most natural human food, not meat or fat, or fruit. So McDougall's said that to test his starch solution, you should add a ton of starch to your diet, while changing nothing else… and by a ton I mean 4 cups of potatoes, 4 cups of corn or 4 cups of rice, etc. He gives other examples in the book. Interestingly, only 3 cups of legumes are to be added in this experiment. And to be clear it's just ONE type of starch that gets added.
The thing is that if you do that, you will have to replace some of the food you are currently eating. No one (at least, not me) could eat that much. The result of replacing higher calorie dense foods (meat and dairy) with lower calorie dense foods (starches) is that you will lose weight. Energy balance for the win!
In my opinion, McDougall would have been better off focusing on fiber. Because that’s what eating starch leads to… increased fiber consumption. Potatoes have starch, but also fiber. Corn has starch, but also fiber. Even white rice has fiber as well as starch! He does mention fiber, but it’s called the starch solution for a reason.
Chef AJ avoids beans and seeds, but that's because she over eats them if she does. McDougall notes that nuts are high in fat in the chapter devoted to fat, while noting the fat you eat is the fat you wear.
Interestingly, McDougall’s eating was disordered before the Starch Solution. One could argue the eating only starches is a tad disordered… To his credit, he recognizes his immoderation. So what if moderation works for you? Or eating high fiber works for you…. I'm unconvinced that nuts and seeds aren't necessary. They are packed with nutrients.
And of course, because McDougall was a vegan, he spends pages waxing eloquent about how meat and dairy are actually poisonous to people. He laments that the bad effects of food are not acute, but rather take decades to become apparent. And most people don't think that milk and meat are poison.
Chapter 4 is about spontaneously healing while eating "his way," but I think weight loss on any diet would benefit most people. Even those fools doing a "keto" diet. Weight loss hides a LOT of sins. All of the chronic illnesses he lists as being solved are related to excess weight… and any diet that causes weight loss will result in improved markers and illness reversal. Dr Fuhrman makes many of the same claims… while letting people eat nuts and seeds….
McDougall does have this over Dr Fuhrman: on his diet people can eat to satiety. Fuhrman still wants people to pay attention to portion size. Of course, McDougall said to never eat fat… how many people could do that? Fuhrman has changed his tune about fat, so long as it comes from whole plant foods. Oils and animal fats are still out.
Eventually he gets to environmental effects of animal agriculture, which are substantial. This book was written in 2012 (well, published that year) and the effects have not gotten better. But his answer is to demand that more people become vegans… I think you can get a significant effect if people just ate less animal food. Animal protein doesn't have to be the focus 7 days a week, or even at every meal (most people eat more often than just once a day). But he isn't interested in that, for him it's all or nothing.
Now, in a way I understand that. If you think that ingesting animal foods is toxic (and McDougall did) then any amount is still harmful. But just as people live with the risks of smoking or alcohol, they would live with the small amount of toxicity of the animal products they did eat. And eating, like drinking alcohol would only harm themselves. I've made this point before, but breathing is not an optional activity, and I'm going to breathe whatever you spew out of your mouth and nose. Smoking is different, because you don't only affect you when you do it. That's why smokers lost. As soon as there was evidence that others were being harmed, not just the smoker, they couldn't do it just anywhere.
Oh my… he points approvingly to China's one child policy? I think it's generally accepted now that the unintended consequences for China were not a positive. Did not see that one coming, though I suppose I should have as he was talking about population growth and the need to control it. Huh. Wonder if he'd still say that in 2024? Apparently he's Team Thanos (that's a Marvel reference), believing that 50% of the world's population needs to go. Yikes.
Part 2: Frequently Asked Questions
Believe it or not, that's just the end of part I. Part II is frequently asked questions (FAQ) about food— specifically the Starch Solution. He begins with the protein question and how much do you need. And he tries to say that people don't really like the taste of meat… really my dude? Not sure how much of this I'm going to go into. People do like the taste of meat and cheese, that's just a fact. Vegan companies wouldn't try so hard to recreate the tastes if they didn't. Nor would the vegan diet be such a hard sell to so many.
He goes through the history of why science thinks high protein is necessary, and then why it isn't (protein isn't clean burning and stresses the kidneys. It is true that people with kidney disease are told to eat a low protein diet. McDougall's opinion is that we (westerners) need roughly half of the protein that Westerners consume. More on the likes of what T Colin Campbell reported for rural Chinese (though the rural Chinese were NOT vegan… that was an extrapolation of Campbell's). Basically, he thinks that 40 to 60g of protein is sufficient, and of course, it should come from plants. My doctor told me to aim for 80g… just saying. Ah, he then shows a table where at the bottom he lists his recommendation and it's 30 to 80g… I doubt he would have told me to aim for 80g though….
After protein, he discusses calcium and where that comes from. I doubt I will learn anything new here, I already get my calcium from plants. I learned nothing new, except that McDougall is prone to catastrophizing. He goes on and on (in the protein section too) about how meat and dairy creates an acid loading which is bad for the bones. I think this particular argument has been debunked. The body maintains very tight control on pH, I don't think that anything you eat would change it.
Next topic is fish, I suppose the topic will be fish oil and where to get your omega 3s as a vegan. Which it is… but he spends as much, if not more, time bashing "acidic" foods which are bad for the bones (a topic close to my heart). So much so that I felt compelled to research it myself (because I thought it had been debunked.). The link isn't to research, it's to a McGill University page. I have found McGill to be legitimate, and so I'm linking to it. Per the link, yes, proteins are "acidic"— meaning they are processed to acid in the body, which McDougall claimed. HOWEVER, corn and lentils also are acidic foods, as are breads and cereals, which McDougall did not say. I think there's a bit of cherry-picking going on here….
The next section is entitled "The Fat Vegan" and in this section McDougall considers all fats suspect… including those in seeds and nuts, which it is now clear he is against. He's anti-fake meats and other products, and seems to be anti-soy… because soy beans are (for beans) relatively high in fat. Here I'm sure he's cherry picking. Seeds and nuts in particular are healthy, and I don't think that olive oil is evil.
It was at this point that the book genuinely started to annoy me. He's stating that it would be the easiest thing possible to simply eat white rice and vegetables the eat of your life, and that is clearly not the case. If so, more people would be eating the way he promoted, and they do not. (I realize I'm vacillating between tenses in this piece McDougall is dead, so anything he said is in the past, but the book is written in the present. I should edit it to be one way or the other… but probably won't.)
He's not a fan of supplements, but he's stuck with the "most people think you need more vitamins than you do" argument, because he's way of eating does not optimize anything. His view that sufficient not optimal is okay is belied by his relatively early death. The anti-oil thing is a Caldwell Esselstyn thing and Esselstyn is in his 90s I think. I do think Esselstyn allows a small bit of nuts or seeds, as least that's my recollection. But Esselstyn's diet is very hard to follow as well, and most people do not. So many people have tried and quit veganism… I think making all these dumb additional rules for how you should eat is dumb. At least Esselstyn's patients have had coronary events.
If you want to save the animals or think meat and dairy are toxic, fine. But seeds and nuts are off the table too? Soy is limited to 1 ounce per day (would be news to Asians, I think)? You are making your diet less and less appealing. Spices might be able to offset some of what's missing, but not all.
He thinks the recommended vitamin D levels should be lower, and that everyone should get it from sunshine. He lived, I believe, in California, but not everyone does. Eventually he gets to B12, though not happily, because plants don't have any B12, and he has to admit this. He flirts with the idea that all the B12 that you need (and a bunch of pathogens too) can be had from dirt and animal feces… before reluctantly admitting that supplementation is likely best.
Eventually he (sort of) addresses that issue that the diet will be hard to stick to for most people, he allows that you can add salt and sugar to your food to make it taste better. Which is quite the admission, though I don't think he'd see it that way. NOW he talks about palatability?? In that people can't avoid salt because food doesn't taste as good? My dude, people don't avoid FAT for the same reason. The reason you need to add sugar and salt to your food is because it doesn't taste very good otherwise. Beginning to wonder if I'm going to finish this book….
My understanding is that most people ingest a ton of salt with ultra-processed (and hyper-palatable - I am still team hyper palatable!) foods. The problem isn't what you add at the table, but rather what comes in the processed foods that predominate most diets. Of course, on his way of eating you avoid all (most?) processed foods, so it's only the salt you're adding at the table that matters. The easiest way to cut salt is to not eat processed foods. But for McDougall (naturally) the problem isn't the sodium, it's the evil animal products that come with it. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Sugar, for McDougall, was cheap and better than fat. I'll admit, I didn't know that he was a fan of salt and sugar… but for me it's just an acknowledgement that no one wants to eat this way…
Given that the author of the Glycemic Index (GI) is a follower of Gary Taubes, it's no wonder McDougall thinks GI is bovine fecal matter. GI, for the record has many detractors, not all of them vegans looking to sell books or diets.
He goes through the history of why science thinks high protein is necessary, and then why it isn't (protein isn't clean burning and stresses the kidneys. It is true that people with kidney disease are told to eat a low protein diet. McDougall's opinion is that we (westerners) need roughly half of the protein that Westerners consume. More on the likes of what T Colin Campbell reported for rural Chinese (though the rural Chinese were NOT vegan… that was an extrapolation of Campbell's). Basically, he thinks that 40 to 60g of protein is sufficient, and of course, it should come from plants. My doctor told me to aim for 80g… just saying. Ah, he then shows a table where at the bottom he lists his recommendation and it's 30 to 80g… I doubt he would have told me to aim for 80g though….
After protein, he discusses calcium and where that comes from. I doubt I will learn anything new here, I already get my calcium from plants. I learned nothing new, except that McDougall is prone to catastrophizing. He goes on and on (in the protein section too) about how meat and dairy creates an acid loading which is bad for the bones. I think this particular argument has been debunked. The body maintains very tight control on pH, I don't think that anything you eat would change it.
Next topic is fish, I suppose the topic will be fish oil and where to get your omega 3s as a vegan. Which it is… but he spends as much, if not more, time bashing "acidic" foods which are bad for the bones (a topic close to my heart). So much so that I felt compelled to research it myself (because I thought it had been debunked.). The link isn't to research, it's to a McGill University page. I have found McGill to be legitimate, and so I'm linking to it. Per the link, yes, proteins are "acidic"— meaning they are processed to acid in the body, which McDougall claimed. HOWEVER, corn and lentils also are acidic foods, as are breads and cereals, which McDougall did not say. I think there's a bit of cherry-picking going on here….
The next section is entitled "The Fat Vegan" and in this section McDougall considers all fats suspect… including those in seeds and nuts, which it is now clear he is against. He's anti-fake meats and other products, and seems to be anti-soy… because soy beans are (for beans) relatively high in fat. Here I'm sure he's cherry picking. Seeds and nuts in particular are healthy, and I don't think that olive oil is evil.
It was at this point that the book genuinely started to annoy me. He's stating that it would be the easiest thing possible to simply eat white rice and vegetables the eat of your life, and that is clearly not the case. If so, more people would be eating the way he promoted, and they do not. (I realize I'm vacillating between tenses in this piece McDougall is dead, so anything he said is in the past, but the book is written in the present. I should edit it to be one way or the other… but probably won't.)
He's not a fan of supplements, but he's stuck with the "most people think you need more vitamins than you do" argument, because he's way of eating does not optimize anything. His view that sufficient not optimal is okay is belied by his relatively early death. The anti-oil thing is a Caldwell Esselstyn thing and Esselstyn is in his 90s I think. I do think Esselstyn allows a small bit of nuts or seeds, as least that's my recollection. But Esselstyn's diet is very hard to follow as well, and most people do not. So many people have tried and quit veganism… I think making all these dumb additional rules for how you should eat is dumb. At least Esselstyn's patients have had coronary events.
If you want to save the animals or think meat and dairy are toxic, fine. But seeds and nuts are off the table too? Soy is limited to 1 ounce per day (would be news to Asians, I think)? You are making your diet less and less appealing. Spices might be able to offset some of what's missing, but not all.
He thinks the recommended vitamin D levels should be lower, and that everyone should get it from sunshine. He lived, I believe, in California, but not everyone does. Eventually he gets to B12, though not happily, because plants don't have any B12, and he has to admit this. He flirts with the idea that all the B12 that you need (and a bunch of pathogens too) can be had from dirt and animal feces… before reluctantly admitting that supplementation is likely best.
Eventually he (sort of) addresses that issue that the diet will be hard to stick to for most people, he allows that you can add salt and sugar to your food to make it taste better. Which is quite the admission, though I don't think he'd see it that way. NOW he talks about palatability?? In that people can't avoid salt because food doesn't taste as good? My dude, people don't avoid FAT for the same reason. The reason you need to add sugar and salt to your food is because it doesn't taste very good otherwise. Beginning to wonder if I'm going to finish this book….
My understanding is that most people ingest a ton of salt with ultra-processed (and hyper-palatable - I am still team hyper palatable!) foods. The problem isn't what you add at the table, but rather what comes in the processed foods that predominate most diets. Of course, on his way of eating you avoid all (most?) processed foods, so it's only the salt you're adding at the table that matters. The easiest way to cut salt is to not eat processed foods. But for McDougall (naturally) the problem isn't the sodium, it's the evil animal products that come with it. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Sugar, for McDougall, was cheap and better than fat. I'll admit, I didn't know that he was a fan of salt and sugar… but for me it's just an acknowledgement that no one wants to eat this way…
Given that the author of the Glycemic Index (GI) is a follower of Gary Taubes, it's no wonder McDougall thinks GI is bovine fecal matter. GI, for the record has many detractors, not all of them vegans looking to sell books or diets.
Part 3 and final thoughts
Finally Part 2 ends. I'll be honest, I skimmed a great deal of this part. This book is much longer than I first realized. Part 3 is a list of plant foods and spices, because he's trying to convince people that there is still a variety of foods to be eaten. In this part he does say that nuts, seeds, nut butters, and dried fruits were only off the menu if you're looking to lose weight (or like Chef AJ you consider yourself a "food addict"). Even soy gets a good mention, though not fake meats or cheeses.
His thoughts on how to deal with restaurants are, in part, why chefs hate vegans— particularly low fat vegans. He then makes that case that eating only starches is cheaper. Can't argue with that, but the real question is, who wants to live this way? There are thin vegans who don't.
Then the recipes start. Bottom line: I think this plan or way of eating would actually be very hard to adhere to because it's such a low fat way of eating. Particularly if you avoid nuts and seeds— which until Part 3 he's telling you to do so. Also, it's almost like it was devised for binge eaters. Numerous times he notes that there is no calorie counting and you can eat starches to satiety. So binge away on the rice or potatoes or pasta. That's not how he says it of course, nor is that how actual binges tend to work… but I will allow that if you stuff yourself with potatoes (without any fat) that is better than bingeing on donuts.
So would I recommend this book? I'm going to say no.
His thoughts on how to deal with restaurants are, in part, why chefs hate vegans— particularly low fat vegans. He then makes that case that eating only starches is cheaper. Can't argue with that, but the real question is, who wants to live this way? There are thin vegans who don't.
Then the recipes start. Bottom line: I think this plan or way of eating would actually be very hard to adhere to because it's such a low fat way of eating. Particularly if you avoid nuts and seeds— which until Part 3 he's telling you to do so. Also, it's almost like it was devised for binge eaters. Numerous times he notes that there is no calorie counting and you can eat starches to satiety. So binge away on the rice or potatoes or pasta. That's not how he says it of course, nor is that how actual binges tend to work… but I will allow that if you stuff yourself with potatoes (without any fat) that is better than bingeing on donuts.
So would I recommend this book? I'm going to say no.