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What do means there are no essential starches? Man cannot live by bread alone, he must have fried taters and onions.( and peanuts butter )
I love me some fried taters ... and mashed taters, and baked taters, and peanut butter and all kinds of starches, but none are essential for health (though for some folks they might be essential for happiness). I loved all those things you and Goillini mentioned. But I love my kids more, so I gave that crap (tasty, yes, but crap for our bodies nonetheless) up so that whatever time God lets me have with them I am healthy and able to enjoy them. In other words, I did not change my diet in an attempt to cheat death. I changed my diet to enjoy as healthy a life I can, whether I live to 100 or I'm struck down before I turn 50.
As far back as the 1920's there were experiments where human volunteers were locked in a metabolic ward in an NYC hospital for up to a year, fed a meat and water only diet, and thrived. The doctors were sure that they would develop scurvy, for example, since there is little to no vitamin C in meats (other than offal). One of the doctors actually wrote in his report something along the lines that "unfortunately, Steffanson (the name of one of the volunteers) did not die."