Adding fat to potato starch will significantly decrease its GI, will it not?

I think a much healthier alternative would be yams/sweet potatoes fried in coconut oil/butter/ghee (less prone to oxidation) and consumed with protein and fat (say, a steak).  That should give you far more nutrients, much lower blood sugar spike, and avoid the oxidation problems of frying in PUFA.

Are the dietary AGEs from frying really the concern, or is it all the carbs from the potato starch causing in vivo glycation that we should really be worrying about and avoided? You would have to have a seriously leaky gut for an undigested AGE from frying to get absorbed in the small intestine.

I keep as low processed carb as possible, but my one vice is french fries.
Why did you have to guilt me into removing my favorite food?

I can't imagine eating boiled T-bones. What's left after frying and roasting?

The AHA has a page  with heavy duty oils used in restaurants. Many of them have TBHQ and/or dimethylpolysiloxane. TBHQ is used to keep the oil from becoming rancid and the dimethylpolysiloxane is an antifoaming agent. I can't imagine that either is good for us.

Dr Davis, without sugars, there is no glycation, thus there is no advanced glycation end products either.

Fried bacon for example would not contain AGEs because it would not contain sugars to begin with. This seems to indicate that the real culprit is the sugars, not the frying. But then, if we fry bacon in vegetables oils, then forget about the sugars or the frying, it's the oil. Also consider that ketosis stimulates chaperon mediated autophagy:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/ketosis-cleans-our-cells/

Basically, if your diet induces ketosis, you got nothing to worry about. First because such a diet contains little to no sugars. And second, whatever AGEs are there are taken care of promptly enough. HbA1c comes to mind.

1. Peel the skin off the potato.
2. Throw away the inside of the potato.
3. Bake the skin.
4. Eat and enjoy the skin. It's loaded with fiber.

And ... dear doctor, don't forget to mention that potatoes are nightshades. They contain lectins and glycoalkaloids. These cause a leaky gut and autoimmune diseases http://bit.ly/a9Gvjk

French fries used to be fried in beef tallow before the CSPI stepped in. Proper french fries are made from fresh potatoes and fried twice. The "french fries" served in most restaurants are just frankenfood - precooked, preGodknowsWhat. The French still know how to prepare them properly...And by the way, isn't there the thing called "the French paradox"? Seems that they manage to stay leaner and healthier in spite of the consumption of "pommes frites". They DO, however, still eat real food - and this maybe one of the major aspects of good health.

French fries are partly pre-cooked in factories that use fats heated for days on end. The cheaper brands go thru the darker more heat damaged oils later in the cycle, The oils I've seen used are AV oil (animal fat with hydrogenated fats) and palm oil.
These days it is likely soy oil.

And for someone else on the topic of bacon it should be noted most bacon has added sugars. So it will be an AGE source
to some extent.

Fried bacon is a different beast. My butcher makes it from fresh meat and the sugar in it comes probably from the milk he dips the bacon in before he fries it. And the absolute quantity of this sugar would be insignificant in terms of preventing ketosis which would allow ketosis to take place along with its CMA.

Even if there was a lot of AGEs in the food, I doubt that it would have any significant effect. Instead, I believe that it's the AGEs that are formed inside the body as a result of hyperglycemia that is most harmful. Again, HbA1c comes to mind.

The moral of the story, don't use refined oils. Use the most naturally saturated oils as you can find, like Coconut oil or Ghee/Tallow. Then fry away, not too frequently.

Regarding AGEs, I don't think they matter too much from the food source, as they will first get digested.

Also humans have been cooking meat and Tubers (some form of potatoes) for ages, possibly more than a million years ago. So heating the oils should not be considered bad.

Why do we like the fried crispy potatoes or bacon more than the raw one? Has it got something to do with our evolution.

Fries?  Meh, small potatoes.

I nominate the donut:  white flour and white sugar deep fried in hot vegetable oil.

There's your poster boy of dietary badness.

Dang, no GMO corn in them there fries!  Oh well.

"I can't imagine eating boiled T-bones. What's left after frying and roasting?"

Try putting in well covered baking dish and cook at very low temp, maybe 225 or 250, for longer time depending on thickness of the meat. Maybe toss in some mushrooms and onions and a wee bit of red wine or even water. It will come out super tender and juicy.

"I can't imagine eating boiled T-bones. What's left after frying and roasting?"

Use a slow cooker.

I would like to announce that I am a recovering vegetarian. Started by reducing wheat. Have not had Fries for the longest time because of the unsaturated veg/canola oil.

Need to loose some weight so will try Atkins' methods but I am gonna miss beans and beer :-(

i use virgin coconut oil for some homemade french fries. is that bad too?

"I am gonna miss beans and beer"

I'm sure your friends won't

I love (hate) how a hamburger plate with a bun and a Mountain of fries,  gives the three to four ounces of ground beef (and maybe not the best grade of beef but still..) a bad reputation as the cause of all things evil in our diet.  Wake the F up people.

Not to change the subject but a couple of people mentioned coconut oil. I have read Barry Sears insisting that coconut oil promotes inflammation.
He also says it raises LDL.  This seems contrary to anything else I've read.

tommy i think barry is misled

Good article! Thank you so much for sharing this post.Your views truly open my mind.

Martin--

You may be confusing endogenous AGEs with exogenous AGEs.

Endogenous AGEs are formed via glucose-mediated glycation. Exogenous AGEs are formed via a long list of reactions that involve carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Exogenous AGEs are not indicated by HbA1c.

Darwin's docter, you might want to do a tad of research on potato skins before suggesting people eat them.  Most of the poisons in a tater are in the skin, including potent goitrogens.  Eating the peel is probably not a good idea.

Keenan,

Very interesting factoids for sure!
Let me pose this question to you.
If you could eat a few french fries once in a while, would it be enough to satisfy that fried food craving?  Well, the real answer here might be discipline and moderation.  We, unfortunately, will someday die of something.  If you are afraid of eating french fries or any other fatty bad food every once in a while there is a problem or fear that you will be missing something on this less than perfect earth.  Eat the fries,
enjoy the fries, and do the best you can within the moderate framework of life, and for goodness sake, don't be afraid of food.  It is not the real enemy.  The real enemy is a fallen world.
Pass the fries!!   Jack

The way I cook meat now (mostly) is to put a roast or chicken into a tightly covered pan, add a generous amount of olive oil, season it, and throw it into the oven at 200 degress for about 14 hours.  

It will be absolutely delicious with no risk of AGE's at such a low temperature.

Make sure it is a tight fitting lid or it will dry out too much.  If you want to make a great chili, add the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and seasonings after 10 hours of cooking.  Cook four more hours.
Hide from your kids or it will all disappear in a short time.

I use a glass pan and always avoid cooking anything in aluminum.

Excellent, Farseas! This can be a part of an effective youth-preserving, anti-aging strategy, by the way.

Thanks for posting this.  My husband has allowed himself to be carried along with my strict low-carbing for a few months now, and has lost 25 pounds +  or so so far. He had labs a couple of months ago, and his Triglycerides were up and his HDL somewhat low.  So of course his physician wants him to repeat the labs in Oct., and will want to put him on meds , I'm sure, if he still exhibits that profile.  But I will advise him to wait, to continue with what he's doing until his weight loss stabilizes, and this post will give me the concise authoritative ammo I'll need to encourage him both to continue with carb restriction and to resist medication, which he almost certainly is not a proper candidate for.  Perfect timing for us, and thanks so much! jennytoo.

on another subject, but I'm curious about your thoughts on krill oil.

Here's a post by Michael Eades on the subject:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/23/krill-oil-48x-better-than-fish-oil/

Hi Dr Davis,

While fat is stored as triglycerides, it is released from adipose stores as non esterified fatty acids, and these will be predominantly palmitic acid in humans. Non esterified palmitic acid appears to be an excellent inducer of insulin resistance, and insulin resistance has been hypothesised by several authors to be a completely normal physiological adaption to fasting or seasonal carbohydrate absence. While weight loss is on going, the circulation is flooded with NEFA and "physiological" insulin resistance should predominate. If the person continues to consume "good" carbohydrate at above acute metabolic needs, the excess will get shipped out of the liver as VLDLs. Under insulin resistance lipoprotein lipase, routinely under the control of insulin, won't be doing much lipolysis and so VLDLs can hang around in the circulation... Muscle can happily accept NEFA as a prime source of energy without lipoprotein lipase having to split the lipids from VLDLs, so leave the VLDLs there to show up as fasting trigs....

Once weight is stable the NEFA release from adipose tissue will be much better matched to metabolic needs. With the improved insulin sensitivity due to loss of visceral fat, control of both adipose hormone sensitive lipase and endothelial lipoprotein lipase activity should normalise and allow VLDLs and HDL to settle in to  more cardiologically acceptable numbers.

Just an idea. The prediction it makes is for a reduced HbA1c due to the reduction in bulk carbohydrate (this must happen to allow lipolysis for weight loss), coupled with no drop or an increase in fasting blood glucose due to the NEFA induced insulin resistance. Very curious as to whether this happened...

Idea is open for kicking.

Peter

Thanks for the article.  In the midst or losing a good deal of weight I had a finger prick test here at work.  My HDL had indeed dropped into the low 20's but my Triglycerides had also dropped (maybe a good does of fish oil and cod-liver oil help those?).  Anyway my weight has pretty much stabilized at a good level and I'm looking to do a good blood test in a few weeks.  Hopefully the HDL numbers are coming up.

The post about Brad is from August of 2008.  So how is he doing now?  Did the triglycerides drop and HDL rise?

I wonder what happened to Brad now? How did it go? By the way, I wanna share this video I came across with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-ZnG3NoZY You'll surely learn a lot of information here.