If you're transitioning to a paleo diet, you can choose to include small amounts of rice in your diet or start focusing on eating other foods, such as potatoes, to meet your needs for starchy carbohydrates. Generally, unprocessed potatoes of all kinds can be part of a paleo diet. On the Paleo diet, you won't eat much cereal (if any), crackers, rice, pasta, bread, and beer. All cereals are banned in the Paleo diet.
Why? First of all, cereals are a product of modern agriculture; cavemen didn't eat bread. Second, grains are high in carbohydrates, which can increase blood sugar. White potatoes can be part of a paleo diet if they look good on you. If you don't like them or don't do well with them, don't eat them, but that doesn't mean they're bad in general.
It just means that they are not right for you. Rice may not be a regular part of the paleo diet, but some people choose to include it anyway. If you're one of those adventurous souls, enjoy rice in moderation. Just remember that the paleo diet consists of adopting nutrient-rich foods that our ancestors would approve of when thinking of lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
White potatoes have a higher glycemic index than sweet potatoes, which doesn't matter because the glycemic index means next to nothing, unless all the food consists simply of cooked white potatoes with nothing else. Many people who follow the Paleo diet are interested in optimizing their health, so the resistant starch content of potatoes may be of particular interest. A good policy might be to save rice for eating out or for special occasions and focusing on more nutrient-rich foods for daily meals. However, it's a gluten-free grain and some people in the paleo world (especially Paul Jaminet, of Perfect Health Diet) support eating white rice as a decent source of glucose for people who need additional carbohydrates.
Cereals are generally banned in the Paleo diet, but you might wonder if rice is allowed sometimes. The fiber in brown rice can work wonders for digestion, help you feel satisfied, and maintain a healthy blood sugar level. However, it's important to remember that the effects of cereals can vary from person to person, so rice might not be so bad for everyone. White potatoes with a green tint on the tip should be avoided, as they have high levels of saponins that irritate the intestine.
However, potatoes are actually a type of starchy vegetable that grows underground, known as a tuber (2,. For example, homemade potato chips should be baked or fried in an acceptable paleo oil such as coconut oil, while homemade mashed potatoes would have to be prepared without dairy products. Potatoes also contain resistant starch, a type of fiber that may offer some promising health benefits, such as better blood sugar control. If you're curious, you can read more about white potatoes and see an elegant little comparison chart of different nutrients here.
White rice, on the other hand, goes through a refining process that removes those layers, resulting in less fiber and fewer nutrients.
