IMHO, starchy tubers are very paleo. And even if white potatoes are much more recent, they still qualify. Richard Nikoley eats them - and suffered some harrassment for that. Silly really.

Many of us cannot handle the carb load (being diabetic or obese or metabolically damaged). Other than that, if you are careful to prepare them properly, they are pretty nutritious. 2 a day seems like a lot to me, but if you feel good - well, that's what we all want.

There is no "One True Paleo Diet" for all people. Everyone's needs and issues are different. Paleo provides the perspective on working out your individual food issues/tolerances and a way to tweak to gain better health/performance.

I eat em with some nice kerrygold irish butter and/or sour cream. I don't eat the skin anymore however. As with most things "paleo", your milage may vary.

Good for you! Enjoy your potatoes....the whole point is to TRUST your body. If you feel good, do it.

I am seeing such a rise in the Paleo community.....where there's an attitude of "I'm more Paleo than you!"...or "THIS is more superior Paleo than THAT," or "YOUR version of Paleo SUCKS and MY paleo is the only TRUE paleo!" PLEASE. It's getting ridiculous (and insulting). All of those paloe-phytes out there being superior?..You are all a bunch of SUCKS.

You body knows what it needs. One of the inherent challenges with Paleo is finding additional foods to consume when you have an efficient metabolism, you are not overweight and you need extra calories...Tubers are the natural choice. They are deeply satisfying, nutritious and as long as you're not spiking insulin (and of course, you'll feel it if you do with hunger and sleepiness)....GO FOR IT.

One added note: ALWAYS eat carbs with high-quality fat. Always. So get that grass-fed dairy butter out and slather away...(coconut oil on sweet potatoes is excellent too).

Carbs are not evil, the negative association from some carbs have made them appear so. Calling tubers or starches evil for being carbs, is like calling saturated fat evil because Transfats and Oxidized Omega6 are evil. Guilt by association is no better than prejudice.

Our ancestors evolved on tubers. Let me repeat that. We ate tubers of all different varieties. Many Historical societies Thrived on tubers.

Current HG societies have no issues with tubers despite large % of their diets.

Many Centenarians ate tons of tubers...

The Lectins and most of the Glycoalkaloids are in the skin. Peel your potatoes and then cook them.

There are accounts of people reversing their T2 Diabetes while eating tubers, but not wheat/bad carbs.

and for weight loss, Ive posted a couple accounts, I couldnt self experiment, since my weight loss is already over, but I have 2 friends now losing weight rapidly while eating lots of potatoes. I personally have put on 20+ lbs of muscle since resuming potatoes(likely because im eating more calories as a result)

not to mention the 2 big paleo mineral deficiencies, Potassium and Magnesium, both issues solved and resolved by simply re-introducing the great tuber! (zinc and copper too)

Personally I LOVE the Okinowan Purples.

and More Anthocyanins than blueberries!

I think first and foremost that the mixing up of low-carb people and then those of us who are simply into things-paleo is an undercurrent here. There are (or at least were) a large number of paleo folks in the online community who had no issues with weight, and are/were conversely pretty good athletes. For example, I am not a crossfitter but lift at a box and everyones paleo and noone is overweight. So, many of us can use potatoes how we see fit. They're a tool in the toolbox right?

Then you have, especially of late, a lot of general low-carbers and/or heavy people with precise weightloss goals who are getting into paleo and bringing their lowcarb ideas even more into it. Thats muddying the picture to some extent. Nothing wrong with it, i think you can wisely use the paleo ideas to lose weight. Its simply two different populations of people all talking together.

I think if you're healthy already, relatively active, potatoes are fine. Great tool. Great dense little, easy to eat, easy to digest little bundle of glucose that we can use to fuel ourselves by. But those very same traits make it something that is perhaps less-than-helpful to the overweight folks. Same traits, but different uses for the tool as far as I can tell.

I also hasten to add that, at least having grown up in the US for my 31 years, i think the complete reliance on the white potatoe in like 90% of meals, and then of course fast foods' use of the potatoe is a big part of the picture. I mean, steak and potatoe is a great meal. Great fuel, tasty, comforting and all that. But the market, our society, etc we just use the potatoe too much generally, and then process the hell out of it and stuff our faces with pringles, chips, fries, etc. This maligns the innocent plain old potatoe for sure.

I do really well on white potatoes too, if I go too low on carbs I get depressed. This could be because I am a normal weight, Robb Wolf spoke about this in his podcast. Since I've added in fruit and potatoes I've felt so much better.

Amylase definitely suggests we were evolved for starch. it's arguably better than fruit or nuts too. I've reintroduced them with no ill effects after reading some of the Perfect health diet's arguments for increasing starch consumption. It seems like it could take some stress off of the liver.

I don't feel that taters are maligned by paleo eaters. It's just that a lot of people have blood sugar and/or weight problems and those people often avoid potatoes. And that's a lot of people!

For posterity's sake, potatoes(along with other nightshades) arrived from the American continent a few centuries ago. So they're not a run of the mill tuber that humans encountered. I think that for someone going full paleo, regular potatoes are simply unappealing because they taste awful without salt. Maybe that's just me.

So, not paleo. But not a big deal every now and again.

I personally tried tubers and unfortunately, they really didn't work out for me.

Over the holidays, I had suspended my lower-carb paleo in lieu of allowing some "safe" starches, sweet potatoes, purple fingerlings, the occasional baked idaho with butter...

and I gained considerable weight, seemingly overnight (over the course of two months).

Perhaps my problem is carb addiction or insulin sensitivity, I don't get the "I'm Full" signal when starches are involved. The odd thing is, I can eat 1lbs of steak and will get to the point where I can't eat anymore - but if I add a potato to that steak, I find myself eating until "thanksgiving full" and perfecting the art of gluttony.

To top all, I can eat fruit without this ramification. It specifically seems to be with starches...

For what it's worth - I am a fatty, granted I'm 100lbs less a fatty than I was before starting... but I'm still probably 80lbs over my personal "ideal" and 120lbs over accepted "ideal" for my height.

When people say potatoes are not paleo, to me that smacks of carb phobia. Tubers can be dug out and eaten right then and there without any processing. Chimps are known to dig out tubers. Okay, so nightshades are native to the American continent - so what? I believe that if cavemen had the opportunity, they would have 100% consumed tubers. Can you imagine a caveman coming across a tuber patch, saying, "nah, not good for me", and walking away? Insanity.

Potatoes have become a staple for me as well, and like you, I've noticed how pounding the starch + fat in a single meal just makes it easier to fast. Your body seemingly finds a way to maintain your weight, no matter how many starchy carbs you eat.

Sucks that I spent all of those months forcing VLC on my body when I could have been thriving on a macronutrientally unrestricted diet. I think such a diet is much more paleolithically sound, as well. Besides, homemade hashed-browns (fried in butter) are ridiculously good.

I question the common wisdom that potatoes are bad for T2 diabetics. As I understand it, with type 2s the damage is in the liver, and thus you need to avoid liver damaging foods like sugar, o-6, and alcohol. And also aid the liver (perhaps by eating liver (and potatoes, which you suggest give it a break?)).

I'm in the pro-paleo carb camp. I think it is crazy how people eat coconut milk by the can, nuts by the bag, bacon by the pound, butter by the stick and then worry about a 150 calorie tuber. That said I eat more sweets and squashes than potatoes. Not anti-fat here either, but I do much better with more carbs. Just add some fats for cooking and don't go out my way to add extra.

damn it! Now I'm scared again!

During a famine in 1782, Scottish highlanders complained of dropsy (an old term for edema or swelling, often associated with congestive heart failure) when they ate abundantly of potatoes.1 Russian prisoners of World War II returned with advanced cases of dropsy, which was blamed on heavy potato consumption.2 An old saying in New Hampshire in 1719 was that the white potato shortened men’s lives. ...

Studies with animals indicate that solanine causes cell membrane disruption in the digestive tract—exacerbated irritable bowel disorder in mice,7 gastrointestinal tissue destroyed in Syrian hamsters.8 It affects the gene expression of the human intestinal cell linings and also inhibits proteolytic enzyme activity.9 Solanines also destroy human liver cells in vitro....

... I have found fourteen research reviews linking potato blight in Ireland with birth defects in the following years. ...

Even if you are one of those lucky people who don’t seem to have trouble with nightshades, in my opinion it’s a good idea not to overdo

http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/1897-nightshades

I'll stick to sweet potatoes.

I do think potatoes are unfairly maligned when their consumption is not considered in the context of an individual's health profile. A blanket statement that they're bad news is shortsighted. Humans have been eating tubers for a long time.

When I first started paleo/primal/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, I avoided sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and rice. I went very low carb for the kick-start because of diagnosed metabolic troubles. After the initial drop of about 30 pounds, I've added tubers back in with no weight gain issues. I'm still shaving off a bit of weight here and there -- 1 pound last month -- though I feel I'm very near equilibrium and my metabolism has recovered.

I probably eat tubers 2 to 3 times per week, usually no more than 6 to 8 ounces in one day. They taste great and they make me feel good when I eat them, especially on workout days. Overall, carbs make up anywhere from 12 to 25% of my calories on a given day.

I recently read a study review at advancedmediterraneandiet.com/blog/ that was written on Nov 23. Two groups of pre/T2 diabetic males. One group ate paleo which included no more than 2 med taters daily. The other group ate mediterranean diet which is starch, dairy, less meat, etc....all that 'healthy' stuff.

Paleo glucose control was dramatically better in the paleos even though fruit consumption was high.

Of course, there's more but I just wanted to show that potatoes may not be the culprit in an otherwise nutrient rich, grain free diet....and these guys were unmedicated.

Dr. Ben Balzer claims that potatoes contain enzyme blockers, lectins, and glycoalkaloids.

He strongly advises against consuming them repeatedly in this article: http://www.earth360.com/diet_paleodiet_balzer.html

I don't get it. To consume or not to consume potatoes?