Yeah I’ve had a lot. Like a lot. Of scary recent reminders of chronic diseases that run in my family. The latest being various gum and dental problems (both sides almost universally). But mostly on one side. One side has really early male pattern baldness, and the other grays early and fast. So far I’ve not lost any hair, and though I started graying in high school it pretty much stopped. So maybe I ended up with the best of both trends. I hope.
In terms of arguing about sweet potatoes: I’ve probably gotten bogged down on the specifics of this particular dish. I can see that refined carbs that are easier to break into glucose are bad in your case. The easier something is to break down to glucose the more it will cause the diabetic’s (or pre-diabetic’s) shit to go out of wack. But in terms of dusting fries with a bit of corn starch I’m willing to bet there is more sugar from the spuds involved than almost but not quite sugar from the starch. And sugar is glucose, or is more easily broken down into glucose.
There’s a lot of weird nonsensical info out there about this subject. Your example is white rice. But there is nothing in the processing of white rice (excluding par or pre cooked rice) that should change the nature of the carbs the rice is made up of. The only difference between white and brown rice is that the bran coat and germ get scrubbed off. So brown rice should have the same carb structure as white, but with a bit more fiber and a trivial amount of vitamins and protein. So if white rice is a problem brown rice should be a problem as well (assuming quality rice).
There is also a condition known as Psoriatic arthritis which you should watch out for;
Auto-immune diseases seem to be a perfect example of the one-two punch of bad gene SNP(s) plus an environmental trigger, which is why you can have a range of auto-immune disorders in one family.
Because of the bran, it takes longer to process the brown rice. So instead of a sharp glucose spike, you get a long low glucose hill. Whole grains are always better, even if it is the same starch.
I grew up with electric stoves (and with Chinese food being fancy foreign stuff, because I’m old and not from somewhere that had a lot of Chinese immigrants), and now have the flat-glass-top type of electric stove, which is even less wok-friendly. Now that I live somewhere that does have lots of Chinese people, one thing I’ve noticed in Chinese grocery stores is single-burner portable gas stoves that run on propane or butane. Some of them get used for cookouts and such, but I assume most of them are intended for cooking with woks, since you can crank more heat out of them.
I think there’s some similar trend to auto-immune problems in my family. I have Hashimoto’s syndrome (auto-immune thyroid problem) plus some kind of non-rheumatoid arthritis that none of my rheumatologists have ever figured out. There’s also some autism spectrum in my family, my sister has some sort of arthritis, and my mother had thyroid problems, persistent bouts of “pernicious anemia” (again an auto-immune thing), psoriasis, and ended her days with Pick’s syndrome, an Alzheimer’s-like dementia which might be auto-immune but nobody really knows what causes it.
Most of the time though I’m fine. At least with the Hashimoto’s syndrome, once you get the right dose of replacement thyroid hormone sorted out you’re pretty much OK, and my arthritis is radically less severe than it was 20 years ago, even though the rheumatologists had told me it could never improve.
mom thinks Hashimoto’s might be the variety of thyroid disorder she has. Several of her aunts have it, but her mother and sister have a different disorder (very similar symptoms though.
Have I mentioned hypochondria runs in the family too?
