Truffled "Potato" Purée with Mascarpone

By now you understand that inflammation in the body is the true cause of disease, and that sugar and starch...even rice causes inflammation (if you didn't please click HERE). BUT so can over-nutrition. Numerous studies show that periodic fasting can have dramatic results not only in areas of weight loss, but in overall health as well. An article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition explains numerous benefits which include improvement in insulin sensitivity, decreases in blood pressure, reduction in free-radical damage to cells, protein and DNA, and weight loss. If you think about it, our ancestors didn't have access to food at 8am, 12noon, 3pm snack and 6pm dinner every day; they went through regular cycles where food was either abundant or non-existent. This contradicts the idea that your metabolism will ‘slow down’ causing you to gain weight if you don’t eat 5 meals per day. In fact, intermittent fasting is more effective than calorie restriction at reducing insulin resistance.

WHY FAST:
1. Reduces insulin resistance: Insulin is drastically reduced in a glucagon dominant state (Imagine a "see-saw"; one goes up when the other goes down). When insulin is reduced it can't cause inflammation on tissues, which is associated with pain/fibromyalgia/heart disease/asthma/diabetes.
2. Reduces blood pressure: As your insulin level increases, so does your blood pres­sure. Insulin stores magnesium, but if your insulin receptors are blunted and your cells grow resistant to insulin, you can’t store magnesium so it passes out of your body through urination. Magnesium in your cells relaxes muscles. If your magnesium level is too low, your blood vessels will constrict rather than relax, which will raise your blood pressure and decrease your energy level.
3. Reduces triglycerides: Insulin upregulates LPL on fat tissue and inhibits activation on muscle cells. On the other hand, Glucagon upregulates LPL on muscle and cardiac tissue, while inhibiting activation of fat.
4. Weight Loss
5. Reduces cancer: Fasting cleans out damaged mitochondria. It “turns on” certain genes that repair specific tissues that would not otherwise be repaired in times of surplus. Intermittent fasting has also been shown to reduce spontaneous cancers in animal studies, which is due to a decrease in oxidative damage or an increase in immune response.
6. Longer Life: Fasting allows certain cells to live longer (as repaired cells) during famine since it’s energetically less expensive to repair a cell than to divide and create a new one.

So how do you put this into practice? There are a lot of ways. I have them listed in my book: Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism.

STOP LOSING MUSCLE: If you continue to eat a high carb diet, you will continue to be a sugar burner. As you switch to be a ketone burner, aside from using fats for energy, it also prevents muscle loss because the need for glucose is reduced. Muscle tissue breakdown occurs when there is a need for glucose which exceeds the stores of glycogen. Fasting will also accomplish this. The dominant hormones in a fasted state (Human Growth Hormone, Glucagon, and Adrenaline) are responsible for catabolizing tissue and can aid in the breaking of fats from the glycerol backbone and uses fats for oxidation for energy instead of sugar.

So by fasting and not working too hard, we derive energy in the form of fat. You can do anything for one day/week!

To read more on fasting click here: Dr. Michael R. Eades Blog


1 head cauliflower (6 cups)
6 TBS butter
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
Organic Beef broth
2 tsp black truffle oil

Cook cauliflower in pot of organic beef broth OR boiling salted water until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain, cool slightly, and place in a blender (I used THIS one which purees food like no other!). Return warm cauliflower to same pot. Add butter and mascarpone cheese; mash until smooth. Mix in truffle sauce; season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Makes 6 servings.

NUTRITIONAL COMPARISON (per 1 cup serving)
Using Potatoes = 245 calories, 25 carbs, 3.6 g fiber
Using Cauliflower = 149 calories, 3 carbs, 1.1g fiber