The most-eaten vegetable in America — about fifty pounds a year each, french fries included. Scott and Jenny sort out how to measure one (a fist is a cup, a cup of mashed is 30 carbs), why a plain baked potato hits as hard as it does, and what butter, sour cream and bacon do to the shape of the bolus.
No carb ratio or estimator run on this one. The practice person sits at a stable 100 — Scott would rather see 80 — and the conversation is about measuring the portion, how fast a potato hits, and how the toppings change the bolus's shape. The carb figures here are the ones said on the recording; bring your own ratio. 6:36
Scott looked up the ten most-eaten vegetables in the country, by weight. The top of the list is where the series starts — and Jenny wants to know how much of that weight is french fries.
The number-one vegetable in America by weight. The list doesn't say how much of that is fries; Jenny's hoping it's less than she fears. Both of them want the same fry when they want one — crisp outside, salty, out of a paper cone — and Jenny's new oven has an air fryer built in, which sent the giant countertop one out the door.
The lists say a medium potato is 18 to 22 carbs. Jenny's problem with that: a medium to a child and a medium to a six-foot-six man are not the same potato. She measures starch by the cup instead.
A woman's fist is about a one-cup portion. Jenny's eyeball rule for the starchy vegetables — potatoes, corn, peas are similar enough by the cup to share it. Cups are easy to see on a plate; "medium" is not.
Stable at 100, eating a plain baked potato by itself. Jenny's word for its glycemic nature: fairly high — and the moment you add fat to it, the number comes down and the bolus changes shape.
Scott's question, answered: a baked potato with sour cream slopped on it does behave more like a french fry.
Nobody eats a plain potato as a snack, Jenny says — so this is the single-food version, before the rest of the plate.
This series usually stops at one food. Here Scott builds a real dinner plate — breaded chicken, a potato, broccoli — and then Jenny loads the potato up.
Bacon, sour cream, cheese — and if it came from a restaurant, Jenny guarantees butter went on while it baked. Scott's estimate: 40 or 50 grams of fat by the time you're done. That much fat slows the potato enough that you may not want the whole bolus up front any more: some now, some over time, or on injections some at the start and some at the end of the meal. Scott calls it a little science experiment — how much fat on the potato before the front-loaded bolus stops being right? Adjust the pre-bolus, and look at an extended bolus or a second shot.
The numbers that transfer to the next starchy side.
“A woman's fist is like the size of a one cup portion.”
“Sometimes they see green and they don't bolus.”
“You're going to see that typical, what we call a bell curve, right up, comes down, lands you, really nice.”
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