This is similar in terms of macros to the traditional Irish diet in the 19th century, which for workers was purportedly made up of around 13 pounds of potatoes a day for an adult man. This traditional Korean diet appears to also be extremely high in carbs as a proportion. Of course these groups had significantly higher energy expenditures than most moderns, but it does seem possible that caloric excess in the absence of significant dietary fat does not drive obsesity / metabolic disease in the same way.

What's the hypothesis there? Were they just shitting out the extra starch without digesting it? Due to conservation of energy the calories can't just vanish.

It doesn't seem physically possible for most adult men to consume 13 pounds of potatoes a day. I'm a large man and I think I'd burst or vomit before choking down that much, regardless of how hard I'd been working. Most likely that number is just wrong.

> it does seem possible that caloric excess in the absence of significant dietary fat does not drive obsesity / metabolic disease in the same way.

FWIW this is exactly the opposite hypothesis to that of the Keto diet (whereby consuming fat in absence of carbs does not drive obesity / metabolic disease)

To me seems more likely they were just burning more calories

The Irish had milk also with all the potatoes. It made it a diet that could keep you alive and even thrive.

>Potatoes and milk, particularly buttermilk, were a nutritionally complete diet for many Irish peasants before the famine, allowing them to be healthier than some European counterparts who ate a bread-based diet.