The Potato Hack is based on a simple weight-loss diet from the 1800's. It is simply this: for 3 to 5 days in a row, eat nothing but plain cooked potatoes (2-5 pounds daily, or until full). This means without butter or dairy or anything else (a little salt is ok). This plain mono-diet will help break addictive cycles and reset your brain chemistry and palate. Most people who try this lose 3-5 pounds in this time frame, without being hungry. (From my own experience, I lost 6 pounds in 5 days. Plain potatoes are incredibly filling. This does work. Expect joint pain to disappear-- unless you are allergic to nightshades-- and expect digestive and even sleep issues to improve. It is rather liberating, too, not having to think about what you're going to eat because it's just the one thing. Your brain will stop obsessing about food and get on with the business of living.) Repeat this diet as necessary to give yourself a reboot whenever you feel you are spiraling out of control with junk food. Though Andrew Taylor and High Carb Hannah did the potato mono-diet for much longer, this book advocates doing it only 3 to 5 days at a time, as needed. The author does offer some variations on this diet if you find this too restrictive. With our carbophobic culture, I know it is a mind-blowing idea that you can actually lose weight by eating potatoes (but only if you keep the fattening stuff off of them).
There were many chapters on the gut microbiome that I found to be really helpful, especially since my son has some serious digestive issues. It helped clarify what his doctor has been saying about short chain fatty acids. I was expecting just a weight loss book, but the book covered so much more: it also went into depth about the resistant starches that keep the bacteria in our gut microbiome happy, and how to reverse digestive issues by eating potatoes and other starches.
There is a chapter of "recipes," but it's mainly instructions for how to bake a potato, or how to make plain mashed potatoes or homefries and such. Nothing fancy or gourmet here. If you're a beginning cook (like a college kid on their own for the first time), then you'll find this helpful. He also gives instructions for how to collect your own potato starch from raw potatoes, which our gut bacteria gobble up with glee. He recommends it as an additional daily supplement to eating cooked potatoes if your digestive system has been really messed up. Raw potato starch provides a different kind of resistant starch than do cooked potatoes... if you consume both, you're getting all the resistant starch that the potato has to offer.
The final chapter has instructions for growing your own potatoes. Cool! And unexpected!
I eat a WFPB (whole foods plant-based) "starchivore" diet anyway, so this book fits right in with all my McDougall books. It's similar to "Mary's Mini."