The Hungry Microbiome: why resistant starch is good for you. Intro to Resistant Starch. Some good info on resistant starch.
Much of this info is found in my book, The Potato Hack: Weight Loss Simplified, but it’s been updated to include new developments in our understanding of resistant starch. Resistant starch (RS) is starch that does not get digested in the stomach or small intestine and enters the large intestine intact. Resistant Starch Top 27 Science Based Benefits. Starch is one of the most abundant foods in the world and has been a primary food component in every diet known to man and beast.
As our food is processed, however, the starch in our diets became more easily digestible and contains much less resistant starch and dietary fiber. Most raw starch in plants resists digestion because the plant cell walls and/or hulls slows down the enzymes digesting the starch. This type of starch is known as “resistant starch”, (abbreviated as RS). Once you cook plants, however, the plant structure breaks down and the starch becomes rapidly digestible – it will break down to glucose very quickly in your digestive tract. Which Foods Contain Resistant Starch?: The Hungry Microbiome. Eating foods rich in resistant starch nourishes your gut bacteria, which helps maintain intestinal health and reduces the risk of developing colorectal cancer.
Resistant starch is found in many whole plant foods, but the amount can vary depending on how the food is processed. Explore the chemical composition of starchy foods2 with interactive parallel coordinates: In the diagram below, foods are represented by lines crossing multiple vertical axes. The vertical position at which a line crosses an axis represents how many grams (per 100g) of this compound is contained in the food. The colour of each line corresponds to the class the food belongs to. Video Series: The Microbiome and Digestion. How Resistant Starch Will Help to Make You Healthier and Thinner. The Potato Hack Chronicle. I have made it my sole purpose in life to stick up for the tiny little spheres of goodness that make up raw potato starch.
Last summer, the blogger behind The Paleo Mom blog went on a rampage against my beloved RPS, saying things like: Now, a new contender is here for the superfood crown: resistant starch, especially in the form of raw potato starch. If you haven’t encountered enthusiastic advice to add potato starch (just stirred into a glass of cool water, yum?!) To your diet in order to treat all manner of ills, you probably will soon! Sarah Ballantyne, PhD, suggests that people have boosted RPS to superfood status, and recommend eating it to the exclusion of all other foods! Resistant Starch: It’s Not All Sunshine and Roses - The Paleo Mom. Throughout the years, tons of “wonder foods” have come and gone within the health community, based on a mixture of legitimate science and hype (remember goji berries?
Maca root? Coconut oil? Flaxseed? Chia? Plantains as a Potato Substitute. If you do not like potato starch-based resistant starch supplements, try plantains!
Plantains are a very healthy, fiber and resistant starch filled food source. A great prebiotic. It’s always a bit of a gamble buying raw starches in the hopes that the RS was not destroyed in the processing, or that it is really even there. Resistant Starch Type 2 (RS2) RS2 has been in lots of headlines this week!
Thanks to everyone who keeps me posted on the latest happenings in Resistant Starch Land. Hi-Maize in the News: Resistant Starch and Red Meat. The Paleo Community is once again backed into a corner, defending “meat.”
The World Health Organization recently released a report that says: Overall, the Working Group classified consumption of processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans” (Group 1) on the basis of sufficient evidence for colorectal cancer. Why Resistant Starch Is Probably Not Enough. Lately I’ve been turning my attention back to one of the original lines of inquiry here on this blog — the question of what effect high dose Resistant Starch (mostly in the form of raw potato starch) is having on the gut bacterial profile in individuals.
I think it’s an important question for a few reasons. Despite the many reports of positive effects gained from this experiment — digestive, sleep, mood, metabolic, etc. — I still believe it’s necessary to keep some healthy skepticism. After all, it isn’t like we’ve cured cancer just yet. From Gut to Immune System to Brain…pay the toll with potatoes! Within our body are small structures called “Toll-like Receptors (TLRs).”
These receptors are an important part of our immune system. TLRs are used by components of our immune system to detect the presence of microbes, ie. fungal and bacterial pathogens, that do not belong inside of us, and need to be eliminated. Ramp Up Your Short-Chain Fatty Acid Production With Fermentable Starches Within 6 Days. Longterm Fat Loss, Gut Health & Cancer Protection Possible - SuppVersity: Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone. It's quite funny, only 5 years ago, everyone was still smiling at people who spent extra bucks on yogurts and other dairy products that were enriched with certain bacteria strains - strains, which were and obviously still are supposed to have health-promoting effects. The fact that probiotic yogurts and similar stuff have meanwhile made it into the store brand line-up of the large discount-markets (at least here in Germany) is however clear cut evidence that the previously laughed at idea that gut bugs are something you want to foster and promote has meanwhile turned into another of those partly highly questionable, but widely accepted pieces of "nutritional wisdom".
The question that remains is, will they join the ranks of other scientific hypothesis that have made it n allegedly oversimplified from the bench to the store-boards before their time was ripe? Feeding the good guys: Does it work? Animal Pharm: Cooked/Crystallized RS3 Trumps Raw RS2: They are Vastly Different for Our Guts. Update ~ RS2 and RS3 are Not Exactly the Same Thing (Hat tip: M. McEwen) Feeding raw potato (RS2) in this ancestral diet study (human v. Theropithecus gelada) appeared to overfeed and increase the RS2-chomping gut populations—Bacteroides and E. rectale—in the human simulated gut.
Populations that do not eat RS2 at all or proficiently—lactobacilli and bifidobacteria—were decreased with raw potato. Animal Pharm: Don't Take Resistant Starch Alone and Other Precautions; RS2 Needs to Be Taken With Other Fiber To Spread Fermentation Completely Across the Entire Colon. "There were substantial differences between W-HAW and the other RS types. Changes in SCFA and pH were distributed more evenly through the large bowel in rats fed W- HAW. This may be of some value, because most chronic large bowel disease (including CRC) is localized in the distal colon and rectum, where SCFA supply is lowest (44).
It has been suggested that a combination of RS plus nonstarch polysaccharide (NSP) is optimal in ensuring the supply of SCFA to these viscera (45). Resistant Starch (RS4) for Fat Loss & Exercise Performance - SuppVersity: Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone. You will probably remember the good old "Waxy Maize Reloaded" article from 4 years ago that caused quite a stir!? Well, I guess four years is a long time - more than enough to revisit the idea of designer resistant starches and their effect on your physique and performance. To do so, I've picked two recent studies from the South Dakota State University (Upadhyaya. 2016) and the Florida State University (Baur. 2016) that have one thing in common: they add to the hitherto still inadequate number of studies on resistant starch type 4 (RS4), one out of five forms of "resistant", i.e.
(partly) undigestible, starches with significantly different chemical properties and corresponding functional differences such as their fermentability or their influence on the microbiota in the gut and their applicability as ergogenics in sports drinks and/or functional foods. Resistant Starch in Foods. Resistant Starch in Foods for General Health. Once you’ve become interested in the health benefits of resistant starch (RS), you are going to want to know where to get it. Just like “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laura Numeroff. (That mouse now wants a glass of milk, if you don’t remember the popular children’s story.) I do not know of anybody who learns of resistant starch’s benefits and does not ask where it is available, and I’ve been talking about resistant starch for more than a decade!
An excellent article by Mary Murphy, Judith Douglass and Anne Birkett was published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 2008. 3 Levels of Resistant Starch Benefits. Resistant Starch Content of Potatoes. Potatoes, Resistant Starch, and Weight Loss. Resistant Starch Intakes in the United States.