Once again, here are my previous posts on resistant starch:
- Prepare for the “Resistant Starch” Assimilation; Resistance is Futile (180 Comments)
- Resistant Starch: 4-Letter Word? Nope. Goal: Create Mashed Potatoes A Diabetic Can Eat Every Day (452 Comments)
- Resistant Starch: Now We’re Getting Somewhere (68 Comments)
- Resistant Starch: Now We’re Getting Somewhere, Part 2 (35 links to research) (127 Comments)
- The FTA Resistant Starch Trial: N=75 +++ (58 Comments)
- Beans and the Second Meal Effect: Resistant Starch (36 Comments)
- Low GI Mashed Potatoes! and the Resistant Starch Content of Foods (24 Comments)
- How Resistant Starch via Potato Starch and Beans Helped a Type 2 Diabetic
Here’s what resistant starch looks like, feeding your colonic gut bacteria (and how probiotics can actually survive the stomach & small intestine to get to where they’re supposed to be).
Resistant Starch Granules Feeding Gut Bacteria
Here’s another close to home anecdote. Recently my wife, Beatrice, got a blood glucose monitor and began testing regularly. Her dad has been type II for over 40 years, so it’s a good precaution for her to take. And the numbers were a bit alarming. Fasting BG averaging in the 110-120 range, or so. Probably Physiological Insulin Resistance (PIR). See, in spite of my posts about rice, beans and potatoes: on average, we’re pretty low carb around here simply because we don’t gorge on fruit and there’s usually no grain or grain products to be found in the house—nor sugar water drinks.
I recall back when, when my dad was dropping weight on an LC paleo diet, same thing. And it was alarming because I had no knowledge of PIR at the time and often experienced high FBG readings myself.
…Anyway, Beatrice began eating some beans every day (she doesn’t do the potato starch), just like she did growing up, Mexican heritage & all. Well guess what? An immediate drop in FBG to the low 90s. I mean immediate. Next morning, where it stays. So I think LCers and LC Paleos have some ‘splainin’ to do is all. Either there’s nothing wrong with having elevated blood glucose all the time, or there’s nothing wrong with beans and perhaps other starchy natural foods. You can’t have it both ways.
Moving on, “Tatertot” Tim has assembled a 7-page exhaustive and complete list of the Resistant Starch content in foods, with references and notes.
RS in Food
Click here to get the 7-page PDF. Here’s what Tim says:
Quite a few surprises when you see it all in one place. For instance, bread. Freezing white bread for 30 days doubles its RS content. Also rye and pumpernickel are the highest in RS by far. Not that I’m eating bread, just saying.
Some other surprises were uncooked rolled oats at 7-14% RS, and the big span in cooked potatoes .16% on low end for boiled to 19% for ‘roasted and cooled’.
You can also see the difficulty in pinpointing exact RS values. For instance, the label on Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch says 1TBS=12g. The range of RS in potato starch is 66.7 – 79.3%, therefore 1 TBS of potato starch should have somewhere between 8g and 9.5g.
You can also see why RS is hard to get in any meaningful amount eating a typical paleo or SAD diet. 3-5g/day is the estimate in SAD and may be even lower in paleo.
I should think it safe to recommend people try to get 20g/day of RS and when food isn’t enough, supplement with a bit of potato starch.
I added references to the list. If anyone has questions about how the food was prepared or where the values came from, they can easily go to the paper I got the info from.
As a final note, an ignoramus posted in comments (deleted, because I don’t entertain stupid very much anymore) the other day that ‘using fart inducing potato starch was just as asinine as using a magical bracelet‘, ignorantly ignoring the fact that the value of resistant starch is only in dispute amongst the woefully ignorant (LCers and Paleos). The essential dietary requirement for resistant starch to feed gut bacteria and its universal benefits is well established over 30 years, in hundreds of studies. Hundreds. I put a few of them up here and here.
Supplementing with Potato Starch
is merely an easy way to get it. You now have an exhaustive list of foods. There’s also tapioca starch and plantain flour for other supplement options. And in regard to the fartage:
- For myself and others I’ve corresponded with, it subsides in a couple of weeks.
- The fartage may actually be indicative of something good going on and not a problem. It may be fixing an existing problem.
- I found that when I ran out of potato starch and switched over to plantain starch, above average fartage for a day or so, then back to normal.
- Even beans not properly prepared by soaking don’t give me much in the way of farts, anymore.
In terms of quantities, I mix it up a lot. Some days it’s a heaping T or two, other days none, and other days just a t, and at different times. I plan to make a blend of potato starch, plantain flour and tapioca starch for my supplementing—as I suspect different starch granules feed different bacterial strains differently. I also plan to keep it up with a variety of properly prepared beans, lentils, legumes.
It is what it is. Which is why, on this score, I’m laughing my ass off at LCers and LC Paleos who simply will not look at the science and don’t care, because of what they think they know: which is a Big Fat Zero on this topic. It’s laughable, sobering and disappointing all at the same time. Don’t buck the catechism, no matter how ignorant it has proven to be.
Next up will be a post a long while in coming. Remember when I promised mashed potatoes for type II diabetics? We have them. Yep, diabetics can now chow down with nary much of a blip in a blood glucose spike. When you see the data, compiled by a PhD Chemist, a very precious few of you might begin getting a clue that all starch is not created equal.
You’ll cure your ignorance. Stop being willfully stupid. So that’s a good thing.
Flyingpig 
Galina L. 
Brad 
I’m in, currently experimenting with 1tbsp of potato starch in my kefir PWO. Started with 2×2 but that caused fartage I have never experienced before… All fine now, reckon I’m getting used to it. I notice increased satiety, although that could be because of the bone broth I am drinking as well now. No real difference in sleep so far, though my dose is probably too low and not close enough towards the evening.
You guys may be onto something, so thanks for exploring it.
A lot of explanation have already been done, for example, on Hyperlipid blog, Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his former expedition member had more elevated FBS on their all-meat diet(while feeling more healthy) . After several years VS had to return to all-meat diet to deal with old age issues. It worked. I experimented with “safe starches” last year. Never again. My FBS went down on the diet with more carbs, but I started slowly regaining weight,got some inflammation near a root of one of teeth, retained water, got less stable energy, so eventually I choose more important for me things over a number.
It looks like physiological IR is the way a body saves glucose for where it is needed absolutely.
Wow – cashews coming in at an impressive 12.9% Is that roasted or raw?
Great work (you too tatertot) on this topic.
P.S. The link to the reference on cashews results in a “Not Found.”
Galina
Every VLC person on earth has retained water, gained weight (oh, myyyy), had localized inflammation (this was plain fucking stupid–if you had local inflammation on a tooth, this was to fight an infection, dumbass), and been in the doldrums.
You’re dismissed.
I see so many posts about cooling potatoes or rice before eating to increase the RS.Are people forgetting that our body is usually 98.6 and wouldn’t this cool the food and turn some of the starch back to RS before it gets absorbed?
@EF (and Richard) – Please use this link for reference number 11:
http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/19/2/274.pdf
Let me know if there are any other broken links. I was hesitant to add the links because I know they don’t last forever.
Wolfstriked: as far as I understand it, the fact that method A – In vivo (ileostomy or intubation in living human) measured the RS means that the percentage is after the food has already been in the body for hours. Correct?
My question would be: if I can saute my potatoes in the evening, and let them sit in the fridge overnight to increase their RS, can I then re-heat them without reducing the RS level to what they were before cooling? Tatertot?
Body temperature is not enough to gelatinize potato, plantain, or tapioca starch. They need to be heated above about 150 degF.
The deal with heating and cooling is a chemical process called retrogradation–the gelled starch crystallizes as it cools forming a type of resistant starch.
@Mart – Cooking potatoes, then cooling increases RS as you know…reheating them should cause the RS to lessen, but I think it also depends on how much moisture was removed when you initially heated them. If you look at the RS contents list above, you will see that potatoes ‘roasted and cooled’ have significantly more RS than potatoes ‘steamed and cooled’. A big part of the gelling properties of starch involves water. This is also why potato chips have a lot more than some other preparations and why freezing for 30 days (removes lots of moisture) increases the RS.
It would be really difficult to accurately predict your RS intake using the list I provided because there are so many variables. However, using the list you can see targets for increasing RS intake.
Potato chips?????? I had my last potato chip on January 3, 2003 because I just could not eat one bag, let alone 1 chip. I always told myself that when I am 85 I would say to hell with it and eat them again. You mean there is a real reason to eat them now. LOL. I also used to freeze my chips before I ate them. Sounds like I was ahead of my time. That was back in my fat phobic days. I suppose I would have to make my own with good oils, huh?
Hey Janet, I planned to take some handfuls of Fritos corn chips and just re fry them in extra virgin olive oil. At least it would have only good oil on them and if the salt is only on the surface and it is removed by the re frying, I can just sprinkle salt on them. I’d freeze them just for the resistant starch.
Janet:
Honest Chips.
http://www.honestchips.com
Coconut oil.
I might also suggest Kiwa chips. Made by a company out of Ecuador, and they use palm oil. Utilize pretty much all of the ‘safe starches’.
http://www.kiwalife.com/en/
That looks like a very nice find, Robert.
They are pretty darn good, and I’d recommend the plantain chips, but your YMMV.
Definitely a rare find among the sea of ‘regular’ chips.
Keep in mind that many, if not most, rolled oats are prepared by steaming the oat kernels/berries to soften them and then they are rolled. This steaming would likely reduce the RS and of course they are no longer “raw”. So… know how your oats are processed if you are eating them for their RS.
Mart if you re-heat “retrograded” starch, which is the process that creates the RS, you will break down and reduce the RS. You’d have to let it cool again so the starch can retrograde once again into more RS.
….Also, Galina, while resistant starch is a “safe starch,” the reverse is not the case. SSs as were talked about were basically rice & potatoes, mostly rapidly digesting starch.
Which is the whole point of all my posts. This is what I mean by LCers thinking they know what the fuck they’re talking about wr to RS when they haven’t a fucking clue…but it doesn’t stop them from not reading the posts, digging into the references, experimenting themselves, but then pretending like they just know.
I’m not tolerating it any longer and I’m not going to be friendly about it. I believe that thus far, oly a single person has made a cautionary argument about RS based on actual science and not complete confusion and ignorance.
Not sure how you guys here feel about Matt Stone and Anthony Colpo, but Colpo recently did a guest post on 180 Degree Health on ‘Healthy Whole Grains’ and explains a lot of the background on how the issue of ‘fiber’ got so screwed up. I made a longer comment on the blog, but thought this bit was worth sharing:
Resistant Starch has three strikes against it:
1. It contains the word ‘Starch’
2. People are burned out on ‘Moar Fiber’
3. Gut Flora is a new science
The whole article is here if anyone cares to read: http://180degreehealth.com/2013/08/healthy-grains
Who cares how we “feel” about Stone/Colpo, is the science and argument sound? I think so.
I don’t mind my anecdotal n=1 to be dismissed, but mostly I wanted to point out that some explanations you requested were given by less dismissable people. I don’t doubt that part of population could be fine eating starches, the thing I doubt is the totally negative perseption of physiological IR.
Galina, even if for some reason you can’t tolerate normal starch at all, you realise there is a difference between that and starch YOU don’t primarily digest, that is instead primarily digested by bacteria in your gut, right?
As in — by way of analogy — there’s a difference between fiber and white sugar.
My dentist says I have zero plaque to remove since giving up most starch, and I have no
heartburn, ~ever~ Why would I want to feed the bacteria? I’m good.
I do eat some white rice and a few tubers but keep it < 100 gms.
I'm Jaminet all the way.
FBS went from 95 to 85
Beans are against my religion ;) I feel better keeping it nutrient dense and not so much volume.
Beans are starch are what I'll eat during The Collapse, but not yet.
Galina, please go research what RS is because it’s obvious you don’t know – which is the reason Rich blew up at you. Read some of the previous posts and come back when you know the difference between “starch” and “resistant starch”. Hint, it relates to the word “resistant”.
lol
Cate, if you don’t know why you’d want to feed your gut bacteria then you’re knowledge is too lacking for anyone here to spend the time to try to educate you. I suggest you go research “probiotics” and “prebiotics” and their health benefits. While you’re at it, go read Richards previous posts on Resistant Starch so you can understand that RS is ***NOT*** a digestible starch like rice, potatoes, bread, etc. RS does not contribute to Jaminet’s PHD recommended grams of daily carbs….. because it’s NOT DIGESTED! It’s a prebiotic.
@Cate – You are feeding them whether you want to or not! Paul Jaminet will tell you quickly that the fiber and RS found in his recommended diet is ample for a healthy gut.
This whole RS road-show is more about getting the info out about RS, what it does and where it’s found than to convince every single reader that they absolutely must eat more RS or else.
The people I feel who should take steps to really try to get more are those who have been following SAD, paleo, or any other diet plan that completely eliminates all sources of RS and most fiber. To folks on an all-meat, carnivore diet…I don’t know; I find it hard to believe it is the best eating plan, but if they are thriving–who am I to say?
Thank you Brad.
Hee hee.
I don’t see myself adding potato starch or eating cold potatoes.
I like mushrooms and onions for my prebiotics. Sorry, I am not getting the point if a person thinks their
biota is dialed in why you would add beans and RS. If you think it helps your IR or gut health, by all
means change something because it is a bit like keeping a salt water fish tank. (Not an exact science)
Okay, I’ll take my Biology degree and leave before I get called the c word. ;)
Brad, I tried RS only in the form of cooled cooked potatoes(not green bananas or powdered potato starch), often in the form of a salad – mix of cooked potatoes, cooked beets , raw onions, homemade pickles or sauerkraut, typical for my native cuisine . Whatever is good in theory and regardless of other’s experiences, own case is the decisive factor. I don’t think that everyone should be lowcarbing, but thous who do find it by try and error. I question an ultimate negative perception of FIR for not-diabetics.
Oh, seriously.
Cooked, cooled potatoes, etc., is a MIXTURE of mostly regular, rapidly-digested starch plus resistant starch. Whereas uncooked potatoes or raw potato starch is mostly resistant starch.
To revise my above analogy, it’s the difference between Metamucil powder and brownies with added fiber.
Cate
I’ve actually had three salt water tanks. A 180 gal big fish tank with too high of nitrates to keep invertebrates who can barely stand a measurable level but fish can take up to about 40 ppm. Also a 60 gal reef aquarium with small fish, corals, anemoneas, shrimp, snails, etc. also a 20 gal quarantine tank.
It’s pretty damn exacting science to me, unless you want $2000 worth of corals to crash.
And what does that mean? Your biology degree doesn’t mean a thing to me. I have maintained saltwater tanks without one, and while a fish ony tank is pretty easy so long as you deal with the ammonia and nitrites which is easy and automatic if you set it up properly and build the bioload slowly so the bacteria multiply commensurate with the bio load (including fish waste and unconsumed food), nitrates are a whole other story and require anaerobic bacteria because algae scrubbers won’t cut is and cause their own problems anyway from decay.
I went through many, many iterations with the latest tequniques, because the original way to keep a reef tank was simply 80% water changes every week to dilute the nitrates. But low and behold, after many gizmos and many, many methods we came upon a simple solution: 6-8 inches on sand in the bottom. Prior to this we were doing the standard 2ish inches with water chambers under the sand. Just a simple 6-8 inches of sand did the trick. Add a good protein skimmer and an algae scrubber in the sump underneath, and good to go.
No biology degree required.
@tatertot
Tim, I followed the discussions on RS taking place in this blog. I can confirm without a doubt all the benefits. I was checking your list and I cannot find any mention of Hi-Maize starch flour. In my part of the world, I have access to a product called FiberFine produced by a Norwegian company which also develops other interesting stuff (the Sukrin products for example, they also have a nice bread mix which contains a lot of RS). I had already supplemented with potato starch in the past (and my wife was not too happy … fartage you know) but I found the taste rather unattractive, and this FiberFine is better in this respect (not the price though). I saw that it was based on the Hi-Maize stuff and I know that you guys are not really keen on it because of the marketing bollockery and price. But as I said, there is also the matter of taste. I do very green bananas as well almost every day (almost uneatable, dries the mouth instantly and blunts the sense of taste for a short while) and I like buckwheat (I make French crêpes … since I am French myself :) ).
OK, what is the point of all this babbling ? Hi-Maize: missing in your PDF. Was it intentional ?
Cate, your biology degree holds little weight when you make decisions based on criteria like “I can’t see myself…”. My lowly computer science engineering degree and logic training notwithstanding. Sure onions are a healthy thing, and yes prebiotic. I think Richard has the right idea with targeting a variety of prebiotics from different foods as there is a huge variety of different microbiota in the gut and likely thrive on different types of food/molecules. Literally trillions in numbers, and likely thousands of varieties – but you must already know that since they must have taught you that in biology school. Btw, you didn’t say anything about eating onions in your original post, you just said “Why would I want to feed the bacteria?” which is a pretty dumb statement from a biology student if taken on it’s own. If you are really eating the PHD diet then yeah, it’s questionable if you really need to supplement with RS since you may be getting a fair amount. Tatertot would know better if the PHD diet comes close to the 20-30g (I think is the daily recommended). Maybe you would benefit, maybe not. Personally I have trouble consuming the two pounds of starchy carbs, and huge amount of veggies that Jaminet prescribes in addition to the protein and fat. It’s just way too much food for me to eat with only two meals per day. In general I like the PHD gig, but I question the need for so much white rice and potatoes – non nutrient dense foods – even with my active lifestyle. For sedentary people, it make no sense to me, to waste calorie consumption on fairly vacant calories. So for me, supplementing RS I think is a reasonable idea. And hell, tapioca starch is dirt cheap, and the effort to include it in a smoothy or even just mixed by spoon in a glass of water is nothing.
Btw, my personal experience – so far – is that the odor from fart-age of eating lots of onions, which I have done, is *many* times worse than the fart-age produced from raw starch.
I also recently started using a BG meter and was also alarmed at morning BG at 105 to 110. So I started testing a lot. Continuing IF a few hours later it was in the mid 90s. After meals never went above 120. I’m a medium-low carber. So either
(1) I am in bad shape because morning BG is too high.
(2) I am in great shape because post meal BG <= 120.
Unfortunately I can't find any literature to choose between (1) and (2).
High FBG is often due to the ‘dawn’ effect. BG drops in the middle of the night and liver gets busy and pumps out glucose. My FBG can be as high as 180.
One night I woke up hungry. At some cornflakes and milk aroun 4a. Upon rising, FBG was 121. Hasn’t been that low in years.
7 mos ago I began experimenting with all this. Of course it took at least a month to put all the info together and understand it. I was on 2000 g metformin and 2 glipizide…..that was keeping me chained to the loo. I have a smoothie with 3-4 T potato starch, 1/2 c oats, 1/3 c raw coconut, 1/4 c nuts, 1 T Melaleuca GC Control, 1 T, zylitol, frozen green banana, ice cubes, and some milk. Soooo yummy, it is better than a Wendy’s Frosty!,
Now, I only take ONE metformin in the am. But, after reading about the beans, I’m going to incorporate them and see if there’s a better reading in the am. Anyway. Thank you all so much for spending time and effort to shine a light!
@FrenchFry – Hi-Maize is there, page 5, under Raw Starch/Flour and in between Garden Pea Meal and Hylon. My computer alphabetized it for me, maybe there was a better way to make the list more readable.
I really don’t have a problem with Hi-Maize, I just hate seeing people suckered into thinking that baking with will make their wheat flour recipes healthy, or buying a loaf of bread ‘now with added Hi-Maize’ a good idea.
I really don’t mind corn at all. I just don’t like tricky Big Agro Corps.
@Clem – I had the exact same pattern. It went away mostly when I started PHD levels of starch and completely normalized after I started adding RS to the mix.
I’m told that what you are seeing is proof that the body does not react to endogenous glucose as fast as exogenous glucose. When you run out of readily available glucose, your liver makes it. When your liver makes it, you don’t get the same insulin response as if you’d eaten it.
For me, this problem also caused insomnia. I would fall asleep normally at 10pm and waken around 3am when processes were kicking in to ramp up the gluconeogenisis pathways.
The best test is actually the hbA1C, though.
Clem, so if you were to sleep-in, you’d find a lower morning BG.
As a moderate carber, your morning BG is explainable depending on how deeply you are fasted and can vary through a couple of mechanisms – if you want background on that, I know many people find useful the posts on Gluconeogenesis at Richard Feinman’s site and on Physiological Insulin Resistance at Peter’s ‘Hyperlipid’ site.
I’d vote for (2) :) – that postprandial BG is rather impressive and seems to show a consistent meal composition too (never veering to any substantial amounts of hi-glycemic foods, for example).
BTW, did you send away for the calibration strips for your home BG meter? They can make quite a difference.
@Brad – PHD recommendations for fiber are fairly CW, imo. In Chapter 14, Fiber, he talks a lot about RS and butyrate but never really connects the dots–his advice is to eat 1% of energy as fiber per day (roughly 23g), but doesn’t differentiate between fermentable and non-fermentable fibers.
Recommendations in many studies are for about 20-30g of fermentable fibers and 5-10g of non-fermentable.
When I added up my fiber intake with PHD it was about 5-10g fermentable and 5-10g non-fermentable–just a tad higher than SAD. Paul does recommend a lot of leftover, chilled starches which boosts RS. Eating PHD with a few dried plantain slices and green bananas to gets the RS up quickly.
Just wondering…I have started to make my own yogurt. I like it, but it is way runnier than the supermarket stuff. ( I know they use whatever to thicken them). I usually mix 2Tb potato starch with 1 C of my yogurt and just down it at once. My question is: can I premix my potato starch with my yogurt? I ask because of two things; 1, it thickens the yogurt a little and am concerned that it gels a little and may reduce the RS content (though i see in an earlier comment that it shouldn’t gel below 150 deg), and 2, will the bacteria predigest the RS before it gets to my colon. Not sure if that makes any sense. I would only add RS potato after the yogurt has incubated and cooled down, then I would refrigerate. Thanks
Jason – I think that adding potato starch to yogurt is probably the absolute best use there is for potato starch. Mix it ahead of time all you want–the bacteria in the yogurt won’t degrade much of the RS, especially if it’s refrigerated. If you left it at room temp you might not like the results.
The picture in the blog above is cultures of yogurt bacteria adhering to resistant starch granules of Hi-Maize corn starch. The bacteria actually etch themselves into the starch granule and encapsulate themselves in a protective shield allowing more of the probiotics to survive the harsh environments of stomach and small intestine. Eating yogurt by itself you are lucky if any of the probiotics make it to the large intestine where they are beneficial. This is not to say that eating yogurt or fermented foods is a waste of time, but adding RS to the mix increases odds of the bacteria you are targeting getting to where you want them. Lots of money being spent on this encapsulation phenomenon to make more shelf-stable probiotic products.
Tatertot,
Hi, I had Ulcerative colitis over several years which ended up with me having an ileo-anal pull through surgery. I no longer have a large intestine. So from reading you message to Jason above about adding R.S. to his yogurt and the benefits are made in the large intestine, what does that mean to me?? Also, can anyone address about all talk about healthy bacteria, feeding the healthy bacteria and the fact that I no longer have a large intestine?? I was diagnosed Type II diabetic 6 months ago. Thanks.
Ray
I’ve been watching these posts with great interest and have come across some references to RS lately:
1. Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal by Melanie Warner, talks about RS in Chapter 10: Healthy Processed Foods and a company in particular called PenFibe, which when I google get this website http://www.fitinfiber.com/ (I’m sure Bob’s is cheaper) The book talks about how food scientists are looking at adding RS to processed foods to increase the fiber. Overall, I’ve found the book an interesting read.
2. Robb Wolf in his podcast episode 31 talks a bit about RS (it’s an old podcast, a few years old now)
3. Does Tim Ferriss have it right in The Four Hour Body with his slow carb diet that is like paleo but with beans and cheat days?
How much in the way of beans is Beatrice eating each day to see her result?
Very interesting series! Look forward to your next post!
Brad,
like you, I can’t handle that much caloric low-nutrient density foods suggested by Jaminet in safe starches, especially when I’m sedentary. Also, I don’t have a taste for them.
Most of the time I’m moderately LC and occasionally drop into ketosis and IF.
So I just take take unmodified potato starch because it’s nearly all Resistant starch and never gets digested into glucose and absorbed in the small intestine.
The fact that Resistant starch does not get digested to glucose is ridiculously easy for anyone with a BG meter to check – well, maybe except for certain biologists ;) There’s no change in BG after taking 4 tablespoons of unmodified potato starch, even if you’re in ketosis. None. Ketostix also stay positive.
Thanks tat, I figured it would be ok, but you never know.
@Michelle – You are precisely why I have kept this RS thing going. I want people who read a bit about RS to remember these posts and realize there is more than one way to skin a cat. I have a feeling that in a few years, RS is going to mean ‘grain additives’. RS can definitely be found in other places than grain and processed foods.
I’m off on a road-trip now, will try to catch up on comments Sunday evening.
While I don’t deny that there’s evidence that RS is good I still find it odd that I need to supplement with a processed form of it to get *enough*.
” well, maybe except for certain biologists ;) ”
Thanks marie. First Galina, then Cate.
Did I not give fair warning in my post about spouting one’s fucking stupid mouth when they are fucking stupid ignorant?
I think I did.
“The fartage may actually be indicative of something good going on and not a problem. It may be fixing an existing problem.” That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Been following this series with interest–thanks Richard and Tater Tot for all the work you’ve put in. I’ve been supplementing potato starch daily, in varying amounts since early June. The crazy fartage has died down, but still a lot of fartage. Just ate the first beans I’ve had in a few years. Guess I’ll try the green plantain and tapioca starch as well. I don’t have BG issues that I know of, just trying to improve my gut and maybe reduce some food intolerances, in particular, fermented food =serious headache. RS plus probiotics, so far no problem.
Jason:
Just do Kefir. Way better than yogurt and too easy to make. 10 times more probiotic and mixes with PS easily.
Gene
Why would you find that odd?
Do you understand the logic behind supplementing vitamin D?
I dont think your understanding my point on eating hot food and RS content.When you eat hot food it quickly dissipates its heat into your body.So when you eat you hot or cold potatoes,doesn’t it only matter what heat the starch granules are when they reach the small intestines?I am just asking because RS is quite new on the scene and even scientists overlook simple things like this.They test a food at 150deg for RS but what we really need to know is how fast the transfer back to RS happens and is it in the time frame of entering the mouth to entering the small intestines?
And Richard you can screw off on your usual “jeez are you that incompetent comment that you will make about my grammer!!;)
Wolf, thae data point you’re not accounting for is time. When talking about cooled or frozen starches that develop retrograde RS, it is over significant time.
Michell, the 4 Hour Body is a terribly written book. A much better book on strength training is Body By Science by Doug McGuff. Or just checkout his “Big 5” HIT workout vids on Youtube. For a lifting diet Ferris’ cheat day thing is similar to a cyclical keogenic diet (CKD). A reasonable book on this is ‘The Anabolic Diet’.
Richard, your resistant starch series is one of your best. I wish the critics would read the whole thing before drawing conclusions, criticizing, dismissing or ridiculing it. This is useful information that is helping me and other people.
Heck, even LC heroes Phinney, Volek and Attia are touting a RS source they call “Superstarch.” When LC diet advocates who criticized the “safe starches” concept start calling a starch super, you know there’s something to it and it’s at least worth looking into. Plus, unmodified potato starch is cheaper and less heavily processed.
The same misunderstandings about RS keep getting repeated over and over again here and elsewhere despite your refuting them with simple explanations and lots of supporting evidence. There are so many misconceptions within this one thread that it would probably take hours to address them all. I’ll just summarize by saying that all starch is not the same–resistant starch is very different from the easily digestible starch that critics are familiar with. RS converts to fats, not sugars. It’s ideal for LCers like me who don’t tolerate so-called “safe starches” well.
Tatertot wrote: “This whole RS road-show is more about getting the info out about RS, what it does and where it’s found than to convince every single reader that they absolutely must eat more RS or else.”
Well said, Tater. If someone doesn’t want to eat it, no one is forcing them to. Why am I supposed to care if some stranger on the Internet doesn’t like potato salad, plantains or any particular food when no one has told them that they must eat it? I appreciate the info you and Richard have shared. I was skeptical at first when I first learned about it some time ago and didn’t look into it again for a while, but the info from you, Richard and others is persuasive and my experience fits with it.
It’s not odd at all that a growing number of LC and Paleo dieters are using unmodified potato/tapioca/plantain starch or flour when one considers that most popular versions of “Paleo” and LC diets prohibit or restrict many RS-rich foods and some folks like me don’t handle the “safe starches” well that contain easily digested starches. I also eat plantains, a real whole food that’s rich in RS, especially the less it’s ripened or cooked. Potato starch provides additional benefit for me and is convenient to use, like butter, lard, pemmican, whey protein powders, and other processed foods that many LCers rave about.
Plus, many modern people have deficient gut microbiomes that are in need of therapy, which has been written about extensively in the blogosphere.
What no grammar attack?Oh well maybe next time.;) And you did answer my question but not in the way I was hoping for as I am a person that would just like to eat real foods.Oh well,I might just resort to the potato starch pathway to see if it can cure my ongoing belly battle of bloated one day and super tight the next with no changes in diet.So far my RS experiment by intake of unripe bananas and beans galore is showing me something great in that my body heats up and I start sweating and that rarely happens to me.Better glucose control also but also the sideeffects of more gas,which I am all right with
BEANS BEANS there good for the heart,the more you eat the more you fart,the more you fart the better you feel….so eat your beans at every meal!!;)
And before I go I must say to person who said beans are no no for her.I love beans so much and when I have rice and beans(Cuban so I grew up with it as a staple)nowadays I actually have beans and rice.:) Not big on a plate of rice with beans poured over it but absolutely love a bowl of any type of bean soup with some rice poured over it.So this new found info is right where my taste buds would like to go.
Wolf, the moment the starch hits your mouth it begins to be broken down by the amylase in your saliva. Then it hits the acidic environment of your stomach and more amylase. I don’t think there is much time for any retrogradation of the starch as it gets mixed and dispersed with digestive juices well before it reaches the small intestines.
@Gene, isn’t it obvious that RS is no different than any other nutrient, in that the *need* to supplement it depends on one’s overall diet? How “processed” do you think a *raw* starch is? This is like saying that pressed and strained acerola cherry juice (super high in vitamin-C) is processed and why would anyone *need* to supplement with it?
Presuming you know what the word “raw” means, now think about how convenient a virtually tasteless powder is – that you can easily add to damn near any cold food without ruining it’s taste. Never underestimate the effect low price and convenience has on improving dietary habits.
“…RS is no different than any other nutrient, in that the *need* to supplement depends on one’s overall diet”
+1
@Marie, I also do pseudo IF most days (2 meals) and take raw tapioca starch to help the fact that I’m too busy, or too lazy, to prepare many veggies or starchy foods every day. I’ll often throw the tapioca starch in a high nutrient shake of raw eggs, cream, cinnamon and blackstrap. I don’t eat LC to the point of ketosis but I’m pretty well “fat adapted”. I prefer to get my carbs from higher nutrient foods like low GI fruit (plums, papaya, and green-ish bananas), blackstrap, kefir, etc. But I have no fear of eating “safe” starches like rice, potatoes, cassava flour, beans, etc., I just don’t eat them every day. I probably eat them in a cyclical fashion but I don’t do it consciously.
Brad,
we diverge only a bit, I can’t do without my veggies but they are also not starchy or not consistently so.
Meanwhile, I do consistently get inulin without thinking about it (onions, garlic, leeks, artichokes, dandelion greens…) being of Mediterranean ancestry and eating fairly traditionally – island version : garden veggies and olives, with some lentils/beans and potatoes in the winter months (or if the fish weren’t biting that day, eh?), but little-to-no grains. Seasonal fruits.
Btw, this might be why I don’t get any TMI problems with resistant starch, being used to fermentable fiber (just maybe).
I drop into ketosis every so often only to test certain things out for my father who is on a ketogenic diet for cancer, or rarely to help in the initial experimental design stage for a couple of colleagues who are in biochemistry (trade-off, they let me use their equipment and pick their brains any time).
It’s easy to go ketogenic if not accustomed to the sugar roller coaster that’s the SAD diet and also when used to traditional fasting (24-48hrs).
Because of my low or inconsistent amounts of most starches (and yeah, too busy and too lazy:) I also like the convenience of a near-tasteless powder I can take in anything, like you say.
I use unmodified potato starch because it’s available at my local grocery store.
Having a family history of colon cancer on the one side and varied bowel problems on the other side, means I have extra reasons to make sure I get Resistant Starch, so it really helps that it’s so easy that way!
Richard,
“Did I not give fair warning in my post about spouting one’s fucking stupid mouth when they are fucking stupid ignorant? I think I did. ”
Yes, you did. :)
This just tells me though, that if even some regulars of This blog react to the word ‘starch’ instantly, well, that’s become one powerful meme.
So it might be worth fighting head-on?
Just a thought, how about starting each post with a bare banner? Something like :
“Warning! Resistant starch does not turn to glucose in the body.”
and/or : “This is not your grandma’s starch, though it’s likely your paleo-grandma’s ”
(o.k., so maybe I thought those coprolite studies were very cool…:).
Richard,
You asked, “Why would you find that odd? Do you understand the logic behind supplementing vitamin D?”
Sure. In the case of Vit D, I’m supplementing a substance that I no longer create in the necessary amounts because of lifestyle factors – i.e. working/living indoors, driving rather than walking, covering up from the sun due to increased UV levels, etc. Not so with RS. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how an “evolutionary appropriate” amount of RS was obtained in the past without supplementation if it’s difficult to do with standard foods eaten in the standard way – i.e. potatoes and rice while they’re still hot.
Look, I’m not against novel food sources. John Welbourn got it right on dairy, “Maybe other species just weren’t smart enough.” But, I’m just trying to figure out how RS fits into the overall picture of our development and health from an evolutionary standpoint.
@tatertot – Thanks so much for the spreadsheet, it’s very helpful! Question for anyone, can you cook with the plantain flour or will heating reduce the RS like with potato starch? Also, green bananas are hard to find but when I do how can I slow the ripening process to make them last longer – fridge? Would freezing them and adding to a smoothie alter the RS?
@Brad – I read 4 hour body out of interest, after reading 4 hour chef – I like Ferriss’s approach to learning as outlined in the chef book and I wanted to read more about his slow carb diet. Right now, I’m super strict paleo as I’ve been eating something that is affecting my BS and causing stomach bloat – my real preference is Jaminet’s PHD. I’ve eliminated eggs, dairy, nuts/seeds, dark chocolate, all coconut products (only eating veggies/meat/healthy fats/some fruit). When I did this, morning fasting numbers looked great and bloat disappeared. So far I’ve challenged eggs and dark chocolate. Dark chocolate (90% Lindt) seems to be a problem food – my am fasting numbers rose significantly while consuming it this week and this morning dropped back down after having none yesterday but I need to monitor longer to make sure.
I had tried RS (mainly potato starch) when this series first published but was not seeing any results with my BS. So I’ve backed up to see if something else is affecting things. I’m reading the posts with interest as I plan to experiment with RS again, maybe stick to beans, banana and plantain.
Michelle, freeze your green bananas. That’s what I do. Adding to smoothie won’t hurt. It doesn’t matter the type of RS or source – high heat (I think Tater said 150F) will reduce the RS content.
Gene, if you absolutely *must* equate everything back to an ancestral diet just imagine Grok eating a raw tuber (my guess unlikely) or an under cooked tuber (more believable). Roasting a potato or cassava root on a open flame – it’s possible the interior parts are not fully cooked. So plausible consumption of RS right there. Taking this idea further… Grok fully cooked his tubers but didn’t eat all of them (leftovers), or he cooked many of them at one time and carried some of them on his hunt (lunchtime!). These cooled tubers have retrograded starch (RS) as has been mentioned various times in these threads.
I don’t think it really takes much imagination to think of how this is a perfectly natural evolutionary food. Keep in mind that Grok also ate much more bacteria than we do (dirty food) which seeds his gut flora.
@Gene
Look at the coprolite studies, mentioned in previous posts. Lots of stuff that has RS. One of the biggest sources is pollen. Go on Youtube and search ‘cattail pollen’. Cattails constitute an enormous bioload, not just in the significant quantities of pollen, but the tuber network.
Oh, I forgot green bananas. Its unlikely grok would wait for other animals to eat ripening bananas he came across.
I have to say a big THANK YOU to Tatertot for that RS list. Somehow or another I stumbled onto this site and all the information concerning RS. I am a Type II diabetic and found it very interesting. I started earlier this week using potato starch anywhere I could, such as mixed in yogurt, a glass of milk, or even in canned black beans that I had. It is amazing at the difference this has made in my blood sugar levels. I do not eat a paleo diet, actually closer to the SAD (I know, I know, the flogging may commence!). But, I just wanted to share my 2¢ about the starch and how it helps. I’m eating more things cold that would contain RS (e.g. pastas, even pizza). The numbers don’t lie; my sugars are consistently lower than if I would eat the same foods piping hot. I truly do appreciate all the effort you guys have been putting into this subject. It is quite fascinating!
I have been suplementing with RS since may and it has done wonders for my IBS. I feel it has also been helpfull in general for my health.
A question for Richard and tatertot about recomending legumes, what about the anti-nutrients and phytoestrogens, or is this safe as long as the dose is kept small?
From memory some 6 years ago when i was eating the SAD diet i remember my gut was always feeling very calm and pristine when eating coked and then cooled beans.
Woodwose:
I’m really kinda sick of the whole “antinutrient” hoopla. And for all we know, some amount might be hormetically beneficial. The dose makes the poison. Soaking for 24-48 hours is a good practice but beyond that, if they work for you, they work. There’s plenty of very long lives people’s who use legumes as a staple. Considering the nutrition, I think that if one is going to have a staple food, it probably beats out rice, grains, and even potatoes.
@Woodwose, as Tater will also say, you should soak/ferment the legumes before cooking to reduce the anti-nut’s. 24 hours I think Tater said but can’t remember, but even an overnight 8 hour soak will help and hell, it ain’t difficult so why not? Going as far as sprouting them is good too but takes much longer. Sprouted lentils for example are good stuff. Eating them cooled after cooking yeah, kinda obvious, even better. I think I read Tater cooks big batches at once and freezes them for easy prep later.
Yes,thank you guys for the RS tip.I know its against good health but I drink excessively once a week,though truthfully that’s still to be determined.What I can say with regards to RS and drinking is that usually all the beer wrecks my digestive system with yeast overgrowth galore.Well not anymore it seems as I have none of the usual symptoms I would get.
And as for getting RS from food rather than supplements.I always thought it weird that we need to eat fermented foods to gain intestinal health and now it makes sense that its rather we need to eat more RS to feed the bugs.Still not on any supplements but rather just food like all bran w/green bananas and beans with a little rice and some meat thrown in for flavor.;)
Something I noticed with myself- A few months ago, I noticed beans were causing some stomach discomfort when I was eating them, maybe once a week. I cut them out, discomfort was gone. I’ve been focusing on getting more potato starch in, and doing some other RS foods as well. Decided to try beans again this week, and there was zero digestive abnormalities. Don’t think I’m going to eat them as a staple, but certainly won’t avoid them like I’ve been doing, maybe will eat them once or twice a week.
Another thing I’m going to try this week is to get my hands on as many probiotic foods and beverages as possible, and mix them with some PS and eat them. I’m thinking various yogurts, kefirs (both homemade and store brands), kombuchas, kvass, raw milks, saurkraut and even some unpasturized beers and wines. Certainly can’t hurt, and might have some really good effects. Short of a fecal transplant, I can’t think of any other way to get as many different microbes into the gut.
@Wolf, it’s not only that we need to feed our gut critters. We don’t ingest enough critters as well because we don’t eat enough dirt. We all lead a very sanitized life – always having clean food, clean hands, eating utensils, all manner of cleaning chemicals, air filters, etc. This was not the case many thousands of years ago. Fermented foods which contain a large amount of beneficial gut critters is a supplemental attempt to make up for this.
@John, try eating dirt. :) I’m only partially kidding here. The past 8 months, just as an experiment, I’ve been purposely being less clean about food. Doing things like not washing organic produce if it looks fairly clean, not washing the shells of the many raw eggs I eat prior to cracking them (again, unless they look particularly shit covered), just rubbing an apple on my shirt then eating it, picking natural foods I find growing around that look like they’re in a spot where a dog was unlikely to have pissed on them and eating them without washing, not using soap when washing eating utensils. Does all this sound crazy? Am I playing russian roulette? Perhaps. It’s just an experiment. So far in 8 months (knock on wood) I haven’t been sick and only once or twice did I even feel a tingle of a sore throat which I quickly squelched by sucking on some sliced limes. With fruit and veggies people are always afraid of all the pesticides, which is a problem I agree, but how many people even use soap to wash them? And so how much of the pesticides are really being removed? Are pesticides water soluble? I don’t think so. Rinsing with water only removes the dirt, which isn’t the dangerous part. The point is, to have a strong immune system, you have to build it up with small amounts of both good and bad critters (bacteria). Completely avoiding the bad guys does not help. Eat prebiotics like RS, which feed the good critters and they will proliferate and overrun the bad guys (hopefully). But eating a little dirt will help provide a more diverse good-gut-critter population. This idea is not my own. I believe I got this idea (of eating dirt) from an article I read on Sisson’s site, though he didn’t actually recommend not washing stuff. Not being anal about washing stuff was just my applied logic.
Btw, this not washing stuff thing. I don’t do it 100% of the time, just periodically. Maybe eventually I will have enough courage to do it all the time.
I’ve heard about the practice of eating clay, but I don’t know much about it. Maybe it’s just for the minerals and does not have any significant amount of bacteria in it? dunno. Haven’t looked into it yet.
The best quality clay doesn’t have any bacteria in it. It comes from deep down in the earth. It is a detoxicant as well as a provider of minerals. Elephants travel hundreds of miles to obtain and eat choice clays, the sites of which they commit to memory.
Actually, I should say quality clays contain very little bacteria, and bacteria are not the purpose of edible clays.
Yeah, I read up on “Geophagy” or (dirt eating) and it’s all about the relatively bug free clay, I suppose for the minerals and supposed detox ability of it. Too bad there is no way to get bugs *safely* from dirt. Maybe someone will discover a way. I guess best we can do is ferment foods.
“Too bad there is no way to get bugs *safely* from dirt.”
Clean under your fingernails with your teeth. 53 years old in January, never bothered me any.
Hey Tater/Rich, … you gotta try something I discovered this morning. Made some wheat free waffles and decided to experiment with a high fat, low carb, syrup like topping for the waffles. I melted about 4 tbs butter and then stirred in a heaping soup spoon of blackstrap molasses. Once it cooled to just warm I stirred in two heaping soup spoons of raw tapioca starch (you guys would prob use potato starch). Then proceeded to stir it with a fork. As it cooled it took on the consistency and color of caramel. Word of warning though. Don’t taste it or it will never make it to your waffles or pancakes, etc. Highly caloric but holy cow what a tasty way to add RS to so many things. I can imagine adding some cinnamon, cocoa powder, etc., could give a boost in flavor and antioxidants as well. Let me know if you try this. I think you will thank me later. :)
yea, Brad, people are going to find endless ways to make RS a part of their daily deal.
I am having some real success lowering my fasting (I am prediabetic) by drinking the PS mixed with kefir around 3-4 am when I hit the bathroom. I mix it up before bed and keep it on the sink. Over the past week my sugar has been 15 to 20 points lower even if I sleep in. This morning it was 84 and yesterday 91. It seems to be stopping the surge of glucose from happening. Whatever, I am really happy! I was originally going to shell out for the Super Starch, but this is obviously going to save me a lot of money. Thanks for that.
Got one of my posts yanked by Mark for pointing out a “dumb-ass” (stating the obvious) statement he made. Maybe if I just left off the “ass” part it would have not been cut. Anyway, I made another more respectful post questioning the specifics of how the mechanism works where gut flora can live primarily off of ‘mucus’ as he claims. I know, I’m prob wasting my time. Will be interesting to see Mark’s followup article on this.
Brad, Do you mean Konstantin, rather than Mark? If you’re talking about the article at http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dietary-fiber-is-bad-for-sex-thats-the-only-claim-about-it-that-isnt-a-myth/#axzz2e3ruk99b and the comment about mucus, they were both written by Konstantin Monastyrsky, not Mark Sisson.
I doubt that Mark agrees with Konstantin’s mucus claim. If you’re the same Brad in the comments after the article, then Daniel replied to you yesterday that “Mark already stated he’ll write a follow-up next week.” I bet Mark will disagree with some of Konstantin’s claims, given that Mark often eats a “big-ass salad”.
Oops, I see that you mentioned Mark’s followup article to come, sorry. Yes, it will be interesting to see.
Paleophil – I got you beat–I got a total ban! Can’t even post anything…from my work computer…hahahaha
I snuck in a few sockpuppet posts from home. Not sure why I got the complete ban, maybe I used a few bad words and too many links.
I made a few comments on Galacto Oligosaccharides (GOS), turns out I was a bit wrong–there is no GOS in human breast milk–only OS, but they are a type resistant to digestion and are considered THE perfect prebiotic. GOS is, as Konstantin said, a manufactured product used as an additive to infant formula. At any rate, formula without GOS or some kind of prebiotic, leads to babies with bad poops and bad health, that’s why they invented GOS.
I can’t believe some of his statements–All fiber is the same, and all bad. Gut microbes eat mucus layer. What a tard.
There is actually a class of gut bacteria that eats the mucus layer, it’s called Akkermansia muciniphilia and it’s presence is associated with healthy, non-obese people. It’s absence is mainly seen in obese people–it’s being studied very hard! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130305131036.htm
I am eager to see what Mark says in reply to guest blog–I have a feeling it will be a watered down version of what we have been saying, but he will say his Big Ass Salad is plenty of fiber for all.
He totally cherry picked his data too. I looked up just one random claim Konstantin made about fiber not helping diverticulosis and came up with a PDF from late 2012 (from the same site he linked to, though a different study) that espoused various benefits of fiber. So, yeah, highly biased cherry picking.
Hey Tater, that’s interesting thanks for that. So he’s partially correct on the mucus subject. Though that muciniphilia is only 1-3% of one’s total microbiota. I assume the other 99-97% are not also “mucin degraders”.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258631/
Brad – I think the mucin eating bacteria is a healthy thing, kind of like autophagy with a little help from gut bugs. But to say that all gut microbes survive by eating mucin? WTF? Konstantin did a series here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-real-reason-diets-fail-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/ It was supposed to be a weekly installment for a year and then he was to write a book. Read the comments for a good laugh, it only lasted for about 3 or 4 installments.
I can’t wait to post this next week when Mark re-opens the case: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100119213138.htm “Friendly Bacteria Love the Humble Apple” article about pectin as a prebiotic.
I was just re-reading the Healthy Home Ec series, in the second one: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/how-long-will-it-take-to-lose-the-weight/
At first the commenters are all, ‘oh, so nice’ and ‘we love you’, then it takes an ugky turn:
catz March 22, 2013 at 4:06 pm
This is written from a male perspective. Women lose weight differently than men, and male experts on weight loss, trainers, etc. (in my experience) tend to be clueless about helping women lose weight.
Konstantin Monastyrsky March 22, 2013 at 5:39 pm
Catz,
This is news to me… You mean to say that male doctors should never treat women, and that adults should never treat children, and that young doctors should stay away from old patients, and that old doctors should stay away from young patients.
Well, if you think this way about men in general, and this man in particular, feel free to ignore this and future posts.
Melissa March 22, 2013 at 10:36 pm
Catz, ignore Konstantin. It’s a straw-argument (I mean really, as if you are saying only children doctors should treat children…come on.) You say that IN YOUR EXPERIENCE men aren’t listening and are often clueless. He’s not listening either, proving your point rather well.
Besides, no one can tell you that your experience isn’t what it is. YOU are the only person who knows your experiences. Even so, the evidence available says you are right. Male experts aren’t considering women’s bodies as often as they should. Women are most often considered other and men the default body.
Konstantin, do not tell a woman that her experience is false and then make straw arguments. It’s not helpful. And yes, I am ignoring future posts. I wish Sarah wouldn’t have allowed 40+ more posts on this to be forthcoming on her site.
Konstantin Monastyrsky March 23, 2013 at 8:14 am
Melissa,
I can assure you that I am married to a woman, and I know a thing or two about our differences. And, trust me, men, including this one, love, respect, and admire female bodies of all shapes and sizes.
And, by the way, I am just a messenger. Why so much hatred?
Melissa March 23, 2013 at 4:38 pm
This is now gaslighting, please stop. Hatred? I think not. You are ignoring a simple request to not tell women how they feel or should feel or what they experienced.
Being married to a woman has no relevance at all. Neither did anyone say anything about all men. Listening is key, and you are failing. And being rude in the process. Please stop.
Sara March 24, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Crazy alert.
Sara March 24, 2013 at 7:34 pm
blanket statement.
It goes downhill from here…
Don’t know why I’m bothering with this, but it looks like Konny did 8 articles in all, in the last couple he quit answering questions. His last one was in May, I assume there will not be 32 more as planned.
Tater, I suspect too many links is at fault, as one of my link-filled posts was auto-blocked by the forum software.
Brad, The first time I read an article by Konstantin I liked the contrarianism of it, but when I checked some of his sources and claims, I found the same thing–cherry picking and the evidence not supporting some of his claims. I was disappointed at the time, because I liked how his claims were nearly the opposite of CW and vegetarian/vegan dogma.
I recently read that long grain rice is 20%-30% resistant starch, as contrasted to short grain rice which is 0% resistant. After a big serving of basamati rice last night (with lots of butter and salt) my FBC was 85 this morning. Since I like the stuff, this is the way I’ll get my resistant starch.
IPhil – I had the same reaction. I never read Fiber Menace, but did catch Kon a few places, he was a poster on MDA for a while–got tore up, but I liked his rebel attitude until I realized he was wrong in many respects.
He’s like a WWII vet hiding in a cave on a Pacific island, shooting at every passing plane. He doesn’t realize the war is over and what was the enemy is now our friend and old friends became enemies.
Everyone needs to update their schtick once in a while…
@Clem – Rice is a weird one. Supposedly, the RS content is very low in all cooked rice, like 1-2%, but looking at a Glycemic Index table tells a different story. Some rice is very low GI, some very high, so clearly something is going on there. If I remember correctly, glutinous rice and long grain were lowest, you may be onto something, Clem!
Read this: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/56/6/1034.full.pdf no mention of RS, but something is lowering the GI.
OK Rice Fans — I did some digging. A few things have always bugged me about rice, and now I’m really intrigued!
Here is the Official GI list of every food tested under official guidelines: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/1/5/T1.expansion.html
Jump down to Rice, around #272, and note the wide range in GI’s. Then go to Parbroiled Rice, #300, and look at the lowest of the low in GI for rice–
Converted, white, boiled 20–30 min (Uncle Ben’s; Masterfoods USA, Vernon, CA) has a GI of 38 when tested by healthy people and a GI of 50 when tested by T2 Diabetics.
What could be special about Uncle Ben’s Converted White Rice? Well, it’s parbroiled, and this is what Wikipedia says about converted rice:
“The starches in parboiled rice become gelatinized, then retrograded after cooling. Through gelatinization, alpha-amylose molecules leach out of the starch granule network and diffuse into the surrounding aqueous medium outside the granules[4] which, when fully hydrated are at maximum viscosity.[5] The parboiled rice kernels should be translucent when wholly gelatinized. Cooling brings retrogradation whereby amylase molecules re-associate with each other and form a tightly packed structure. This increases the formation of type 3-resistant starch which can act as a prebiotic and benefit gut health in humans.[6] However, this also makes the kernels harder and glassier. Small amounts of milk are often added to parboiled rice as a means to stop over-hardening.[citation needed] Parboiled rice takes less time to cook and is firmer and less sticky. In North America parboiled rice is either partially or fully precooked before sale. Minerals such as zinc or iron are added, increasing their potential bioavailability in the diet.”
So, it looks to me like Uncle Ben’s Converted White rice is actually turned into a rice very high in retrograded RS which retains it’s RS after being cooked, much like Hi-Maize does.
If this is true, it kind of changes everything I thought I knew about rice. I always shied away from Uncle Ben’s Converted rice in favor of long-grain, brown, or Jasmine–but now I think I will switch to converted rice…
What do you guys think?
Interesting Tater. When you say “which retains it’s RS after being cooked” you mean cooked and then cooled right? Because I thought reheating retrograded starch breaks down the re-crystalized starch crystals yet again. You can test this yourself by heating some raw starch to gelatinize it, then refrigerate it, then heat it back up. I think you will see it lose much of it’s gel form.
Brad – No, I believe it will have RS as eaten hot! The GI was tested while hot, not cold. There is a strange phenomenon with RS3 that lets retrograded RS retain it’s structure even when reheated–that’s how Hi-Maize works. They usually call it a hydrothermal process, but basically it gets heated to a certain temperature which locks the RS granules into a form that can be re-heated.
I can’t find anything written about this other than connecting the dots from the Wikipedia description of converted (parbroiled) rice and the GI of Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice. I’d bet eating it cold would provide way more RS, for sure some of it is lost in reheating. But, with such a low GI, there has to be a ton of RS in it while hot–there’s nothing else it could be–no husk or other fibers like beans have–pretty much just starch.
I’d hesitate to put an amount or percentage on it, but since I eat a lot of rice anyway, I’m going to start using the converted stuff.
There is also Boil-in-a-Bag and instant rice, this is made from pre-cooked converted rice, but the GI’s are a bit higher, in the 50’s. Still pretty low, but I think it shows it loses some RS along the line.
My guess is the converted regular kind is super-high in RS when it’s in the box, and pretty high when cooked 20-30 minutes, then allowed to recool would be very high again. When they pre-cook it to turn it into instant rice, it must be structurally changed to where it’s not as high.
OK, just found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23945407
They tested different types of rice in different cooking manners and found very minimal RS in rice–highest was 2.5% for long-grain, lowest was under .2% for short grain. Abstract only, but I wonder if any was parbroiled or converted rice.
And another abstract, full text costs $25. http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=AR06094 They found the highest RS in parbroiled rice, but it seems to be only in the 5% range.
“Decreasing the rice : water ratio (1 : 2) and cooling (24 h at 4°C) after cooking significantly increased the RS content (P < 0.001). Extrusion decreased the RS content in the high RS rice only (0.42–0.16 g/100 g, P = 0.02). The results indicate that parboiling rice, and the use of a higher-amylose-content rice, a lower rice : water ratio, and cooling after cooking all increase RS content, whereas extrusion decreases the RS content of rice."
The answer to the rice riddle is probably in here: http://uarpp.uark.edu/Publications/Starch%20Chemistry/Newton%20et%20al.%202011%20Cereal%20Chem.pdf But my eyes start crossing trying to read it…anyone care to take a stab?
Maybe just omit all other RS and eat the rice only for a while as a test. The fartage produced, or not, should tell you if it has a decent amount of RS in it, no?
My thought is, if you are going to eat rice anyway, might as well pick the one with the lowest GI, which also happens to be cheaper than the others. I can’t imagine eating more than a cup or so of rice a day, but with just a minor tweak to what kind of rice can presumably increase RS intake by quite a bit.
I will probably get some more BG test strips and see what it does to me…Uncle Ben’s one day, Calrose or Boil-a-Bag another day.
It does make my favorite side-dish, beans and rice, a bit more appealing, though.
“What do you guys think?”
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
We’re talking about a starch bomb energy source, here, and I am no longer in league with those who thing a little surge in sugar or starch is always bad.
This is low nutrition energy, and like taters, goes well with the stuff that is. How about a room temp rice bowl (left to sit out from the fridge) with a can of TJs smoked oysters on top?
So, the RS issue really is how you want to obtain it. I’m all about room temp foods that have been cooked and cooled, and otherwise, super nutritious foods. So, yea, Uncle Bens. It’s just fucking rice.
These seem to be the factors in RS content in rice:
Rice species/variety (the closer to ancient long-grain wild species, the higher the RS content)
Refining (the less refined–more brown–the higher the RS)
Cooking technique (the less time the rice is cooked, the higher the RS)
The downside to this is that going with the highest RS with all these factors also maximizes the toxin content.
Brown rice seems to be the highest in RS, so if one wants to maximize RS (Paul Jaminet would probably disagree with this and instead favor sticky white rice for its lower toxin content, despite the lower RS content), then why not parboil brown rice instead of buying pre-parboiled Uncle Ben’s white rice? The really adventurous could try fermenting brown rice (a la the famous “red yeast rice,” which I’ll bet is high in RS if raw-fermented the traditional way). I don’t know how it’s traditionally done.
Amylose content of rice varieties:
Short-grain 15-20% (less amylose, more sticky)
Medium grain 18-26%
Long grain 23-26% (high amylose, less sticky)
Brown rice (O. rufipogon) 25%
Bangladeshi rice variety BR16 28%
(Sources: Essentials of Food Science and http://www.cropj.com/ratnam_6_11_2012_1502_1507.pdf, http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/1/5/T1.expansion.html)
Effect of cooking on amylose content of rice
http://pelagiaresearchlibrary.com/european-journal-of-experimental-biology/vol2-iss2/EJEB-2012-2-2-385-388.pdf
“Glycemic index and amylose content are inversely proportional to each other. There is a wide variation in the amylose content of rice depending on the way it is cooked.”
Cooking Method – Amylose Concentration (mg/mL)
Steam Cooked 17.35
Traditional Method (boiling?) 19.67
Microwaved 22.98
Raw 25.99
“Behall et al (1998) reported that the ratio of amylose to amylopectin in starch has an impact on the glycemic response to starch-based foods.” http://uarpp.uark.edu/Publications/Starch%20Chemistry/Newton%20et%20al.%202011%20Cereal%20Chem.pdf
I am not going to allow “fartage” to be my critereon for success with long grain rice. Rather I am going to use normal fasting blood glucose as the critereon. If I can achieve it without fartage, so much the better. The reason long grain and short grain rice are alleged to be different is that short grain is all amylose starch whereas long grain is part amylopectin starch.
Clem, when you type it out, be thinking ‘fartaaaaaage.’ Makes it all the more cool.
BTW, fartage is the French word for waxing skis, in case anyone was interested in such trivia.
Paleophil
Thank you sir. While a few have weighed in to try and contribute to the overall understanding, it’s always great to see another. Apologies if you’ve already posted to that effect.
Frankly, tatertot is beginig to bore me. :)
Hey, now!
I’m actually starting to bore myself! Got a little surge of adrenalin today when Clem came out with his long-grain rice theory, though. A flurry of searches and it turns out I didn’t know everything in the world about RS.
Sometimes I can’t believe how many words I have typed concerning RS. Ah, well, off with my son in the morning–he wants to try to shoot a moose with his AK47. I just made a big pot of beans and a big pot of Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice for the trip, should be enough fartage to scare off the bears at night.
Ha.
Isn’t it comforting to know rice & beans can sustain for a short trip? When I went back up to Hat Creek for the memorial flyin for my friend, I slept in the back of the car and had a cooler. Beans, some gluten free granola, whole milk, and boiled eggs. I felt fabulous and it was so simple & easy.
The standard for backcountry food has always been Mountain House freeze-dried crap-in-a-bag. Two-three years ago, my food for a trip was beef jerky, sardines, smoked salmon, salami, carrots, and bananas (eatin’ like the Grokster). Last year I added cold potatoes, cheese, and dark chocolate. This year I’ve added beans, rice and quinoa to the menu. Quinoa with a stick of butter and handfuls of fresh picked blueberries can’t be beat for a late breakfast after hiking a few miles of trail in rainy 40 degree weather.
I notice the cold is a lot more bearable with a belly full of carbs.
My pleasure, Richard. I did comment before on your blog about RS, but not until your and Tatertot’s interesting writings on it brought me out of the woodwork about it. I’ve learned a lot about RS from you and Tatertot that I didn’t find elsewhere, such as that the highest sources of RS are in raw foods.
Hat tip also to Matt Stone. Tater mentioned being influenced by him re: RS and I read this from Matt back in 2010, but unfortunately didn’t delve into it further at the time:
“Worth mentioning is the fact that, in traditional diets, butyric acid is supplied in greatest abundance by the fermentation of fiber (and what’s called resistant starch) in the digestive tract – the very fiber that is removed from refined grain and refined sugar, hypothesized by Hugh Trowell and Denis Burkitt to be the predominant cause of most Western diseases. Like others, these men observed Africans with perfect health, completely free of the saccharine disease just like Cleave witnessed in the rural Zulu tribe, eating very high-carbohydrate diets built around unrefined plant foods such as grains, legumes, root vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. …
Of the starches, those highest in amylose content and resistant starch – such as legumes, red potatoes, corn, and intact whole grains like Basmati rice (vs. those ground into flour as in bread/pasta) – particularly those that have been cooked and then chilled which forms a type of metabolically-stimulating resistant starch known as RS3, are ideal.” (Rrarf! An Introduction to 180DegreeHealth)
Despite the backlash against your RS experiments, I’ve yet to see a single person report that they tried RS, followed your and Tatertot’s tips on it, measured their blood glucose, and experienced no lowering in fasting or post-prandial BG (the small number of negative reports I’ve seen have involved taste, fartage, or sleep, with no mention of BG). Did I miss it somewhere?
I recently heard another RS critic on a Paleo or LC podcast. Instead of addressing the topic with a substantive critique, she dismissed it as a fad. That suggests to me that she doesn’t have good arguments against it, else she would have used them. That criticism has been used in the past for many trends and innovations in their early stages, including Paleo/Primal/ancestral diets, low carb diets, weight lifting, personal computing, automobiles, bicycles, etc.
Clem, you may have meant to say that long grain rice has more amylose, rather than amylopectin, as RS is highest in high-amylose rice.
Tater, where I grew up in rural New England, the standard backcountry food was hunted wild rabbit and squirrel until the 1970s. My brother was raised on wild rabbit in his early years that local men used to give my struggling parents, and I think it did him well, because he’s the healthiest of my siblings. By the time I came along my parents could unfortunately afford plenty of kids cereal and fluffernutter sandwiches. I became a fluffernutter and Captain Crunch addict. I’ve never heard of Mountain House.
BTW, today I had one of my lowest BG readings ever after consuming a few tbsp of potato starch and tapioca flour during the day and consuming more carbs than usual–68 mg/dl, and I didn’t have any hypoglycemia symptoms like I did in years past on a SAD. I suspect I got my energy from ketones.
@paleophil: Yes, I named the two starches backwards.
Picked up a 1kg bag of parboiled rice. Not Uncle Ben’s but some other brand. There are prob half a dozen brands of this where I live. Gonna try integrating a little retrograded PB rice and lentils to my diet. Lots of ski waxing this week I think :)
Tater, I’d be interested in any BG data and other observations you discover related to the PB rice, particularly if you eat it cooked and cooled to get the maximum effect.
Sorry, my bad. I forgot you already said the PB rice is type-3 RS so no need to eat it cold.
I have had the same morning fasting issues as Tater and Clem – in that they were high, often at 122. Unlike them, they would stay that way and wouldn’t fall until I ate something – or maybe I couldn’t hold out long enough for them to fall naturally. I’ve been eating 1/2 a green banana or some cold black bean noodles here and there there the past couple of weeks, not trying to get any daily minimum amount of RS and not even eating it daily, just experimenting with adding a little bit. My morning fasting numbers for the past two weeks have consistently been 91 or lower with some mornings in the 80s. What is really remarkable is that I am eating more carbs (mostly sweet potatoes, yams and apples – being apple season). My post-meal numbers have been awesome too. I don’t know if it’s the increased carbs (a la Jamient’s PHD) or the bit of RS that’s doing it. I also seem to be able to go longer between meals. What I’m really interested in is if these numbers continue, what my next A1c result will be – I’m hoping it too will be lower.
I discovered a great Asian market that has what they call ‘cooking bananas’ – these are really, really green bananas – the ones that suck the moisture out of your mouth. Keeping them in the fridge to slow ripening as someone mentioned is working great. I can only manage to eat maybe 1/2 at a time, if that. The market also has green plantains (really green) and I will try making plantain chips.
I discovered a black bean pasta (ingredients: organic black beans, water) that I cooked then cooled. I’ve been eating it as a cold Mexican salad with salsa, avocado, olives, taco-seasoned beef but they’d be tasty as a pasta replacement in anything. I haven’t eaten beans in almost two years since I started Paleo and am enjoying this. I may even make some hummus.
Richard – Chris Kresser talks about RS and mentioned your blog posts in his lastest podcast: RHR: What Are the Hidden Costs of Modern Hygiene? You can read the show notes here http://chriskresser.com/what-are-the-hidden-costs-of-modern-hygiene
@Michelle – lol, I think we have the same discussion going on 2 posts, I just said this on the latest:
I’d like to see if Judy could repeat the results with just kefir or just potato starch. At any rate, I think with some people, something is happening while they sleep that causes high morning FBG.
I used to have FBG of 130′s while on LC Paleo. Switching to Perfect Health Diet levels of carbs brought it down to 110′s, and adding RS to the mix has brought it down to the 85-95 range. Back when I had the high FBG, I’d wake every night at 3am and be wide awake for an hour or so before falling asleep til alarm went off at 6. That never happens now.
I just have lots of RS foods and a scoop of potato or tapioca starch a couple times a week with meals. FBG is always 85-95.
In Judy’s report, I don’t know what’s happening, but agree it will be a false FBG in the morning, still, I’d bet if she is getting her A1C checked regularly it will be lower–and that’s really what matters.
Back when I had high FBG, it would be 135 or so upon waking, then while still fasting, it would drop about 5-10pts an hour until I ate at noon when it would usually be around 100. Now, if I check upon waking, it’s like 88, then hourly checks only show +/- 2-3 pts. –very stable.
So, regardless of what is happening with Judy, I think it shows that RS has an impact on BG.
@Brad and Michelle – I’m completely out of BG test strips, which is fine by me as you’ll see in Richard’s next RS post. Marie and I had a finger-poking orgy a while back and I think I learned all I need to know about my BG in response to a wide variety of foods and RS.
My thoughts on the parboiled rice: I ate a shitload of it this weekend along with fermented/cooked black beans. Very filling meals and will probably be a staple for me from now on along with potatoes, green bananas, plantains, and other beans.
I did some serious hiking in the rain and running my boat up and down the river in 40 degrees and rain and I can say I never felt better or warmer than with a big belly full of beans and rice. The moose eluded us, but there’s still time left in the season!
I think just like when we all started eating paleo, we learned to make wiser food choices–coconut oil instead of canola oil, dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, avoid wheat, etc… well with this RS thing, I think it’s easy to make a few minor changes with huge impact–eat beans, eat some of your potatoes and rice cold, eat a green banana now and then, use some raw starch now and then, and now, maybe buy parboiled/converted rice instead of regular rice if you eat a lot of rice.
One of the big things every health professional agrees on is keeping blood sugar stable and don’t keep it spiked all day long like most on SAD do–for paleo, everyone took that to mean low carb. A good bit of RS in your diet and you can eat your daily starch without worrying about BG. Who knows, maybe it would even help out people on SAD, too, like this guy reported a couple weeks ago: https://freetheanimal.com/2013/08/a-type-ii-diabetic-rings-in-about-how-resistant-starch-and-eating-things-cold-has-regulated-his-blood-suger-even-eating-sad.html
Michelle wrote: “food scientists are looking at adding RS to processed foods to increase the fiber”
Tatertot wrote: ” I have a feeling that in a few years, RS is going to mean ‘grain additives’.”
This is the downside of the RS story. Food companies and governments will say, “Great! Now we can just add back the fermentable fiber we refined and cooked out of processed foods–no need for Paleo,” and obese and unhealthy folks who want to keep doing what they’re doing will applaud.
This may be one of the unforseen black swans that undercuts the long-term popularity of Paleo that Hamilton Stapell talked about, even though RS foods are themselves very Paleo. Or, if people are sharp, they’ll see it as a vindication of ancestral/evolutionary/Old Friends principles and look into the ancestral template further to see what else they can learn.
parboiled white rice info,,,seems to have more rs from processing,,also indian basmati rice tends to be low in arsenic and have a low G.I. 38 instead of 89 in regular white rice ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, One cup of cooked parboiled rice provides 41 grams of total carbohydrates, or about one-third of the recommended daily intake of 130 grams. The same portion has 1.4 grams of fiber, which supplies 4 percent of men’s and 6 percent of women’s daily fiber. Parboiled rice has double the fiber than you’d get from cooked white rice. It has a low glycemic score of 38, compared with a high 89 for white rice, notes Harvard Health Publications. A low glycemic score indicates that the carbohydrates in parboiled rice do not cause a large spike in blood sugar. more info from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parboiled_rice
i seem to be an outlier, but thought i would post for all the T2s out there who are curious but cautious… for the past week, have added unmodified potato starch to my morning meal. postprandial remains the same, perhaps slightly better (I eat to consistently remain @ 1 hr less than 7.8 and 2 hr less than 6.6 mmol) and no improvement to fasting blood sugar ( round about 6.1 mmol). im wondering if RS – indeed all claims that fiber improves BS – has positive impact in T2 diabetes only with fully functioning pancreas.
@Jo – Thanks for the report. I’m guessing you are a female? If so, there is this study, http://jn.nutrition.org/content/142/4/717.long, that tested RS on 11 men and 22 women and found RS to be effective at increasing the insulin sensitivity of the men, but not the women.
I’ll let you read the study and see if any of it pertains to you.
When Marie and I were doing our experiment, she seemed to not be responding like I was, but she was on a VLC/ketogenic diet and I was not. When Marie switched to eating more carbs, she all of a sudden was able to show the same results in post-prandial BG as I was.
And just to clarify–you are adding the potato starch in it’s cold, uncooked stage–not heated up?
And you may be correct about having a fully functioning pancreas.
Thanks!
@Leo, good info. Thanks for that.
Thanks for the link, Tatertot. Yes, Bob’s Red Mill unmodified RS taken cold and uncooked with my whey smoothie (no fructose, no sugar, no grain).
I’m diabetic but not overweight, exercise daily and eat VLC – so I don’t technically fit into many studies, alas! But I’ve been chewing on my FBG numbers for a while, wondering if it was a result of physiological insulin resistance – and maybe RS might work to reduce those AM numbers. If I increase my carbs, my post-prandials deteriorate, so I am loathe to try that route. I may give it a shot, with the RS, just to see what happens…
But I did want to post as one reference point for other type 2s.
I’m rather late to this party … but thought I’d also add a “Type II-approved” stamp on the resistant starch idea…
I’m not just very Type II (Fasting BG and original A1c at time of diagnosis were both more than DOUBLE where they diagnose you at) … I’m also what some call “LADA” (Latent Auto-Immune Diabetes in Adults) which means I have the insulin-resistance of a Type II combined with a busted-arse pancreas that produces VERY little insulin (like a Type I) …
I haven’t tested everything – but I tested RS with cold potato salad. Amazing results…
Half of one medium baked potato (generously covered in butter, cheese, sour cream and bacon) will normally raise my BG into artery-damaging areas – around 160 mg/dl (8.8 mmol/L for those outside of the USA).
But an entire CUP AND A HALF of cold potato salad (same batch of potatoes, chilled 48 hours and cut into a salad) and my blood glucose didn’t rise above 125 mg/dl (6.9 mmol/L) in four hours of repeated testing.
Any diabetic, regardless of Type I/II/LADA should test these a few times to confirm if one or more of these RS foods is something you can add to your diet, because it sure offers a few more meal options if it works for you like it worked for me.
… and thanks Richard for pointing this out!
Richard, ok, I see now where you’re coming from. You were right all along. How did I confused you for a low-carb drone? I agree 100%. However, Richard, I think you’re actually underestimating the residual and collateral damages from VLCing/ketogenic dieting. The damages tend to be long-lasting, even permanent. They tend to be autoimmune and immunodeficiency diseases that I’m seeing affecting those who’ve been ketogenic for too long. Case in point: Dr. Bernstein’s patients, who follow a 30 total carb (not net carb) per day diet which is ipso facto ketogenic. Bernstein actually says (and it’s straight from the horse’s mouth) that 100% of his patients have autoimmuen diseases, 100% have psoriases, 90% are hypothyroid, 85% have Raynaud’s. About 25% have severe immune deficiency syndromes like CVID, which Bernstein himself has. How could all this be related to ketosis? The T memory cells that are affected when your thymus is put under environmental stress, as in ketosis. If those cells lose their function, your immuen system can go haywire, as they learn to distinguish between self and antigens. Not much has been written about it and low-carb researchers like Volek, Attia, Westman have all missed this. These nitwits only looked at lipids and blodd sugar and declared ketosis is safe. Many of these guys have their WBCs declining from the 7s to the 3s and 4s, a sign of immune deficiency and leukocytopenia. This is what’s gonna destroy the LC world. In about 5 years, there will be no one in the LC world whose reputation is not in tatters. It’s not a matter of discomfort, subclinical/euthyroid symptoms or just cold hands. These are really sick and becoming sick, and became snared by a dangerous trap called ketosis. You heard from me first.
Steppe:
I’ve you’re still monitoring (I know this was back in September), see this:
https://freetheanimal.com/2014/02/dispelling-paleomyths-during.html#comment-558907
I wasn’t a low-carb drone as much as I was a Mark 1, Mod A Paleo Meat & non-starchy veggies guy. Worked wonders for a while.
Then I felt like crap when I got down to 175. Martin Berkhan helped a lot, with episodic super high protein and higher carb, and lower fat, sometimes.
I feel pretty damn good in the 185-190 range, and I don’t worry about a ripped belly. Didn’t even have that as a stick figure pubescent guy.
I think you are right. LC is a decent short term intervention. And it makes sense. Of course we are adapted genetically and metabolically to periods of only meat & fat availability, and so far as I know, nobody has ever made a clearer distinction in terms of an Inuit diet in terms of super high seafood protein & fat. Is that protective in terms of living in ketosis a lot vs. a plains Indian foregoing available roots & tubers in perpetuity because he just loves to work his ass off hunting all the time?
What I do love, Steppe, is the sense I get that EVERYBODY WAS WRONG.
I hope we’re always wrong, just a little LESS wrong over time. But the curve will never actually meet up with either the x or y axis.
Richard: you might enjoy http://lesswrong.com/
I go with the glass half full. I think EVERYBODY IS RIGHT. Kinda/sorta. Just have to figure out HOW they are right. They are never right in quite the way, or to quite the extent, that they think they are. But they ARE right, about some things, some of the time, in some contexts. Or, to say it like Ken Wilber: everyone is right, but partial.
Steppe:
Can you point me to where Bernstein said or wrote this stuff? I’d like to suggest to Jimmy that another follow-up interview is in order. Publicly. In a blog post.
Thanks. Email is on the About page, if you prefer that route.
Steppe, so you are saying the Inuits diet is not “safe”? Seems to work for them.
Richard, I didn’t get what you meant regarding the Inuits and ketosis.
Brad:
Once I began thinking about it:
1) Why the desire to take a complete outlier population that lives at some extreme and attempt to make a model of health out of it? In the same way, I don’t find the discovery of atherosclerosis in preserved Inuit remains to be alarming either. Atherosclerosis seems too ubiquitous to make many conclusions. So for me, it’s just making a sane bet: real food, in variety, most of the time.
2) People are always talking about the Inuit, but nobody is really eating it. Eating red meat & fat is not an Inuit diet. An Inuit diet is extremely high in seafood protein and fat, i.e., high in n-3 PUFA. There is no way of knowing whether in the context of a keto diet that the type of predominant protein (seafood) makes an important difference in health, metabolic functioning.
Does that make it clear?
Bottom line: it’s silly to look at extremes where relatively few people live as a model for dietary health. Given that we came out of Africa after millions of years and migrated over the last 50K or so, it seems logically very unlikely that the ideal diet it to be found either at the north or south arctic/antarctic circles, or in La Rincondada, Peru, a population of 30,000 people at 16,700 feet elevation.
what I was thinking was not that the Inuits have an “ideal” diet, if one exists, but rather that the claim that a ketogenic diet *must* be bad, or unhealthy, is not supported by evidence that I have seen so far, and that well informed and smart dudes like Attia knows about…. caveat (so far).
As I think you know, I’ve mentioned here. I don’t eat keto, I eat closer to PHD. In fact at this moment I’m eating a stew with parboiled rice and some pieces of fresh casava root, spinach, brocolli, meat, RPO, and lard. A mix of carbs and fats.
Brad
Let me put it this way, if it helps.
1 a keto diet is adequate for most
2 a keto diet is optimal for some
3 a keto diet is optimal for many in a short timeframe for weight loss or metabolic reset (like fasting).
4 a keto diet is likely not the best choice for most, most of the time because it doesn’t make evolutionary sense. We didn’t evolve at the arctic circle or above 13,000 feet.
Richard wrote: “People are always talking about the Inuit, but nobody is really eating it. Eating red meat & fat is not an Inuit diet. An Inuit diet is extremely high in seafood protein and fat, i.e., high in n-3 PUFA.”
And some Eskimo foods contained carbs and/or prebiotics, like “Eskimo potato”, raw seal liver (it contains carbs and is also one of the richest sources of retinol in the world), raw caribou liver and stomach contents, and tree saps and barks. There were also other foods that few of today’s ZCers/VLCers eat, like pine needle and spruce tip teas (more vitamin C than oranges, IIRC), high meat, stinkfish, etc.
From the PDF, there is a big difference in RS between baked potato and roasted potato.
Eh? Isn’t roasted and baked potato the same thing?
Very strange indeed!
@Johan L – You are seeing one of the strange properties of RS. RS is preserved when dry heat is used to cook the food. Baking potatoes tends to trap the moisture inside the potato, steaming the RS out of the starch cells. Roasting is done with cut up potatoes at higher heat.
This same effect was recently studied in rice at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.12165/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+unavailable+for+approximately+4+hours+between+09%3A00+EDT+and+14%3A00+EDT+on+Saturday%2C+28+September+2013+as+we+make+upgrades+to+improve+our+services+to+you.+There+will+also+be+some+delays+to+online+publishing+between+25+to+28+September+2013.+We+apologize+for+the+inconvenience+and+appreciate+your+patience.+Thank+you+for+using+Wiley+Online+Library!&userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=
Not sure if link is still working, but they found that you can increase the RS of rice from around 1% to 15% by cooking the rice, chilling the rice, then frying the rice in oil.
I can see why no government agency has tackled the issue of labeling RS contents, it changes drastically based on preparation and initial content.
Starch chemistry is a nuanced thing. The factors affecting things are moisture content, temperature, and duration/time.
For example, if you bake a bread for 3 hours at a lower temperature versus one hour at higher you will end up with a big difference in fiber content.
Maybe the roasted potato was cut/cubed or peeled versus the baked one?
Heat may also be creating starch pyrolysis which can create indigestible dextrin (ID), another fiber-like starch (prebiotic).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis#Cooking
Thanks Tatertot for the link and explanation!
I tried to look for potato starch yesterday (in Sweden), but could only find potato meal. So I bought organic corn starch. If I understand this correctly, best practice is to blend it cool and consume it. Boiling it with a sauce and letting it cool won’t even get close to the strong effect otherwise. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
PS. I just checked Amazon UK, they have the Red Mill Potato Starch! Wohoo!
Here is the rice study:
Abstract
This study aimed to understand effects of different cooking methods, including steamed, pilaf, and traditional stir-fried, on starch hydrolysis rates of rice. Rice grains of 3 varieties, japonica, indica, and waxy, were used for the study. Rice starch was isolated from the grain and characterized. Amylose contents of starches from japonica, indica, and waxy rice were 13.5%, 18.0%, and 0.9%, respectively. The onset gelatinization temperature of indica starch (71.6 °C) was higher than that of the japonica and waxy starch (56.0 and 56.8 °C, respectively). The difference was attributed to longer amylopectin branch chains of the indica starch. Starch hydrolysis rates and resistant starch (RS) contents of the rice varieties differed after they were cooked using different methods. Stir-fried rice displayed the least starch hydrolysis rate followed by pilaf rice and steamed rice for each rice variety. RS contents of freshly steamed japonica, indica, and waxy rice were 0.7%, 6.6%, and 1.3%, respectively; those of rice pilaf were 12.1%, 13.2%, and 3.4%, respectively; and the stir-fried rice displayed the largest RS contents of 15.8%, 16.6%, and 12.1%, respectively. Mechanisms of the large RS contents of the stir-fried rice were studied. With the least starch hydrolysis rate and the largest RS content, stir-fried rice would be a desirable way of preparing rice for food to reduce postprandial blood glucose and insulin responses and to improve colon health of humans.
Practical Application
After rice was cooked using different methods, including steamed, pilaf, and stir-fried, the stir-fried indica rice displayed the least starch hydrolysis rate and the largest resistant starch (RS) content. These results showed that cold storage of steamed normal rice at 4 °C for 24 h followed by stir-frying with corn oil (10%) reduced the rate of starch hydrolysis and increased the RS content. Ingesting stir-fried rice therefore can reduce the postprandial blood–glucose concentration and insulin response, which benefits the health of diabetics and prediabetics. The large RS content of the stir-fried normal rice could also provide health benefits to the colon.
Great stuff, I really like stir-fried Basmati rice! But not with corn-oil, pouah! I use duck fat or bacon grease :)
I will probably make a batch tonight and stir-fry it tomorrow! Should also not forget to soak some beans for tomorrow.
Have any of you reading this tried classic paleo and then switched to this high starch paleo 2.0?
If so, what has been the changes in your health, fat drop, etc?
One thing I thought of that is a starch diet would be bad for your teeth compared to a meat diet. I think good teeth are a must for longevity.
Johan, about the teeth, I solved my problems by:
– ditching added refined sugar
– using xylitol on a daily basis
– continue with vit D supplements and / or sunshine when available, and eat K2 rich foods (I love butter and aged cheeses)
Since I adopted this rough guideline, I have had NO issues at all. Xylitol even helped fixing some tooth sensitivity that plagued one of my molars for years … I am very very pleased. My gums are super healthy and my dentist was shocked! :D
I don’t know what K and D have to do with teeth health. But I’m not surprised it worked since xylitol is very helpful, so is fluoride. Not sure how healthy fluoride and xylitol is in overall health though! Not so primal.
Xylitol is definitely a “good guy”:
– helps teeth
– is a prebiotic (you know what ppl here think about prebiotics :) )
– helps prevent ear and nose infections (at least in kids, and I must say I had not had a cold for ages now)
– helps bone density, and I guess it is due to its alkalizing properties
– low glycemic if that matters to you (between 7 and 13)
– good for baking, sweetening, no weird bitter after-taste, as sweet as sucrose
For D and K2, Weston Price wrote extensively about it. You can check articles on the Weston A. Price Foundation website, e.g. http://www.westonaprice.org/fat-soluble-activators/x-factor-is-vitamin-k2?qh=YToxOntpOjA7czoyOiJrMiI7fQ%3D%3D#dental
Vit D and K2 work sort of together. You can sup with D, but lack K2 and not really benefit from the D basically.
Search the blog for k2. I have lots of posts about it going way back. Not just dental health (I don’t get teeth cleanings, anymore), but bone and arteries. Essentially, k2 in combo with D and A make minerals go everyplace they should (teeth, bones) and not places they shouldn’t (arteries). They have actually reversed induced atherosclerosis in rats with high dose k2, like 45 mg per day.
@Johan – Regular corn starch no good! Look at RS master list pdf above! Needs to be potato or tapioca starch.
@La Frite – Duck fat! Oh, yeah!
Don’t forget that if you can find “free range” pork – where the pigs have regular access to outside/sunshine, that their fat is rich in Vitamin-D since they make it in their skin the same as humans, and then some gets stored in their tissues. That means D rich bacon and lard!
Richard, are you still supp’ing the K2, D, etc., or getting it from whole foods? If so which ones?
I have a question on fried rice: The research says “…cold storage of steamed normal rice at 4 °C for 24 h followed by stir-frying with corn oil (10%) reduced the rate of starch hydrolysis and increased the RS content….”
Does it mean that the rice must be fried in 10% of oil? That is a lot of oil I must say.
Tatertot/Richard,
I have been doing the PS for the last 2+ weeks. 1TBS at breakfast, 1TBS at evening protein shake, and 2TBS after dinner with yogurt.
I haven’t tested my FBG or postprandial BG spikes yet but will be doing so soon as I just got a BG meter. My last labs in July ’13 showed 100 FBG however hba1c was perfectly normal. Both parents are diabetic so I want to keep an eye on these numbers.
Here’re my observations so far.
1. Excessive fartage only lasted for 4 or 5 days. TMI- poopage quantity has not gone up but it really seems more dense and stickier than before. Not sure what to make of this.
2. Although, I have occasional issues with sleep pattern, I usually can reset my circadian rhythm with a couple of glasses of wine. But since taking PS I have uncontrollable sleepiness by 10:30 PM. This effect is similar to taking a couple of glasses of wine or a melatonin tablet. It seems I just cannot keep my eyes open past 10:30PM.
However, the strange thing for the first week was that I woke up around 4:30 AM. Had no trouble getting back to sleep but it woke me up at 4:30, which is very rare for me. Also, when I finally wake up around 7:30, I feel a little groggy. I am getting a lot of dreams just like when I take large amounts of Vi D3.
3. Another thing which bothers me quite a bit is that I seem to be getting these dull headaches in the afternoons. Is it possible that I might be getting hypoglycemic/low blood sugar that is causing me these headaches? Is it possible that RS can get your BG levels too low in normal, healthy people? Did not have these headaches before introducing PS into my diet.
BTW, I also took green bananas before going all out with PS. Poopage was excellent with green bananas. I am now starting to fry my cooked and frozen parboiled rice.
Brad: I supp K2. Too important to me, both d and k2. I use either Green Pastures fermented CLO/BO blend, or Life Extension K2 Complex.
@Natural – I don’t think the amount of oil matters. In the study, they said they used 10% oil, dry basis, so I would assume that means they used 10g of oil per 100g of rice, which is less than 1TBS.
Here’s an excerpt from the full text:
To understand the mechanism of the least hydrolysis rate of starch in the stir-fried rice, we conducted stepwise studies to reveal effects of the cold storage of steamed rice and stir-frying rice
with oil on starch hydrolysis rates. The RDS, SDS, and RS contents of different rice varieties cooked using different methods are shown in Table 3. Among the steamed rice, RS contents of the
japonica, indica, and waxy rice were 0.7%, 6.6%, and 1.3%, respectively. The largest RS content of the indica rice (6.6%) was a result of its largest amylose content (18.0%) (Table 1). Stir-frying the
freshly steamed rice without cold storage increased RS contents to 4.6%, 7.1%, and 4.3%, respectively, resulting from amylose–lipid complex formation (RS5) (Ai and others 2013) and lipid
coating effects (RS1). After cold storage of the steamed rice at 4 ◦C for 24 h followed by stir-cooking for 3 min without corn oil, RS contents increased to 11.0%, 12.2%, and 7.9%, respectively.
These results were in agreement with the percentages retrogradation of the isolated starch after cold storage (Table 2) and confirmed that retrograded starch was more resistant to enzymatic hydrolysis (RS3) (Englyst and Cummings 1987; Eerlingen and others 1994).
Stir-frying the cold-stored rice with corn oil further increased RS contents to 15.8%, 16.6%, and 12.1%, respectively. Stir-fried rice of all varieties displayed significantly larger RS contents (P < 0.05) than their steamed and pilaf rice counterparts. The largest RS content of the stir-fried indica rice (16.6%) was a result of the greatest amylose content of the indica rice starch, which developed the most retrograded starch after cold storage (Table 2) and formed amylose–lipid complex after stir-frying with corn oil (Ai and others2013). RDS contents of the cooked rice varieties were the largest for the steamed and stir-frying freshly steamed rice, followed by the stir-cooking of cold-stored steamed rice without oil, and the least RDS contents were found in the stir-fried rice using coldstored steamed rice. Ingesting cooked rice with reduced RDS contents can prevent a postprandial hyperglycemic response and a subsequent hypoglycemic response, which is critical for diabetic patients. There were no significant impacts of cooking methods on SDS contents of the cooked rice.
(RDS = rapidly digesting starch/SDS = slowly digesting starch)
Richard, what is the advantage of butter oil over butter or ghee?
Nevermind, found a reasonable answer … http://paleohacks.com/questions/17515/butter-oil-vs-butter.html#axzz2fquu6EsN
La frite,
Even if I don’t buy that you have to a 100% hardcore paleoist, I still don’t see how xylitol could be paleo. It’s rather syntethic. Do you even know how it is produced? I buy all those health effects you list, but if is rather artificial and not traditionally used in human diets it will have a bunch of negative to very negative side-effects as well. I have read some of them, but can’t remember what they were. I think it could have been at Mercola (even if I’m not a big fan of him).
Richard and La frite, thanks for the mentioning of K2 and D. Will check it out!
Tatertot, I thought the RS content of 8 was ok for corn starch. But maybe that’s on the small side. I guess I’ll have to order the Red Mill potato starch or tapioka from Amazon.uk then.
Hello Johan, yeah I know the process to get pure xylitol in bulk amounts sucks some. But it is a compromise, I am willing to have it because the benefits are really amazing. It is a personal choice in the end. I also got more relaxed after reading that:
Johan, you can also read this interesting but long paper: http://www.academia.edu/202140/Current_trends_in_biotechnological_production_of_xylitol_and_future_prospects
Johan, another one here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424835
La Frite, how much Xylitol do you eat and in what? Just curios.
Btw, it occurs naturally in Birch sap. Erythritol is similar and made by fermentation (I think) if you want something similar with less processing. Side effects are less than sugar has, but since they don’t have nutrients you wouldn’t want to be consuming much of them anyway. Same deal with Stevia, no? They seem like good alternatives for one’s morning coffee.
Yes. Xylitol is in birch tree bark. Also several different berries and other fruits, I believe. For the record. Surely paleo man spent a great deal of time sucking on birch tree bark. :-)
Actually, I just read in a tooth care book that groups of people did, and still do, in fact, chew on plants, twigs, etc. to clean their teeth, and why not chew on the sweeter one, which I am sure was easily discovered by said groups of people. Birch seems easily available in many places. My dad would buy these little packs of sticks to clean his teeth. They weren’t just toothpicks but something else. I just don’t remember exactly.
I use Xylitol mints for my tooth care. Have a good day, alan.
@Johan – “Tatertot, I thought the RS content of 8 was ok for corn starch. But maybe that’s on the small side.”
Each TBS of cornstarch has .8g compared to 8g for potato starch (roughly). You’d need 30TBS a day of cornstarch to equal 3TBS of potato starch!
There is a product called Hi-Maize Corn Starch that is about 50% RS, though. So 5g per TBS. More expensive than potato starch, but it is mainly used in baking to increase the RS of bread and pasta products.
@Brad
I eat xylitol in full fat sheep yogurt and also have some dark chocolate solely sweetened with it. I also eat some for teeth cleaning. Occasionally, I bake something and use xylitol as the sweetener.
I can’t say how much I eat every day … maybe 25-30g ?
I drink black coffee without anything. I don’t like the taste of stevia, but I do have some erythritol somewhere in my pantry. I hardly use it to be honest. Erythritol / stevia can sweeten foods, but they have no particular properties other than that. Xylitol is entirely different in that respect.
Erythritol has some of the bacteria fighting properties…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol#Erythritol_and_bacteria
It has a lot less calories than Xylitol too, if that matters. Xylitol is broken down by gut flora though, so I’m not sure what effect that has.
There have been some indications that erythritol is actually more effective for dental health than xylitol (though eyrthritol is not nearly as available in my area as xylitol, so I use xylitol mouthwash myself):
Erythritol More Potent Than Xylitol Against Dental Caries, Laird Harrison, Jun 28, 2012,
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/766577
@Paleophil
I’d love to have a look at this pub but the site requires login credentials that I do not have …
@Paleophil
Looks like it depends on the dose: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20077891
I can mix both in my yogurt, no problem :)
Here’s an article on the 2012 study report: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/766577
@Paleophil: thanks for the link. It sounds like good news to me because
– I can cut down on xylitol (horribly expensive)
– the process to make erythritol is much less heavy than xylitol
I can mix both. I get some erythritol – stevia blend called Sukrin and Sukrin+ by the way.
Still, I’m a bit suspicious of these man made sweeteners. That linked study for example is funded by Cargil who is always looking for uses for their corn.
WAPF article on sweeteners –> http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/sugar-free-blues
@Brad
On some fundamental level, I agree with you: they are not needed. As much as dairy products are not needed by grownups, etc. But I refuse to be “black and white” in my choices because these things do offer some benefits. But looking at your link, I cannot quickly find where the study suggests that xylitol in particular is bad. It even has a “GRAS status”, but yeah, maybe not something to rely on too heavily.
@LaFrite, I’m not saying that alcohol sugars are necessarily bad for you, but don’t be naive about GRAS. There are lots of GRAS substances that are bad for you, and some of it is dependent upon how the particular substance is manufactured.
Also, dairy products have *nutrients* in them. You can live on them. They are real food.
Still, anything that gets people to consume less sugar, or only in small amounts, is probably a good thing overall.
@Brad, yeah, I have no illusion that GRAS means “eat it ad lib” :D
I don’t do refined sugar because of teeth issues. I would otherwise not care too much to be honest. So xylitol and erythritol are welcome in my kitchen. I don’t overeat though because I don’t find them to be addictive. I also like my yogurt without anything … I don’t know, in the end, I don’t stress too much about foods. The only exception is gluten. I am quite strict with that.
I was wondering if there was any consensus on here about soaked ( and rinsed) and fermented buckwheat groats and steel cut oats eaten raw would contain in the way of resistant starch. I’m not a die hard paleo, more the primal/ traditional foods eater, but avoiding gluten like the plague ( bad mental issues when I eat that garbage). I’m very excited about the idea of eating the same foods as my children again, just with a twist. I was told by my GP to eat no more than 40net carbs a day, since I am prone to weight gain and have a family history of t2d (I am 28 at this point and have had 2 pregnancies resulting in 3 boys). I remember doing awesome on the south beach diet 3 years ago eating lots of beans and mostly whole foods, then switching to really low carb…and that’s when I got fat again. It’s like I had no appetite regulation at all, much like when I was eating SAD. I’ve added in potato starch for atkins induction this past week and will continue for another week, before trying to add more fermented foods from the list above. Sorry for my randomness, I’m just really excited about figuring things out again for my gut’s sake.
Kati – You came to the wrong place to get the green light for a low carb Atkins diet! I’d recommend Perfect Health Diet over Atkins any day. That said, it’s your life, and you can do as you please. If you must stick with low carb, at least try to get a good bit of resistant starch. Raw oats and buckwheat have a bit of RS, but I couldn’t in good conscience recommend more than a small amount of oats and buckwheat every day. Better yet, just do the potato starch, 1-4TBS a day and try to eat some RS rich foods daily that fit into your carb target. Green bananas, dried plantains, fermented beans, cold/reheated rice and potatoes, etc… If you want some low GI rice, look at Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice, it has a GI of like 40 or less. The lowest of all rice.
Anyway, glad you asked! If you do Atkins–eat lots of veggies and zero vegetable oil and you should be OK. Atkins is full of holes. Don’t commit yourself to a long-term Induction Hell just to lose a couple pounds.
My diet is what you might call slack paleo. I try, but I’m just not super strict about it (but pretty strict non-dairy.) I recently read about the RS thing on MDA and have been trying the Bob’s Red Mill potato starch every morning with coconut kefir. 3 0r 4 tbsp at first, and I was experiencing frequent severe but very brief headaches. I cut back to about 1 tbsp, and the frequency and intensity of the headaches has lessened but not completely gone. Could this be caused by the potato starch? I have almost gone through a bag of Bob’s potato starch, but I’m thinking maybe I should try the cassava starch or “green banana/plantain flour” instead to see if the headaches stop. Anyone have any thoughts on this or know of any sources for the above mentioned items?
P.S. Thanks for all the good info on this topic.
I have one question! Are tapioca starch and tapioca flour the same thing? Can’t seem to find any info on that anywhere.
@Nenad, no they are not the same thing. Tapioca flour has virtually zero RS and will spike your blood glucose. And keep in mind that many products are somewhat mis-labeled due to confusion over this. For example Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour says “also called Tapioca starch”, but this is wrong as it has no real (raw) starch in it and @Tatertot verified this with BG tests – spiking his blood glucose quite a bit. For a clear distinction between the types see this Yoki page where they have both Tapioca/Casava Flour (Farinha de Madioca) as well as real Tapioca/Cassava Starch (Polvilho). http://www.yoki.com.br/nossas_marcas_2.asp?ac=Marca&idMarca=1
What you want is the “Polvilho doce”, that’s real tapioca starch. I have yet to do BG testing with it but I’m almost certain it is very high in RS due to it’s separation in cold water, reaction (gelatinization) in hot water, as well as the fartage it gives me.
Here are two on Amazon, though the price is probably 4 times what it should be. No doubt it can be found for much lower price especially in bulk…
http://www.amazon.com/Goya-Tapioca-Starch-24-Polvilho/dp/B005F5K4AG
http://www.amazon.com/Manioc-Starch-Polvilho-17-6oz-GLUTEN-FREE/dp/B005DSL04O
In those two Amazon links note these other phrases…
Amidon Dulce and Amido Doce means “sweet starch” and Polvilho Doce means “sweet powder”. The reference to (sweet) indicates the non-toxic variety/cultivar of cassava root used. This is the type of cassava root that is safe to eat raw and hence the raw starch may be safely extracted from it.
Regarding the fartage with the Polvilho Doce, my experience has been the same as people say about the potato starch. It diminishes quite a bit pretty quickly as you adjust to eating it. And it’s mostly noise versus odor.
Btw, coincidentally last night I ate some undercooked “Aipim” (same thing as “Mandioca Doce” or “sweet cassava” root). Boiled in salt water, then fried in lard until crispy on the outside, then drizzled ghee on top. Freakin’ awesome flavor. Better than any french fries I’ve ever had ;-)
Undercooked *supposedly* toxic tapioca root… and I’m still alive! laf.
@Brad.
Hm… but it says that tapioca is just starch extracted from Cassava. Do they somehow use high temperature or some other process for extraction that destroys the RS content? Also the big label is “tapioka starch” – but on the other side the label says “tapioka flour” – now I’m just confused.
I have asked this before, but haven’t seen a response.. Maybe I just missed it, so sorry for the repeat. I was wondering, is psyllium a RS? I use Metamucil for cholesterol reduction, etc. So does psyllium count as RS? Thanks for any advice!
TaterTot, I don’t really want to do the vlc anymore. I’ve mostly ignored my dr (good or bad?) and didn’t last on that round of induction for longer than 36 hours. I just hate it so. The fermented oats/buckwheat was okay, but not something I kept on with.
Since posting here, I have gone PHD. I’m just now trying to figure the satiation factors out, which I’m getting some good ideas with on a more recent post. I’ve gained a couple pounds, but hoping for stability and reversal after the new year.
Thank you for your input, I have healthy respect for what you and Richard are doing.
Nope, psyllium is not RS.
@Nenad, Your label question is about which product, Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour? I thought I made clear that this one is NOT starch, it’s FLOUR despite their using the word “starch” in the packaging or on their website.
Processes that damage the starch crystals and hence lowers the RS is primarily heat and high pressure extrusion. Also added chemicals and/or fermentation may also alter them, but I’m not sure.
Hi all,
I’m currently trying to assist both of my parents who are overweight and diabetic (T2). The whole family started a low carb diet several months ago after I read Gary Taubes “Good Calories, Bad Calories”. My parents are losing fat (but currently stalled with their weight loss) and have stopped needing to take their diabetes medication (tablets). However, we all experencied and continue to experience prolonged periods of constipation and my father’s fasting blood glucose is sometimes a little high. We’ve tried probiotics, magnesium supplements and both insoluble and soluble fibre (inulin), but to no avail.
I’m sorry if these questions have been answered before:
Regarding the roasted and cooled potatoes, do I roast (or cool) them with any oil and/or salt or will that negatively impact the RS3 formation later on? Is it preferable to roast them at a lower temperature for a longer duration or at a higher temperature for a shorter duration? In other words, how exactly do I prepare roasted (or fried?) potatoes such as to best ensure RS3 formation during cooling?
Does reheating (probably fry, but open to better option if available) the cooled potatoes actually increase RS3 content? If so, by how much?
How much retrogradation occurs by cooling legumes for 24 hours or more after cooking? What’s the best way to prepare and cook legumes in order to maximise the resistant starch content (both RS1 and RS3 in the case of cooling them afterwards)? Does RS3 increase after reheating the cooled legumes? Do lentils require different preparation and cooking methods from other legumes such as Red Kidney beans, Fava beans or Cannellini beans?
Could my parents weight loss stall (around 2 months) be due to the lack of resistant starch and the resultant constipation? Is it possible that one small daily serving of legumes and potatoes (roasted, cooled and reheated) and/or some potato starch might in fact “overcome” this weight loss stall?
Once again I apologise for my excessive questions,
Merry Christmas from Australia
Peter:
Doesn’t really matter how you cook them. Just roast as you normally would. The retrograde keeps with reheating. 24 hours cooling should be enough. I seem to recall that freezing creates more (beans, too).
In my view, the cause of the stall is insufficient carbs in the diet. Happens to a lot of people. Also, what I think is really going on with LC diets is that the initial weight loss is because of caloric deficit. People eat less. However, they require less kcal as weight drops and at a point, they reach equilibrium, and it’s so often 10-30 pounds more than goal (or even higher). Can RS fix it? Maybe, because it might increase satiation, they eat less and start losing weight again.
I’d do both. Check into Perfect Health Diet, but instead of just white rice, I’d use cooked and cooled rice (parboiled has by far lowest GI, highest RS) and fried rice is a great way to do that, cooked & cooled potatoes and properly prepared cooked & cooled beans. With beans, I usually don’t even bother to reheat. I like ’em cold.
Hi Richard,
Can you tell me, 1) does banana flour have to be from plantains or regular banana (or is all banana flour from plantains),
2) can it be cooked say into a muffin and served cold with the same benefits?
3) do all types of potato have the same amount of RS.
4) I read on your blog that the Potato RS needs to be raw ( I think one lady was told off for cooking and making gravy), am I correct in Understanding that cooking but then 24 hrs cooling will bring the same benefits as being raw?
I’ve had major digestion issues for a long time. I work on the road and trying to find a diet that will bring up my good bacteria numbers and not spike my insulin. If I could bake some muffins with say potato/tapioca/banana flour and eat cold on the go I think I will be home and hosed! I’ve got less than 15% good bacteria and have tried just about everything.
Your help/insight here is appreciated.
Renee
Hi, Renee V – Let me see if I can help…
So far as I know, all banana flour is made from green plantains and can’t be heated or cooked with to be a good RS source. Raw, it’s about 50% RS by weight. About the only uses I could find for it was a pretty decent cookie-dough and putting it in smoothies.
The starch in all potatoes is about 75% RS by weight, but not all potatoes have the same amount of starch. Russets, and white potatoes in general have the most starch (about 20%), yellow potatoes like Yukon gold have a bit less, and red potatoes have the least, at 16%. This is also why Russets are better baking potatoes and reds are better for boiling.
Potato starch needs to be used raw. Raw it contains about 75% RS. If you cook with it, it contains nearly zero RS, cooked and cooled, you could maybe get 5% RS by weight. It never goes back to the original 75%. When it’s raw, it’s RS2 (raw starch granules) when cooked and cooled, it’s RS3 (retrograded starch). Make sense?
For your problems and lifestyle, consider making a smoothie with potato starch in it. If the smoothie has kefir, even better. Otherwise, mix yogurt and potato starch. Get a couple good probiotic pill supplements and take a couple of them at the same time you take you potato starch, or even mix them in. If you can’t do yogurt, just mix the PS in water…get it in ya!
Wow, thanks so much. I will definitely give the potato starch a go with some good probiotics.
I WISH I could have kefir, but with leaky gut it is a no go for me. I’m concerned the caesin will inflame my immune system and make my hashimotos worse. Also been wanting to try some Primal defence probiotics but again concerned about the ingredients (lectins etc) in the legumes and seeds etc doing the same ing to my already stuffed gut.
Trying to do all I can to repair leaky gut so I can have raw milk kefir.
By red potatoes do you mean red skinned potatoes?
Cheers,
Renee
I have a problem with casein too. I eat Ancient Awakenings Coconut Kefir. No dairy.
@Renee V, see below for one result with an unknown brand green banana flour.
~~~
Well, we got one set of data on the “Polvilho Doce” (supposedly raw cassava starch) and Green Banana flour. From a doctor who runs the most popular LC/Paleo blog in Brazil/Portuguese. He eats a VLC/keto diet so take that into consideration on his results. I will hopefully test soon to compare as my diet is quite different from his and I want to use the same 5tbs that Tatertot used for comparison. I don’t eat VLC nor even LC at the moment – actually I’m testing out the potato hack. And I think another set of data will be good settle things regarding RS content.
His fasting BG ~80:
Cassava Starch (“polvilho doce”) 2tbs in water: BG went to 100 and pretty much stayed there. He was testing every 30 minutes. Unfortunately he used 2 tbs so tough to compare with Tatertot’s results (which I included again below for ease of reference).
Green Banana Flour 4tbs in water: BG went to 117.
Potato Starch (“fecula de batata”): two brands tbd soon hopefully.
His blog in Portuguese (o blog dele) – Dieta Low-Carb e Paleolítica: http://lowcarb-paleo.blogspot.com.br/
~~~
Tatertot’s results:
Ok, sports fans, just did 2 hour pps after downing 5TBS of Bob’s Red
Mill Tapioca Starch, aka Tapioca Flour.
FBG – 78
10 minute pp’s:
108
123
118
123
138
133
130
128
125
90
For comparison, here is 6TBS of Bob’s Potato Starch I did last summer:
FBG – 89
PP’s:
90
91
88
87
90
92
84
84
88
89
In the above regarding the cassava starch… You will notice the ~1 hour data from Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour in Tatertot’s results ~130 differs quite a bit from the Cassava Starch (“polvilho doce”) at ~100 from the good doctor, though it’s not quite as good as the BRM potato starch at ~90.
@Richard, side note. Is there some reason why my posts are now “Your comment is awaiting moderation”. I never saw that before. A change you made recently?
@Brad
I have first comment moderation, which eliminates all spam and trolls. For some reason, trolls just can’t bring themselves to write even one nice, cogent, or contributing comment so they’ll get approved and at which point, they could blast all the trollish comments they want until I have the opportunity to delete and ban.
You must have switched to different coordinates to post your comments.
Quiona isn’t on the list, but I found elsewhere that it’s not a bad RS source; on par with rice.
http://www.resistantstarch.com/NR/rdonlyres/DE2ADBB0-FF7D-40A7-B409-03493FEFFDFA/4601/Foodswithresistantstarch_LR.pdf
I’m not sure if this has been asked, and I’ve read a shitload of what’s available here, so forgive me if this is as repetitive as it is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. I tend to do well without nightshades as I do have autoimmune issues, but have tried PS for a couple of days with only minor side effects that I was told to expect – GI and a mild headache which are pretty insignificant. I was looking in my cupboard and to my total surprise, found some tapioca starch (Bob’s Red Mill) from one of the many attempts to up my intake of starchy products back in the day, and I’m wondering if anyone has had any untoward effects by using it instead of PS. I don’t like my blood sugar swinging because I’m very prone to profound hypoglycemia. I assume the lack of effect on BG enjoyed by all with PS is the same with the tapioca starch, but can anyone school me either way? I’m fully aware of what they say about assuming.
Richard, you rock. Don’t ever stop bloggin.
Found what I was looking for. Thanks for all that you share and delete away…
Tim/Richard – Where exactly does one find “high amylose corn flour” for the Arepas? Never heard of it, and a search only gave me research papers and such.
Ann – This stuff is called High-Maize corn flour, 50% RS by weight supposedly:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/hi-maize-high-fiber-flour-3-lb
Does it all have wheat flour? I can’t have the wheat, and I wouldn’t anyway. Can I get some that is just the corn flour?
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/hi-maize-fiber-12-oz
Thanks Tim! I will try this!
Also, do you think this high-maize stuff is GMO?
No idea. I’ve heard corn is almost all GMO anymore. Normal corn as almost no RS in it–this stuff is specially bred to have 50% RS…I guess corn is pretty manipulative when you look at all the varieties from sweet corn to the stuff they make biofuel and animal food from.
Hi-Maize confuses me, so I don’t use it and I haven’t been able to get good answers from the company that makes it. It’s main use is as a ‘cutting agent’ for baked goods so they can get a ‘high fiber’ label.
If you are just wanting to make some high RS tortillas or corn bread, then go for it. Let us know how it works, I wouldn’t mind trying some one day.
Hi-Maize is non-GMO. Or so it is claimed.
It contains 60% RS, 40% other (upper-GI-digestable) starch. Hence 1 TBL — 12 grams, say — would contain a little over 7 grams of RS. About the same as is claimed for potato starch, I believe. Hi-Maize is available in 50-pound sacks for about $123, or $2.50/lb. That’s a little over 1/3rd the price of Bob’s potato stuff. I am contemplating the purchase of a sack. Actually, the same source has 50lb sacks of potato starch as well, much cheaper: $62 (a mere buck and a quarter per pound!). For some strange non-reason I feel drawn to the Hi-Maize. I have trouble believing the high RS values for potato. Don’t ask me why. It is not rational.
potato:
http://shop.honeyville.com/potato-starch-55lb.html
hi-maize (corn):
http://shop.honeyville.com/hi-maize-resistant-starch.html
“Don’t ask me why.”
I never ask irrational people to explain themselves. Love to see them wallow in ignorance.
I don’t have a problem with people using Hi-Maize. In fact, i reached out to the company to try to get some input from them, but they are stuck on being a supplier of ‘functional fiber’ to be used in baked goods.
Hi-Maize is more expensive when buying it in smaller amounts, and only available from Kind arthur Flour, so far as I can tell. But Ingredion is not interested in people using their product as a prebiotic supplement, they want it added to commercially prepared snack foods.
Potato Starch is mos’ definitely higher in RS than Hi-Maize, though: Look at the official measuring labs results: http://lib3.dss.go.th/fulltext/Journal/J.AOAC%201999-2003/J.AOAC2002/v85n5%28sep-oct%29/v85n5p1103.pdf
When measured in a similar way, the results were 46% for Hi-Maize and 63% for Potato Starch. When checked using ileostomy patients, the results were in similar proportion, but was like 60% for Hi-Maize and 80% for PS.
But, no problem with people using Hi-Maize. I kind of keep hoping some will pick up on it and try it out.
RIchard: I said “not rational”, not IRrational. You know the difference. We all do non-rational things all the time; it is what makes life interesting; it has little to do with knowledge or ignorance (the intellect), and everything to do with the wild world of feelings. To be irrational is something else — a committed refusal to do what is rational in the face of clear evidence that that refusal will lead to material error or disaster.
Do you usually insult newcomers?
I am enjoying your blog, and generally the spirit in which you write, regardless.
I’m loving this surge of interest in RS. Fascinating topic, and rich with potential to improve the health of many.
I need to find out if honeyville.com’s potato starch is raw. If so, then it is a great deal — notwithstanding my irrational, fanatical and wild-eyed insistence that potato starch might have SLIGHTLY less R.S. than usually quoted. ;-)
tatertot: thanks. The company claims 60% for hi-maize; that’s where I got that figure. They could be exaggerating, but it seems their claim corresponds to the latter figure you gave.
The hi-maize is available at that honeyville.com link. They will sell 5lb for $20, which is reasonable if you don’t want to commit to 50lbs. Also as noted, they have very cheap potato starch, though needs rawness verification to be sure.
If true that potato starch has 80% RS, that means a 1lb potato (quite large), with about 65 grams total carb, would have something like 50 grams of RS. Roughly.
I bought the 5 lb honeyville hi maize stuff from Amazon. I had a lot of overripe leftover bananas after some house guests left. I don’t particularly like bananas, especially overripe. I never bake anymore. But I decided to make banana bread with rs, hence my order. Adapted a paleo recipe. Four bananas, 4 eggs, .25 cup tapioca starch, .25 cup hi maize stuff, .75 cup coconut cream, baking powder, baking soda, and apple pie spice. I have to say it was excellent. I realize now from reading these comments, there was not that much rs per slice. Ha, ha, not sure what I will do with the rest of the five pound bag.
“Do you usually insult newcomers?”
Only for 10 years and about 4,ooo posts and 80,000 comments. Other than that, wouldn’t even consider it.
I have a question about the foods that someone with gluten sensitivity might cross-react to. Among those for me are both tapioca starch and potato starch, which are two of the RS “biggies”. Right now I’m doing plantain flour, and getting limited results. I had fantastic initial results with potato starch in December, but had to quit because my sensitivity to potatoes caused my IBS to flare. I’d like to revisit PS or even tapioca starch to see if I can start getting better results, but I’m a little afraid of initiating another flare. My question is, has anyone here with similar food sensitivities had them clear up from taking SBOs and are now able to use those foods? I don’t care if I NEVER eat anything with gluten again, but I’m disappointed about the PS and tapioca starch. Any thoughts? If I can’t take either PS or TS is it okay to take enough plantain to get the 30 grams of RS? I’ve never seen this mentioned before.
I don’t recall anyone reporting yet that they couldn’t use PS and then after SBOs could. I’m sure we’ll find out in time, though. Personally, I’d take the SBOs anyway.
This is an awesome body of work! All gathered together this would make a great ebook. For a reasonable price I’d buy it just to have it all handy and together. Thank you so much.
Perhaps I missed I’m confused by the two columns marked minimum and maximum are on the food list? Can you define that some more?
The min max figures are the RS contents shown in various papers when I saw more than one. It kind of highlights the fact that RS is such a fickle thing to measure…it’s highly dependent on variety of food ingredient, cooking method and even ripeness.
Hopefully this will be available in book form soon!
Thanks so much tatertot and Richard. I posted several of RS links to an online health group I belong to and several of us started experimenting with it – with excellent and rather speedy results.
You guys have done a great service by dusting off and re-examining RS and the implications, especially with what we know now (and are still learning) about the human microbiome.
Sometimes I wonder what this guy would think of all of our chatter…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkana_Boy
I have been eating Paleo for about 3 years, starting VLC and dropping 15kg then easing off while generally going with paleo principles…90/10. I instinctively hate anything that becomes a religion. So I never eat bread, pasta etc but if someone puts a slice of birthday cake in front of me I eat and enjoy.
Couple of months ago I came across this whole resistant starch thing through Feed the Animal and other sites. I like the whole movement from paleo to RS to PHD to anything that recognises food. Grew up on a New Zealand farm where cattle and sheep eat grass (what else is there for them?),did a bit of hunting, we had a veggie garden where the veggies ate shit (what else is there for them?), ate the grass fed cows and the shit fed veggies (what else?) and so on. I am sort of stunned by how precious everything has become. We rode bikes many miles to school every day, we ate food, we played sports for fun. There was one fat kid in the school.
When I look at that Turkana Boy I know we were not even close to natural…but it amazes me how much further we have “devolved” in just one more generation away from the substrate that we were born to thrive within. The mystery is not why so many kids are fat, ADHD, tired, stupified, sexually confused, prone to substance abuse, its why there are any left who are not.
I take my Potato starch, and its good. We were not born to be these bundles of health issues and neuroses. But today we are fish out of water. I do not really like spooning a white powder out of a plastic bag for food. But I get it. Turkana Boy might not. But then he would never be living in a city like Dubai. The only natural thing in Dubai for a human would be death.
“But today we are fish out of water.”
I say this all the time, kindred spirit.
Several of us have been discussing in a Facebook group whether BRM potato starch is in the 67 to 79 range of RS or the 4% as in cooked cooled potato starch. All of these numbers are from the pdf above. Apparently BRM uses heat in making the starch, so does that degrade the final product regarding RS? Has anyone had BRM PS tested? Thank you! :)
Finally, I have an answer for this! I know of two people who sent in independent samples from different parts of the country. BRM came back at 65% RS from both. Also, one tested for molds and toxins–found none.
The reason for 65% is that is the highest that the only available test method can measure. It’s called AOAC2002.02, you can read more about it here: http://lib3.dss.go.th/fulltext/Journal/J.AOAC%201999-2003/J.AOAC2002/v85n5%28sep-oct%29/v85n5p1103.pdf
This is an interesting paper, I hope you read and share.
BRM is not cooked. All manufacturers use heat at some point in washing, but not enough to cook the starch. If it was pre-cooked starch, it would behave much, much differently in a glass of water or a pan of gravy.
A good test…use it to make gravy. If it starts to thicken immediately, it’s no good. If it takes a bit of heat and stirring, and at the point it hits 160 degrees, starts to thicken, you know you are dealing with raw starch. Pre-gelatinized starch would start to thicken at room temperature.
In older tests, using different methods such as patients with ileostomy bags, they would measure in the 70-80% RS range, and I believe that is more accurate. The modern, standardized test involves digestive enzymes from pigs, freeze-drying, grinding, and some other strange steps, but at least they have a standard testing method. Rounding up people with ileostomy bags might be tough to do for most test labs, lol.
Thank you so much! I will link to this in our group!
Tatertot, thank you so much for clarifying this. I have seen reports on different FB pages that people have contacted BRM and were told by customer reps that the potato starch is heated/cooked/steamed, leading to a lot of confusion.
I expected BRM would prove to have high RS content, as I (along with many other diabetics) have tested bg before and after and taking BRM potato starch and it does not raise my bg.
Renee, thanks for posting this question!
Where I live there is no potato starch available, what would be a good source of RS? Thank you
Thanks for the 7 page list. Could you clarify this: I see that the RS in canned beans is fairly low. Is that because the canned beans are cooked? Are the values for uncanned beans that are given in the lists for raw or for cooked beans?
Hi, can anyone please tell me if cooking pasta , chilling it straight away then reheating a couple of hours later is OK or does it HAVE to be chilled overnight?
Also, what is the minimum time required to freeze bread …I’ve read 30 days?!! Searched the net for timings with no luck.
Would just like some straight timings!!
Thank you in anticipation, Susie x
I’d still like to know where coconut flour comes in all this… I’d do the tests on myself, but don’t have access to a fully equipped lab.
Has NO-ONE, done this?
I can’t find anything anywhere about it. I’m guessing it wouldn’t be on the highest side, but I’m also guessing it wouldn’t be on the lowest, either.
Sorry if this was answered earlier up, but I wasn’t going to trawl through a bazillion posts. :-)
Anyone know anything?
I apologize in advance for my ignorance regarding RS but I have a question regarding converting starch to RS3. Would it be possible to repeatedly heat wheat berries to 165 degrees F and then freeze them for a week or so in order to convert their starch to higher levels of RS3? How would I go about measuring the relative hoped for change.?
Thanks very much for your patience in answering this inquiry.
Doug
Well, in order to form RS3 via retrogrogradation you have to begin with 1 or 2. Wheat has a good amount, so yes, in principle it would work. In terms of measurement, no practical way. Testing is done in labs and is expensive.
This is why it’s best to use a wide variety of sources, eaten raw when possible, cooked, cooled, and reheated. Do it all and don’t sweat the fine details.
Thank you very much for your prompt and positive answer.
DD
Is the RS in rolled oats also destroyed when made into porridge? Would cooking an cooling the porridge create RS3?
Why are you so angry about paleo/low carb people (of which I’m one)? It’s articles like this that make me want to not believe in resistant starch (why should I, when I’ve lost over 50 pounds using LCHF and without it)? I want to believe in resistant starch, but I also think many of the studies might not be being interpreted correctly. It’s dangerous to see what you want to see instead of what might actually be occurring.
See, eg:
http://www.nature.com/news/microbiology-microbiome-science-needs-a-healthy-dose-of-scepticism-1.15730
I am trying to find out some information regarding RS and am hoping you can help:
I eat Oat Bran in the mornings and would love to increase the RS%; if I cook it the day before then eat it cold will it increase the RS% (like with potatoes)? Or do I need to eat it un-cooked (soaked overnight) to increase the RS% (as it with rolled oats)? Or will neither method increase it`s RS%?
Thanks for your help!
Not sure how much RS in oats but the general rule for everything is that if it has to be cooked to eat, then cooking, cooling overnight, then reheating gives you the most RS bang. You can eat cold, but reheating tightens RS3 retrograded structures, so is more resistant to enzymatic digestion.
Thanks for the reply: my only contradictory thought about oats is that it is on the list with the RS values as uncooked, vs cooked and cooled like potatoes. It is also for rolled oats, not oat bran which has lower RS value but no comparison value for raw and/or cooked and cooled. I guess I can’t go wring with cooking, cooling and reheating! Although I also wonder if I need to reheat it underb130degrees as I have read this in several places, but not all articles mention this….
Nope, just reheat. That, and eat more, over-think less.
If you look at oats from the RS angle, it’s not exactly the best. But oats have an amazing prebiotic called beta-glucans :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-glucan#Cereal_.CE.B2-Glucans
And that is why oats are great as a regular food. Add some blueberries, vanilla, some nuts / seeds (such as chia) and maple syrup, a dollop of “fromage frais” or skyr, and you’re good to go in the AM :)
Regarding beta-glucans. Oat bran has twice as much rolled or steel cut oats.
I mix oats with tigernut flour 1:1 + raw cacao, cinnamon, cloves and ginger, and bake it quick, then put the “biscuits” in the freezer! I’m pretty sure the retrogradation finishes a few degrees below freezin. Besides, that way, you can make tons and they wont go bad.
When I want I take them out and have the delicious mouthgazm and tons of fiber.
that’s funy, as I often make muffins out of my oat bran, and always keep them in the freezer; never thought about the fact that this is potentially creating extra RS!
I read with interest all the info and comments on resistent starch. Do I understand correctly that increasing RS in your diet is only helpful if you already have the proper microbes in your digestive system? What can you do if they aren’t present since eating dirt isn’t really an option?
“Do I understand correctly that increasing RS in your diet is only helpful if you already have the proper microbes in your digestive system?”
Neither Tim nor I believe this. I’ll have a post soon about how gut testing as being done is completely unreliable in knowing what you have, don’t and relative proportions. While probiotics may be helpful (see Elixa on the sidebar, now out in version 2.0), whether you use them or not, RS is beneficial. Best to get from foods, but there’s also nothing wrong with raw potato starch and what I like about that is it really gives you a baseline, since it’s such whopper and you should be able to easily take note of good and bad effects, and then see what happens over time.
Abbie, I would say u are right in some cases. As for people who are histamine intolerant you should probably be careful with feeding your bacterias.
Hi Richard & co, I’m new to this resistant starch info, but I’ve been on a low-fructose diet for 10+ years due to malabsorption. I have ME/CFS (Chronic fatigue syndrome) 20+ years, and know that my gut flora are just a uneducated rabble who spend a lot of their time fighting and digging holes in my gut wall. Because of ME/CFS my reading concentration is low, so could you please let me know whether there’s a blog on here that gives a translation to all the acronyms… SAD, RS, PIR… – it starts to be like reading a foreign language… do you have a ‘Diet Acronyms for Dummies’ blog, if not, could I suggest that same would be very helpful to those new to the scene.
Thanks, and I’ll continue try to wade through what I’m sure is great info.
Cheers from Australia
Hei Guys
I have been taking 2 TBSP of potato starch with a homemade apple juice, and I have not experience fartage, should I increase the amount of potato starch. I am thinking also to buy probiotics like Elixa. Thanks so much in advance.
I wont eat RAW oats or most beans and legumes am not a horse and I Don’t like them. D+So your saying I can east day old spaghetti an it is good for me. (no not processed sauce but store bought noodles.) My potatoes that LOVE so much that i bake and then eat the next morning as fried taters in Grapeseed oil are good and I dont have to give them up? I have found that when i east potatoes for the day it does help my bread and sugar cravings lol