Do You Miss White Pasta? Find Out Why Resistant Starch is Your New Health Food
You can put your potatoes, pasta, and white rice back on the dinner table because it turns out they are very, very healthy - if you follow a specific cooking procedure, though.
This is How Resistant Starch Works
When you cook pasta, potatoes, or any starchy food, heat opens up the starch granule and makes it more accessible to your digestive enzymes. When this happens, the starch enters the bloodstream as glucose and then causes the familiar blood sugar surge.
On the other hand, when you cook and then cool your starchy food, that starch granule closes up.
Since enzymes now can't break it down, it doesn't enter the bloodstream as glucose; it enters the colon (the largest part of the large intestine) and can be fermented by your gut bacteria.
In other words, it becomes a prebiotic.
4 Health Benefits of Resistant Starch
1. Healthy Gut
Through that fermentation process, your gut bacteria produce something called butyrate (butyric acid). Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid that is an energy source for your enterocytes or cells that line the GI tract.
Butyrate is protective of colon cells and associated with less genetic damage, which can lead to cancer.
Fun fact: Grass-fed butter is high in butyrate—one reason why it's such an essential element in Bulletproof Coffee.
2. Help reduce insulin resistance
According to published research, resistant starch seems to improve insulin sensitivity.
Fermentable fiber and resistant starch are associated with improved glucose tolerance. Evidence shows that this is caused by the short-chain fatty acids and by a peptide produced in the fermentation process.
Also, as resistant starch isn't absorbed, your insulin doesn't rise like other starches and causes blood sugar spikes.
3. Satiety
Resistant starch produces more satiety, possibly partly through the release of a different peptide (PYY).
Researchers have investigated the effects of resistant starch in both average weight and obese subjects. Published studies have demonstrated that it can boost satiety and decrease both appetite and food intake.
4. Keeps you regular
If you deal with constipation, eating resistant starch may help get things moving again. A 2019 study found that resistant starch in green bananas improved chronic constipation in children and adolescents.
To reap the benefits
You can obtain the health benefits mentioned if you include a serving of one of the foods below in at least two meals per day. Think long term - you can't just eat a serving of cold potatoes and expect magic to happen.
Want to add more to your diet? Try these resistant starch foods:
Potatoes. Cooked and chilled
White rice. Cooked and cooled. You can reheat the rice without destroying the resistant starch.
Pasta. Cooked and cooled. Reheating your chilled pasta reduces the rise in blood sugar by 50% compared to freshly cooked pasta.
Oats. While cooked and cooled oats pack the most resistant starch, you can still get quite a bit from a warm bowl of just-cooked oats.
An essential point
Regardless of the resistant starch, if you are looking for balanced blood sugar levels, it's still crucial that you eat a balanced diet including protein, fat, fiber, and fluid.
Getting the right amount of veggies is extremely important as well.