Resisting Resistant Starch - Primal Docs
EXTRACT
“Resistant starch” has become fashionable! Two blog
posts from the popular Mark’s Daily Apple
were recently devoted to it, and bloggers Richard Nikoley,
“Tatertot”Tim, and Dr. BG are reportedly writing a book
about it. It seems resistant starch is on everyone’s lips!
But I have to say I just don’t get it. Not at all!
By “resistant starch” is meant plant starch that “resists” digestion,
starch that is not turned into glucose but that instead travels
colonward unscathed, where it is supposed to feed beneficial gut
bacteria (assuming beneficial gut bacteria are there to be fed) and
create butyrate, a major fuel of local cells.
Speaking on behalf of our gut bacteria, I can certainly say that
nourishment is desirable. Of course the fibrous content of ordinary
vegetables is perfectly capable of accomplishing this, and we take
advantage of this happy scenario every time we eat some broccoli or a
cabbage or have some salad. (Eating pasture-raised meats nose to tail
doesn’t hurt, either.) Even resistant starch’s reported benefit of
increasing insulin receptor sensitivity and its corollary good things
can be simply achieved in other ways, for example, by eating a diet high
in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrate mostly from
non-starchy fibrous vegetables.
But resistant-starch aficionados point out that some foods pack an
extra punch. These foods are the energy drinks of resistant starch, as
it were.
EXTRACT
“Resistant starch” has become fashionable! Two blog
posts from the popular Mark’s Daily Apple
were recently devoted to it, and bloggers Richard Nikoley,
“Tatertot”Tim, and Dr. BG are reportedly writing a book
about it. It seems resistant starch is on everyone’s lips!
But I have to say I just don’t get it. Not at all!
By “resistant starch” is meant plant starch that “resists” digestion,
starch that is not turned into glucose but that instead travels
colonward unscathed, where it is supposed to feed beneficial gut
bacteria (assuming beneficial gut bacteria are there to be fed) and
create butyrate, a major fuel of local cells.
Speaking on behalf of our gut bacteria, I can certainly say that
nourishment is desirable. Of course the fibrous content of ordinary
vegetables is perfectly capable of accomplishing this, and we take
advantage of this happy scenario every time we eat some broccoli or a
cabbage or have some salad. (Eating pasture-raised meats nose to tail
doesn’t hurt, either.) Even resistant starch’s reported benefit of
increasing insulin receptor sensitivity and its corollary good things
can be simply achieved in other ways, for example, by eating a diet high
in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrate mostly from
non-starchy fibrous vegetables.
But resistant-starch aficionados point out that some foods pack an
extra punch. These foods are the energy drinks of resistant starch, as
it were.