Resistant Starches page 8

[otzi]

I have no experience with tapioca except as the little clear balls in pudding. I can't speak the the RS, but I'd think there is more in the parent (cassava) than the by-product (tapioca). I intend to look into it more this year along with some other tropical starches. Right now, I'm a big fan of green bananas! Green Bananas Health Benefits | LIVESTRONG.COM

Tapioca predominantly consists of carbohydrates, with each cup containing 135 grams for a total of 544 calories, and is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. Folic acid (vitamin B9) is present in the amount of 6.1 mcg, along with iron 2.4 mg and calcium 30.4 mg. One cup of tapioca also includes 1.5 mg of omega-3 acids, 3 mg of omega-6 fatty acids and 1 gram of dietary fiber.

Cassava root is essentially a carbohydrate source.[27] Its composition shows 60–65 percent moisture, 20–31 percent carbohydrate, 1–2 percent crude protein and a comparatively low content of vitamins and minerals. However, the roots are rich in calcium and vitamin C and contain a nutritionally significant quantity of thiamine, riboflavin and nicotinic acid. Cassava starch contains 70 percent amylopectin and 20 percent amylose. Cooked cassava starch has a digestibility of over 75 percent.

Cassava root is a poor source of protein. Despite the very low quantity, the quality of cassava root protein is fairly good in terms of essential amino acids. Methionine, cysteine and cystine are, however, limiting amino acids in cassava root.

[ChocoTaco369]

I'll bite on this.

Evolutionarily speaking, this seems to make sense to me. Starch has always been an integral part of the human diet - probably the most integral. There really is no more efficient source of fuel in nature, and it's clearly one of the safest to harvest. It just makes so much more sense to eat a diet high in starch - versus, say, salad or broccoli - because it is so easy to digest and use all the nutrients. I've been slowly trying to reduce my vegetable intake for awhile for more fruit and starch and I've seen a whole lot of benefits, including more energy and better digestion. We don't use something like 90% of the nutrition in vegetables anyway because it's bound up in the insoluble fiber, unlike meat, starch and dairy, so I've never really understood why paleo folks are so caught up in vegetables. They provide no energy, they're difficult to digest, most of the nutrition can't be used...meat, fruit and starch is way more of a "human" diet than salad (even though I love salad), and I stand by that statement 100%.

Cold potatoes are pretty damn good, pretty damn convenient and pretty damn cheap. I typically cook a whole lot ahead of time anyway and just have them in the fridge. I just won't heat them. I made a 5 lb hash brown last night with you in mind to see how it makes me feel. Today's lunch was a 5 egg goatcheese omelet with cold hash browns. Pretty simple, pretty good.

[otzi]

I'll bite on this.

Evolutionarily speaking, this seems to make sense to me. Starch has always been an integral part of the human diet - probably the most integral.

I just wrote this on the PHD thread:

For years now, I have been keeping total carbs under 100 or less. Most of my carbs were coming from fruit, like a couple bananas, melon, apples, etc... a day. Since applying the PHD principle of 1 pound of potatoes a day, I have ended up eating almost no sugary fruit. I have never felt better. No gas, bloating, perfect BM's.

It must be pear season, because our local store had a huge display of pears...I couldn't resist, and bought a half-bushel. Within a day of eating 2-3 pears, I was so gassed up and bloated I couldn't believe it. I was blaming everything but the pears, though. I did a little Googling, and came across this site: TheFartingPear - fructose malabsorption food list and food search There it was: Fructose Malabsorption--staring me in the face for years.

When I was keeping under 50g carbs, my problems were mostly absent, but going above 100g meant stomach bloat and digestion problems. I always blamed 'carbs', but the only way I ever got above 100g was to eat sugary fruit.

I'm now eating 100-200g carbs a day in form of potatoes/sweet potatoes/rice and feeling great with no stomach distress.

I'm glad you took the bait on this, Choco, but where I see the real benefits to eating more starch, is the extra Resistant Starch you are getting along the way.

I learned something interesting today; when people with fructose malabsorption problems ingest fructose, the fructose doesn't get absorbed in the small intestine like it should, it makes it all the way to the colon where it is fermented into hydrogen, which is harmful to the ecosystem of the colon, not to mention making one gassy and bloated.

When RS makes it to the colon, it is fremented into butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid, which provides food to special colon cells called colonocytes. In a healthy, functional colon, this is the best case scenario. The beneficial gut flora in the large intestine is the master-controller of lots of metabolic regulation systems. Starve it by eating no RS and you are doing yourself a disservice. Feed it and good things will come of it.

I have seen that ancestral levels of RS were thought to be approx 50 g of RS a day. That's the amount of RS found in one pound of raw potato. Cook the potato and eat it hot and you get about 3-5g of RS (which is the ave intake for SAD). Cook and cool 1 pound of potato and you up the RS to about 10g.

I have taken to eating a few slices of raw potato a day, and eating close to a pound of potato with about half being cooled/half being hot. Same could easily be done with rice as the RS in rice is doubled by cooking and cooling.

[Happy Paleo Girl]

But really, there's not that many...it's a pretty short list: Potatoes and rice.

Ok, technically white potatoes, sweet potatoes and rice, and then there are the 'freak' safe starches that nobody ever eats: taro, tapioca, sago... I have seen plantains in the store but never bought them...

Plus, I'm with you on the rice, I eat it very rarely. What's funny, is the best way to eat it--in terms of the resistant starch, is cooked and cooled...the only way I usually eat rice is in sushi rolls--cooked and cooled.

I'm looking now to find out the difference in resistant starch between cooked and cooled rice/potatoes and cooked and warm--there seems to be a huge difference, though, like 50% more when cooled. Freaky.

Otzi, don't say that nobody ever eats those things just because you've never heard of them! Here in S. Florida, plantains and taro at least are available in pretty much every grocery store. Plantains are easy to cook, and really delicious! I cooked up one of the sweet ones last night. Just peel, cut into 1-inch chunks, and sautee in a little coconut oil for a few minutes on each side. Easy! The green ones require a slightly different process, but I like the sweet ones better anyway. You should give them a try sometime!

[cori93437]

Otzi, don't say that nobody ever eats those things just because you've never heard of them! Here in S. Florida, plantains and taro at least are available in pretty much every grocery store. Plantains are easy to cook, and really delicious! I cooked up one of the sweet ones last night. Just peel, cut into 1-inch chunks, and sautee in a little coconut oil for a few minutes on each side. Easy! The green ones require a slightly different process, but I like the sweet ones better anyway. You should give them a try sometime!

Yep... FL, with it's diverse population is also very Carb diverse!

I pop the sweet ripe plantains in the oven, no oil needed... Delicious.

And yes... they do fit into my HFLC WOE just fine as occasional treats.
LOVE them!

[Happy Paleo Girl]

Yep... FL, with it's diverse population is also very Carb diverse!

I pop the sweet ripe plantains in the oven, no oil needed... Delicious.

And yes... they do fit into my HFLC WOE just fine as occasional treats.
LOVE them!

I never thought to bake them! That sounds way easier than frying them. I'm making some tonight, I'll give the oven method a shot!

[cori93437]

I never thought to bake them! That sounds way easier than frying them. I'm making some tonight, I'll give the oven method a shot!

Just as a note, I do this on a lightly greased glass dish... they do become VERY sticky.

[jammies]

I'm resurrecting an old thread here. I was recently at an immunology conference and saw a pretty amazing presentation showing that butyric acid is a (the?) major inducer of cells in the gut that control immune responses. The data they showed was that the effect was the result of specific bacteria in the gut producing the short chain fatty acids that caused induction of these cells.

The data is not yet published or I would post a link. It was presented by one of the top immunologists in the world, so it was pretty exciting to see that butyric acids isn't just an essential food for the colonic cells, but for the immune cells in the gut as well.

Now, the question remains, what is the best dietary source for bacterial production of SCFA and what happens if a person doesn't have the right bacteria for this?

[jammies]

Otzi, have you had any more findings regarding good vegetable sources?

[Omni]

That's interesting with regards to the immune connection, but does make sense.

There has been a long term association between fibre intake and colon cancer, but that is ofcourse in the background of SAD diet types.

I think everyone is too focussed on RS, there are manny different fibres in the process and I think the main point is that most of the primal foods contribute a good mix of fibre to maintain gut health, if your microbiota is balanced, but nevertheless increasing intake of a variety of fermented foods may be of significant value to ensure a healthy balance.

Couple of papers I found, for those interested enough to read through discussiong various aspects of SFA's & fibre intake.
http://www.bmj.sk/2007/10808-06.pdf
http://physrev.physiology.org/content/81/3/1031.full
http://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=16226
The last one is a thesis and discusses some of the immune implications, it is 168 pages though.