Eating foods high in RESISTANT STARCH helps promote the "good" bacteria in our gut as it acts more like a prebiotic than a typical starch. Once the resistant starch arrives in the colon, our good gut bacteria feeds on the starch, producing short chain fatty acids like butyrate (butyric acid) which strengthens your brain and gut. It’s also the preferred energy source of the cells lining the colon and helps to increase metabolism, decrease inflammation and even improve stress resistance.
SO WHAT IS RESISTANT STARCH?
"Resistant starch is a type of starch that is not digested in the stomach or small intestine, reaching the colon intact. Thus, it “resists” digestion. This explains why we don’t see spikes in either blood glucose or insulin after eating RS, and why we don’t obtain significant calories from RS" - Chris Kresser
HEALTH BENEFITS of RESISTANT STARCH
Along with strengthening the gut by feeding all that good bacteria, resistant starch has many other health benefits, including;
Increases absorption of important minerals like calcium and magnesium
Decreases absorption of toxic and carcinogenic compounds which can protect against bowel cancer
Affect positive changes in microflora, particularly increasing bifidobacterium
Decrease inflammation in the gut and other tissues
Better digestion - RS bulks and softens stool, helps regularity
Can help reduce fat stores as RS feeds bacteria not fat cells
Helps you become more tolerant of the carbs you digest
Help improve insulin sensitivityImproved blood sugar control
Preserve Vitamin D in the body
Protect probiotic bacteria
Increase feelings of satiety
Improved sleep
So how can you get more of it in your diet?
RESISTANT STARCH FOOD SOURCES
Cooked and cooled potatoes - in one study, cooking and then cooling potatoes overnight increased their resistant starch content by 280%
Cooked and cooled legumes
Cooked and cooled rice
Tigernuts and tigernut flour
Yams
Oats
Plantains
Green bananas
Raw green banana flour
Raw potato starch
Cassava flour
Green papaya and mango
2 SIMPLE WAYS TO MAKE RICE HEALTHIER & MORE GUT FRIENDLY
Rice is such a handy accompaniment to meals and we love a good rice based salad. However as it is a high carb food it can elevate your blood glucose levels.
These easy steps can help to shift it from a blood glucose elevator to a resistant starch that your gut loves
1. Cook The Rice In Bone Broth + Coconut Oil
Cooking the rice in bone broth is a really easy way to incorporate more of the healing benefits bone broth has into your diet. Simply add in a 2 tsp of any of our organic bone broth powders. You can also include healthy fats, such as coconut oil, when cooking rice. When these are cooked together, the oil binds to the digestible starch in the rice (the starch that converts to glucose). Once bound with the coconut oil, the digestible starch begins to crystallise, creating resistant starch.
2. Cool The Rice To Create Resistant Starch
Also cooling the rice for 12-24 hours allows the crystallisation process to occur. One study found this increased the amount of RS by 10-15x as well as reducing its calories by up to 50-60%. As a result, the rice produces a smaller spike in blood sugar because you get more resistant starch to take the place of digestible starch. Plus, the inherent qualities of the resistant starch decrease this smaller spike even further. The result is lower-carb rice.
RESISTANT STARCH RECIPE
Now that you know that cooking rice in bone broth and then allowing to cool before eating (overnight is best) creates a super healthy starch your body will love, the possibilities are endless.
We will often cook a batch of rice that will give us a few ‘resistant starch’ meals. For example, we will cook up 4-5 cups of rice with bone broth and allow to cool and use half of this to create one salad to accompany dinner. Then use the remaining rice to create a fried rice, rice soup or another salad combination for dinner the following night.
Here’s some resistant starch salad inspiration to get you started.
This wild black rice + basmati rice salad is seriously the bomb and a great meal on its own or accompanying a protein of choice. Cooked in our chicken bone broth (1 tsp per 1 cup rice) and then allowed to cool overnight. Combined with green beans, peas, spinach, coriander and slivered almonds. Dressed with a simple dressing of our vegetable miso salt, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil.
So simple and delish and your gut will love you for it too!
