Carbs have been the devil incarnate for the past twenty years now. Ever since the Atkins diet hit the scene way back when, and now the Paleo diet, many freak out at the mere though of a spoonful of oatmeal, never mind a bowl of pasta! Carbs in their whole food form, have been an important and healthy part of our diet for thousands of years, but now a new kind of carb is getting attention, a kind of starch, which means you might be able to lose weight by eating muffins, breads, pasta and rice!
However, since health is way more important than focusing on shedding a few pounds, let’s look at the health implications of this starch first. It’s called Resistant Starch (RS). It’s found in certain foods such as potatoes, rice, and green bananas. Resistant starch goes right through your digestive system, without being actually digested until it hits your colon. Once in your colon, it feeds the GOOD bacteria, making your belly very happy – not to mention full!
There are 4 different kinds of RS starch. You don’t really need to bother yourself with the intricacies of this, but let’s look at the main foods that contain one of these Resistant starches.
In descending order of RS content:
- Green Bananas: Unripe Bananas contain 38g of RS per one small banana.
- Potatoes*: A medium potato contains 33 g of RS
- White Beans: One cup provides 8.5 grams of RS
- Rolled Oats: Half a cup of raw oats contains 8.5 g of RS
- White rice* : 2/3 cup gives you 5 g of RS
- Pasta*: 1 cup gives you 5g RS
- Lentils: 1/2 cup gives you 5g RS
- Frozen peas: 1/2 cup gives your 5G of RS
- Cashews: 1 ounce gives you 3.5 g of RS
*Potatoes, rice, and pasta contains RS 2 in its raw form, but when it’s cooked, it loses its resistance and will thus will produce calories and spike blood sugar, however, when you allow these foods to cool, they produce RS 3, which is the same as RS 2. So letting these particular foods cool is the key. Quite amazing that if you allow your rice to cool, you can cut its calorie content by a whopping 50%.
RS Burns Fat!
Researchers believe that RS can help lower insulin levels. Remember insulin is a hormone that slows down fat metabolism. This is why we are probably going to see RS starches added to a bunch of foods such as bread and pasta, in the very near future. Imagine a croissant or muffin, which due to its white flour content spikes your blood sugar, but when RS starch is added to the recipe, it’ll totally curb that spike by suppressing insulin. I betcha we’re going to start seeing RS bagels and even coffee cake hit the shelves. There’s already a cheese cracker called Thinnables where you can devour the whole 6 oz box for just 360 cals.
Aside from feeding the good bacteria in our gut, RS is also thought to nudge the hormones that send satiation signals to our brain, telling us that we are indeed completely full. Better than a lap band, right?
So grab yourself some green bananas or chomp on a handful of cashews. You can also buy a big bag of Bob’s Red Mill Potato starch and add 1 tbsp to a smoothie (remember it has to be raw) – and actually you don’t even notice the taste.
