Resistant starch has enormous benefits, and I will show you all you need to know about the benefits of resistant starch in this article, especially if you want improved health based on food and digestion.
You’ve probably heard of starchy meals like sweet potatoes, rice, and other delicious carbohydrates. But what exactly is resistant starch, and why is it so beneficial to your gut?
Does Cassava Flour contain Resistant Starch?
Starches, essentially long chains of glucose, are found in many carbohydrate-rich meals (sugar).
Starchy foods range from highly refined products such as tortillas and pasta to entire grains and vegetables such as potatoes, plantains, and carrots. But Cassava has the next highest percentage of resistant starch, followed by corn, wheat and rice.
See all the health and Nutritional benefits of Cassava Flour
Resistant starch is unique. It is not a digestible carbohydrate, but it has the potential to alter your gut microbes drastically.
What Is Resistant Starch
The resistant starch is a kind of starch that is “resistant” to digestion, meaning your body cannot break it down. Because it cannot be digested entirely, this kind of starch is comparable to dietary fiber.
Digestion enzymes in the small intestine usually break down starchy meals and convert them to glucose.
There are two types of starches made of polysaccharides known as amylose and amylopectin. Amylopectin-rich meals are quickly digested starches, but amylose-rich foods digest much more slowly.
Amylose levels are more significant in foods classified as resistant starches. Unlike other carbohydrates, resistant starch passes through the stomach and small intestine undigested and arrives in the colon intact (the most significant part of the large intestine).
When resistant starch enters the big intestine, your beneficial gut bacteria feed on it and ferment it. Your gut bacteria produce butyrate during the fermentation process (butyric acid).
Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid that serves as an energy source for enterocytes, which are the cells that line the digestive system.
The Different Types Of Resistant Starch
Various kinds of resistant starch are depicted in this collage.
There are four forms of resistant starch, and some may be more beneficial to you than others. They are as follows:
RS1: This resistant starch is found in the coatings of seeds, nuts, cereals, and legumes such as lentils and beans. However, some meals are not suitable for everyone: Gluten and grains include variable levels of inflammatory proteins and antinutrients that can harm people even if they are not gluten intolerant.
RS2: Type 2 fermentable fibers can be found in green bananas and uncooked potatoes.
RS3: This form of resistant starch is created by cooking and cooling some of the naturally occurring raw starches found in white potatoes and rice.
RS4: This is artificial resistant starch, which you could find on the label of a manufactured, processed product like bread or cake. Polydextrin or modified starch may be mentioned on the label.
One study discovered that a soluble fiber called resistant dextrin reduced insulin resistance in people with type 2 diabetes.
Ways to Include Resistant Starch to Your Diet
Some people respond well to the addition of resistant starch to their diet, while others do not. Adjustment may take six weeks or longer, so begin slowly.
One of the tell-tale adverse effects of resistant starch is gas and bloating if you consume too much of it too quickly.
What about carbohydrates, keto diets, and resistant starch? Resistant starch is keto-friendly since it skips digestion and isn’t broken down like a regular carbohydrate so that it won’t raise your blood sugar.
Here Are central ideas To Get You Started:
At the start of the wake, prepare a batch of white rice. Cooling allows resistant starch to form while reheating has little effect on the quantity of resistant starch.
A teaspoon of raw potato starch can be added to no-cook beverages like smoothies and kefir.
White potatoes are nightshades, which naturally include higher levels of lectins, proteins that might cause inflammation, so pay attention to how you feel following their consumption.
Smoothies can be made with green bananas or plantains. If you are unable to utilize them before they ripen, freeze them.
Green banana flour may be used in sweets such as No-Bake Protein Brownie Bites.
Health Benefits of Resistance Starch
The health benefits of resistant starch come from many properties of this particular type of starch, including but not limited to:
- By acting as fiber, resistant starch slows the digestion and absorption of food and nutrients in the small intestine and increases stool volume in the large intestine
- Resistant starch serves as food for healthy intestinal bacteria such as bifidobacteria in the large intestine
- It can reduce inflammation-induced insulin resistance
- The raw material for producing short-chain fatty acids (butyrate, acetate, propionate) and other useful metabolic products in the large intestine.
- Resistant starch stimulates fat burning and glycogen storage instead of fat storage.
- Short-chain fatty acids support the function of the intestinal barrier (i.e., they help repair a permeable intestinal wall) and the release of hormones and enzymes in the digestive tract.
Resistant starch and metabolic health
After meals, resistant starch can help to decrease blood sugar levels.
There are many ways that resistant starch can help normalize blood sugar levels. These include, among others:
By acting like fiber, resistant starch slows down carbohydrate digestion and absorption.
By activating glycogen synthesis genes, resistant starch causes the body to store more carbohydrates in the muscles and liver (in rats).
Can reduce insulin resistance.
Resistant corn starch supplementation has been shown in studies to help control blood sugar levels in overweight but otherwise healthy individuals.
Eighteen overweight people via a study were improved their glucose balance by regularly ingesting high amylose-resistant corn starch for six weeks. The process of maintaining normal blood sugar levels is known as glucose balance.
Helps improve insulin resistance
Insulin resistance arises when cells stop responding to insulin., which leads to high blood sugar levels. Insulin resistance has been linked to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Consumption of resistant starch improves insulin sensitivity and reduces the insulin needed to control blood sugar levels in animals and humans. Resistant starch could improve insulin sensitivity in several ways:
An increase in the secretion of certain bile acids in the digestive tract, which helps improves insulin resistance via GLP-1.
A reduction in adipose tissue macrophages – immune cells that drive the development of insulin resistance.
Short-chain fatty acids (fermentation products of resistant starch) alert the brain and liver to decrease glucose synthesis, increasing insulin sensitivity.
An increase in adiponectin levels improves insulin sensitivity by increasing fatty acid oxidation and inhibiting glucose production in the liver.
An increase in ghrelin levels, which inhibits the glucose-stimulated release of insulin from the pancreas.
Resistant starch can help treat metabolic syndrome
Metabolic syndrome – also known as prediabetes – is a group of factors that increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. These risk factors include a large waist size, low HDL cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, high triglyceride levels, and high blood sugar levels.
In a study of 20 adults, resistant starch reduced insulin required after feeding, which helped treat metabolic syndrome.
Adding resistant starch to patients with metabolic syndrome improved cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, and insulin sensitivity.
Can help treat type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes occurs when a person develops insulin resistance. It is caused by genetic makeup, obesity, high blood sugar levels, and inflammation.
Resistant starch can potentially reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in animals and overweight adults by improving insulin sensitivity, lowering blood sugar levels, and reducing blood lipid levels.
Resistant starch supplementation could also prevent complications resulting from high blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics.
A study on 56 women with type 2 diabetes found that resistant starch improved blood sugar levels, reduced the release of toxins by bacteria, and increased antioxidant levels.
Short-chain fatty acids increase the levels of glucagon-like-peptide-1 (GLP-1) – a hormone that lowers blood sugar levels by stimulating insulin secretion. GLP-1 could treat diabetes by lowering blood sugar levels.
Helps lower blood triglyceride levels
A study on animals found that resistant starch interfered with the absorption of dietary fats, preventing increases in blood triglyceride levels after a meal. Resistant starch also improved the movement of the food pulp in the digestive tract.
This has been confirmed in both humans and rats, where resistant starch reduced triglyceride levels after meals.
Resistant starch can improve cholesterol levels
The addition of resistant starch to bread significantly reduced total cholesterol levels. Resistant starch reduced LDL cholesterol levels and total cholesterol levels in humans and pigs.
Can help prevent heart disease
Adding resistant starch to the diet could improve heart health by lowering cholesterol levels.
In a double-blind study of 86 subjects, type 4 resistant starch reduced abnormal fat levels in the blood. Thus, intake of this starch could promote heart health.
Blood vessel hardening is frequently a prelude to heart disease. Resistant starch can decrease the risk factors associated with blood vessel hardening in overweight persons.
Beans are high in resistant starch, lower cholesterol levels, and lower heart disease and diabetes risk.
Resistant starch slows the progression of chronic kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease is often a complication of heart disease and diabetes.
A diet high in high amylose corn starch can slow the progression of chronic kidney disease by reducing oxidative stress, reducing inflammation, and preventing damage to the intestinal wall.
Supplementing the diet with resistant starch reduced the levels of toxic metabolic products (indoxyl sulfate and P-cresol sulfate) in patients with chronic kidney disease who were on dialysis.
Benefits in Weight Control
It helps in weight loss and weight maintenance and promotes healthy energy balance and prevents weight gain.
In obesity-prone rats, resistant starch and regular exercise prevented weight gain by reducing the energy gap between the urge to eat and reduced energy requirements.
Fat accumulation is reduced by resistant starch and blood sugar levels and increases the breakdown of fat through fermentation in the gut, which can help with obesity.
Resistant starch helps burn fat
It helps burn fat through the following mechanisms:
A reduction in fat accumulation and an increase in fat oxidation after meals (in both rats and humans).
Resistant starch forces the body to burn fat for energy supply by inhibiting glucose in humans.
A reduction in fat production in the body while increasing phospholipids, the main component of cell membranes.
Resistant starch reduces appetite
Consuming resistant starch increases levels of the appetite-reducing hormone peptide YY (PYY), which promotes satiety.
A study of 20 healthy people discovered that eating resistant starch over 24 hours lowered food consumption substantially. Even when the food intake was lower, there was no connection between food consumption and the subjects’ appetite assessment.
Nutritional fractions of starch expressed
As mean ± SD
| Starch source | RS (%) | Non RS (%) | pH | Moisture content (%) | Solubility (%) 20o 70o | WHC (%) | |
| Corn | 1.44b ± 0.03 | 91.11b ± 1.2 | 6.43b ± 0.1 | 10.09b ± 0.8 | 0.50a ± 0.2 | 3.81a ± 0.2 | 69.24a ± 1.2 |
| Rice | 0.31a ± 0.05 | 92.05c ± 0.7 | 6.83d ± 0.0 | 10.03b ± 0.2 | 0.75a ± 0.1 | 3.53a ± 0.4 | 99.99d ± 1.3 |
| Wheat | 1.07a ± 0.07 | 90.07b ± 1.2 | 6.62c ± 0.3 | 12.68c ± 0.9 | 1.28b ± 0.4 | 3.27a ± 0.1 | 82.75b ± 1.5 |
| Cassava | 1.77b ± 0.05 | 91.61b ± 1.1 | 4.86a ± 0.1 | 9.29a ± 0.8 | 2.43c ± 0.2 | 16.46c ± 0.1 | 91.42c ± 1.2 |
| Potato | 69.59c ± 1.77 | 22.21a ± 1.3 | 7.26e ± 0.5 | 18.06d ± 1.4 | 1.18b ± 0.1 | 11.21b ± 0.9 | 83.60b ± 1.6 |
Raw potato starch contains by far the highest proportion of resistant starch and has the lowest glycemic index. Cassava has the next highest percentage of resistant starch, followed by corn, wheat and rice.
How to increase resistant starch to Type 3 in your meal
1. Boil and cool carbohydrates
When foods with resistant starch are cooked, the starch loses its digestive resistance. However, there are cooking methods that will maintain the resistant starch content. When starch, rich in amylose, is heated in water, the starch particles absorb water and swell.
After the cooked starch has cooled down again, the starch (amylose) molecules rearrange their structures (crystallize) and become less digestible. This process is known as retrogradation.
Cooked and re-cooled starchy foods with resistant starch can be reheated at low temperatures (below 80 degrees) to maintain their proportion of resistant starch
2. Baked Potatoes vs Boiled Potatoes
Baking does not degrade starch in the same way that cooking does. Chilled potatoes (4 degrees) contain more resistant starch than hot potatoes (65 degrees) or reheated potatoes (stored for 6 days at 4 degrees and reheated to 65 degrees).
The chilled potatoes contain retrograded starch, which is less digestible than cooked starch
3. Cooked and cooled rice
Steaming, cooking in a pressure cooker, and hot rice produce higher resistant starch than cooking. Cooling the rice after cooking increases the resistant starch content.
Final Thoughts
Consuming meals heavy in resistant starch will offer several health advantages. Although Cassava is a diverse root vegetable that is eaten all over the world. Cassava is a high-carbohydrate food that also contains fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
Cassava contains a high concentration of resistant starches, a kind of starch that does not digest and has properties similar to soluble fiber. Consuming meals enriched in resistant starch might offer several health advantages.
To begin with, resistant starch feeds the good bacteria in your stomach, which may aid in reducing inflammation and the promotion of digestive health.
Also, resistant starch has been investigated for its capacity to improve metabolic health and lower the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Owing to its ability to enhance blood sugar management, as well as its involvement in increasing fullness and decreasing hunger
The advantages of resistant starch seem promising, but it is crucial to recognize that several processing techniques may reduce the resistant starch concentration of Cassava.
Although cassava flour, for example, has less resistant starch than cassava root that has been cooked and chilled in its complete form.
Cassava is abundant in resistant starch, which is believed to help avoid certain metabolic disorders and promote intestinal health.
