A resistant starch experimenter shares his impressive American Gut Project results.

scum1 said...
Do you think just cold potato salad would work? Easy t o make or by and tasty right out of the fridge.

Scum1 - cooked and cooled potatoes are a good source of resistant starch, but according to tatertot, the amount seems to be far less than what you can get from raw potato starch:

1 tbsp of cooked + cooled potatoes = 1g resistant starch
1 tbsp of raw potato starch = 8g resistant starch

My recommendation is to use Bob's red mill potato starch for a more concentrated amount and work yourself up to an amount that your gut can tolerate.

aguywithuc said...
RS is a fantastically healthy maintenance med/food.

I use Navy beans but they are just problematic for most others. Dirt cheap at .89 cents per can and many other benefits.

During a flare your transit time is TOO FAST to benefit as the RS has no time to ferment. Fermenting is key.
Solution : Blend up pysllium seed powder, a little wheatgrass powder and Intestimine with water first thing out of bed. This converts to healing SCFA butyrate just like RS does.

Once your transit time is 12 or more hours again you can apply RS foods again. Surprising RS food that that works despite all the sweets is UDI's gluten free chocolate cookies and chocolate muffins they are based on tapioca starch and it gets pretty solid, its unusual having to push so much.

Because the Japanese can halt most flares by filtering out Neutrophils I capture their count in self-pay bloodwork every weekend, I was actually back in the lab looking at my blood through a microscope because the first test failed and I had to rush the next as I was seeing my GP the next morning who understands what I am doing. While taking green tea and NAC to bring down my Neutrophil count I tried ASACOL HD and it slashed it by 70% however it has since risen some. I checked and this effect is known and can be so pronounced the patient has to go off ASACOL HD. I feel much better on it.

The other big hit is QING DAI and it really makes a huge difference. I waited 2 weeks for it to arrive and felt so darn good ever since it did.

Now every time I alter the RS experiment by stopping it to see if it made a 'permanent' change to my flora I flare within a month or two because I am on no maintenance meds and eating all kinds of garbage since RS compensated for that.

New GI is not amused and so I am going stop being a lab rat and will finally have one maint med ASACOL HD plus maintenance chinese herb QING DAI and will NEVER stop RS diet again, it provides excellent protection as a maintenance med.

Things have been out of this world stressful as sales failed at work so they laid off half the IT people I am remaining to transition everything and wanted to move on since I never flared as their consultant but flared 4 times as their employee with too much non-stop 24x7 responsibility and impossible conditions.

Next my ex-wives new criminal boyfriend I never more nor spoke to called me up and threatened me so I had to step up my conceal carry license process and purchase some guns, laywers guns and money and this all happens when I was hosting Thanksgiving and single parent with full custody has me almost too busy to take care of my health - 2 to 3 hours sleep for weeks now.

Thank you for those tips.

1) Transit time is very important in the context of resistant starches. If you are going everyday with well formed poops, then you know something is working.

2) I can vouch for the maintenance part because I know patients who use resistant starches as their "maintenance" drug.

3) I'm sorry about the stress at work, and I hope things work out. :(

4) I really hope that you don't have to use firearms, but I'm sure it will be in self-defense if you do. I wouldn't take threats lightly either. You have the right to defend yourself when crap goes down.

Post Edited (StealthGuardian) : 12/1/2013 7:17:13 AM (GMT-7)

funkyskank said...
I'm absolutey new to this RS thing and I have to say I'm surprised. I have read so much stuff how starchy food is bad for your gut and now its not true? Now I'm in quite bad flare up, so I do not know if I can try it or not. Also, potato starch is something really extremely cheap, but it just seems weird to me, that someone with damaged gut would eat, uncooked, raw starch just out of the box? Am I missing something or is that really true? Well I would like to ask few question, hope someone will answer me.
1. Can I try this in flare up?
2. How much of potato starch to eat per day, eat it with other food, mix it in water, or how exactly do you use it?
3. Do you use it in dose or more doses per day?

4. What difference it makes if I cook potato and then eat when its still warm or when I eat it cold? I always thought cold food is not good for digestion.

5. I eat rice and I eat corn pasta, because they are gluten free, so should I now start to eat potatoes again, since the starch in potatoes is good?

Sorry if my questions are stupid, I'm just confused to find this info after all those years I read how starchy food "as potatoes" is bad for your gut.

Hi funkyskank -

Not all starches are created equal. There's a distinction between vegetable starches and other starches in the form of wheat, rice, etc in terms of the effect they have on our body and metabolism. It's true that refined grains are bad, but that's because they have zero fiber and lead to blood sugar spikes. We know from research that fermentable fiber from resistant starch food does the following: reduce glycemic load, improve satiety, reduce constipation, and provide a food source for gut bacteria. The end product of all this fermentation is butyrate, which is responsible for healing the lining of the gut. There is research showing that butyrate is the preferred fuel source for the colon, not glucose (or sugar).

As for it being weird, aren't we, in essence, doing the same thing with soluble fibers like psyllium or inulin? It's a little scary to me that we are depriving our bacteria of the food source they need to function. Some African populations eat so much resistant starch that they have bowel movements the size of heads. They also happen to have the best gut health in the world.

To answer your questions-

1) If you are flaring, I would start very slowly and see how your body reacts. Many people doing RS have worked their way up, so it's a gradual process for the body and the bacteria to adapt. Bananagirl had gas initially but then it settled, so that might be a sign of the bacteria adjusting to it. It might also be helpful to add psyllium and probiotics to help facilitate better digestion.

2) The optimal amount is 4 TBSP, but obviously this is the upper bound. I started with half a teaspoon and I'm working myself up to whatever amount my body can tolerate. You can mix it with anything so as long as it's under 130 degrees fahrenheit. Cooking it will kill the RS benefits, as it will absorb in the small intestine.

3) I just eat it once, but there is no limitation on the amount of times you can eat it. I think that it would be preferable to eat it with meals.

4) Bob's red mill potato starch isn't cold. I prefer to eat my food warm, but many eat foods cold. :)

Hope this helps.

StealthGuardian said...
4) I really hope that you don't have to use firearms, but I'm sure it will be in self-defense if you do. I wouldn't take threats lightly either. You have the right to defend yourself when crap goes down.

Me too just brandishing is a felony so I do not want this guy to force an error on my part. However getting on my daughters phone saying things to her then threatening me resulted in a letter to my ex cutting off her visitation because if he never met or spoke to me previously obviously she manipulated him. Now running around hiding behind a blank name is very telling either he still has a wife, he has a nasty criminal past ( they met at gun show when you could purchase without background checks ) or he hides his name so he can do things like this and not get slapped with a restraining order.

I will get to the bottom of it but with everything else going on it was the last thing I needed. However I had already completed the conceal carry class and had been without a gun for years so I did need a kick in the pants to get it all finished up. Got 2nd one for main floor today and glove box today exactly like first one and will be busy tomorrow. My daughter met him and he is 300 lbs and likely an ex-con so after Sandy Hook shooting this state was flooded with gun and CC requests and I realized EVERYONE is carrying so I need to level the playing field. All the guys at works said they had CC. This house is all walls-of-windows, changing door locks since ex was evicted in FEB and feeling like these were necessary steps to live with any real security. Flimsy locks and baseball bats just wont cut it any longer, not with a first class ex like I have. So nice she appreciates all I did for her. They deserve each other.

funkyskank said...
Hello thanks for reply. I'm going to buy some potato starch here in Europe, my only problem is that how can I know if they did not destroy the RS in during process of creating it from potatoes, but I guess I will have just to try and see if it works or not.
I already use psyllium, it makes my flare ups much more tolerable and also probiotics, so I will just add the starch to meal I eat after taking psyllium and see.

Funkyskank, there are many kinds of resistant starches, so it's really a matter of experimention. Aguywithuc had incredible results with navy beans, but it didn't work so well for me. I have better success with potatoes and plantains, but I'm sure that I'll be able to tolerate navy beans once I build my flora up to adequate levels. Many people are reporting positive results with potato starch.

I think potatoes are tolerated pretty well by the general population, so potato starch seems like a good fit. If you visit freetheanimal.com, you'll find that thousands of people are experimenting with potato starch now that the science is backing it up. I highly suggest you go there for additional information.

A fine citizen named tatertot passed this information to me. He's the lynchpin of this whole movement, and it's HUGE in the paleo community now. Even the great Mark Sisson changed his views on starches.

Post Edited (StealthGuardian) : 12/1/2013 2:33:43 PM (GMT-7)

Bought potato starch today and started wih one teaspoon mixed in water. Yesterday I tried one quite green banana and not sure if its that, but today its really crazy, been to toilet like 10x since morning, unripe bananas are probably nothing for me in flare up :) Will inform you how it goes with potato starch, the prize is really awesome, about $1 for 250g pack.

Post Edited (funkyskank) : 12/2/2013 8:00:57 AM (GMT-7)

SG, I'm glad you found my link. It was pretty straight forward and understanding. i liked the breakdown of so many foods because i didn't realize how many foods have RS.

sorry about that funkyskank!! i hope it was just a fluke. bananas and me always go together but i'm sure you have to find what RS foods work for you. i had a day over a week ago where i ate a cup of grapes after dinner and the next day you might of thought i was prepping for a colonoscopy. my butthole was on fire and i was walking weird all day because it hurt so bad. i haven't tried grapes again since adding in the RS but i don't even wanna attempt it right now haha

i've been pretty gassy the past few days. it's probably the RS plus all the cheese i've been eating. i don't normally eat cheese but i've been finishing up my thanksgiving gratin. i honestly don't mind it because they are all farts, not sharts, and they pass easily. i let out a real stinker yesterday morning and my mom and sister claimed they needed gas masks.

Its about two months since my doctor said to me i might have neutropania, did not know it might be something so serious :( Well I do not use asacol HD, just normal asacol and imuran. Should have another blood test in three days, but with flare up like this not sure if it will be possible to get there so early in the morning.

I had neutropenia in the hospital and wasnt allowed to leave my room. I had to wear a mask just to do my laps up and down the hallway. I have never taken asacol so im not sure what to blame mine on.

deltaforce said...

bananagirl said...
i have 1 green banana in the morning and 1 cold potato or sweet potato at night.

How do you eat this? (because I can not imagine eating it raw, it is essentially tasteless and plantain's astringent like feeling on my tongue bothers me.)

What is Bubbies? Is it kind of sauerkraut or something?


Whats the deal with potato starch or pasta should be cold for resistant starch benefit? What happens if you eat warm/hot pasta, for example (i.e. how you do not get resistant starch benefit, by just being warm/hot)?

@Stealth,
What are you using as iodine supplement?
The image that you have in your original post where the guy says, grains and legumes are a big no no. I am not too sure if I agree with him on legumes. Does he give any solid reason for it?

@aguywithuc,
Your ex is still driving you nuts? She must have a lot of time at her hands. Can't you get a restraining order against both of them, so that you don't have to pull firearm out at all (and there will be a record of threatening).

BTW, I read Gutbliss. Good book but I did not feel like I learned anything new from the book. I knew almost everything. Just reading the details more helps brushing up the memory. I strongly felt her endocrine system part is weak. She talks about women gut issues and hormones. I don't agree with a lot of things that she said in that chapter.
I have been taking butyrate 3X a day. Do not see any external benefits, except a lot of tooting, but I hope its working (along with psyllium seed powder).

Hi DeltaForce,

1) Bubbies is a famous sauerkraut brand sold @ organic food stores. They sell fermented pickles as well. I think it's generally considered one of the legitimate sauerkraut brands since most are without live cultures.

2) It's only considered a resistant starch if it bypasses digestion and goes to the large intestine. Cooked pasta and potatoes absorb in the small intestine, with some amount of resistant starch going to the colon. When these things cool down, there's a process called retrogradation that increases the RS content. Raw potato starch (along with plantain flour) is categorized as RS2 while cooked and cooled potato starch is RS3. Generally RS2 is richer and a better source of RS than RS3.

3) I'm supplementing with potassium iodide capsules. There doesn't seem to be an upper limit on it, and I think our diets (and soil quality) make most of us deficient in it anyways. Lugols iodine seems to be the gold standard, however, so I may just switch to that.

4) I think legumes are a gray area in the paleosphere. Paul Jaminet, the author of that diet, considers legumes as toxin-rich foods with the exception of peas and green beans. I really do think that it's an individual thing and there are some really good brands out there like Eden Navy Beans, which is soaked and organic. Here's what he said about it:

Most foods haven’t been thoroughly evaluated for toxins, so there’s some guesswork. But on a gross level, if you feed the beans (kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, soybeans, you name it) raw to animals, they’ll get extremely sick or die. We list a bunch of examples in the book. Toxins include not only lectins but alpha amylase inhibitors, trypsin inhibitors, cyanogenic glycosides, and others. Cooking somewhat detoxifies them, but not entirely. Peanuts and peanut oil are also problematic. Some vetches cause irreversible paralysis from neurotoxins.

On the other hand, I’ve never heard of anyone, human or animal, dying from peas. We eat peas a lot, including snow peas and sugar snap peas. Likewise green beans, although much less often than peas.

So, yes, just like white rice is an exception to the “don’t eat grains” rule, peas are an exception to the “don’t eat legumes” rule.

Best, Paul

5) I agree with you about gutbliss. I would only recommend it to those who are newly diagnosed or those who want take a more integrative approach to tackling the disease. I certainly could have used the book when I was diagnosed 10 years ago - would have saved me a lot of time, money and suffering.

Post Edited (StealthGuardian) : 12/2/2013 7:30:22 PM (GMT-7)

Thank you guys for the info.
I used to buy sauerkraut in the tin and thought, it should be fine. No wonder why they sell it so cheap... I will look into this bubbies brand.

I am just scratching my head, how I can make everyone at home eat this kind of diet. DS, 5, is picky as hell, sending something down his throat for the first time is a battle and I want him to eat this kind of diet. Thanks to the school, he is so fond of eating junk (actually thats the only thing they eat at school). If anyone has suggestions, I welcome them. Bananagirl's smoothie trick is good but it got to taste good, otherwise I have tough time ahead.

@aguywithuc,
Good Luck man, I can not imagine going through such stuff in my life. I am glad you are holding up. Hope you have enough support from the family and friends.

very helpthful sg -

tanks a bunch ;-)