Comments on Cranky Fitness: Resistant Starch: Diet Potatoes??

I didn't know about this until AOL did an article ...

2008-10-29T12:38:00.000-04:00

I didn't know about this until AOL did an article on it. While the article doesn't say whether it HAS to be cooked it states that if you do cook them wait until they cool to eat them. It also stated that once you've cooked and cooled the resistant starch food DON'T reheat it because it causes the resistant starch content to plummet. here's a link to the page... http://www.aolhealth.com/diet/basics/carb-resistant-starch/page2

Well, after reading about the potatoes and resista...

2008-09-26T09:44:00.000-04:00

Well, after reading about the potatoes and resistant starch, I can now say that explains why my father ate literally mountains of potatoe salad (cooked & cubed potatoes cooled & mixed with radish slices, hard boiled eggs, mayo & mustard) - still does - and was the thinnest man I had ever seen for the amount he ate! Apparently he was doing something right!

As for the raw potatoes - has no one EVER heard of Rutebaga or Kohlrabi? Raw potatoes are VERY similar in taste & texture as those are. And - no - I'm not from Canada, raised from an infant to my current mid 40's in Michigan.

I purchased a big bag of HI-MAIZE 260 resistant st...

2008-09-07T13:38:00.000-04:00

I purchased a big bag of HI-MAIZE 260 resistant starch from Honeyville Foods (http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=640) and am just using it for the first time in a peach smoothie - one 3-serving size can of peaches in reduced-sugar pear syrup (I did not drain the syrup) one cup of 2% milk, 4 tablespoons HI MAIZE 260, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/8 tsp ground clove, and 1/4 tsp + a little more of ground cinnamon.

The three spices supposedly assist in lowering blood sugar, according to NUTRITION AND HEALING newsletter, and I like the taste.
So I'm sipping this smoothie as I type, and it's good.

Backing up a little, when I opened the package of HI MAIZE the first thing I noticed is that it isn't as grainy as I assumed it would be, but is the same texture as cornstarch - very fine and smooth if rubbed between the fingers. And with that revelation I remembered smething I read on a website or a book about insulin resistance, which was that the addition of raw cornstarch to our diet (in cold milk or drinks, I presume, since it is not to be cooked), it lowers blood sugar.

So we may ask is HI MAIZE "just" cornstarch wearing a different label?
I haven't researched that question but I will.

I do know that in many cases products that look alike aren't alike chemically, though they may appear so. And since HI MAIZE is called maize instead of corn, it probably is not corn. This maize may be, or have some genetic link with, the maize that nourished the ancient peoples of the Americas, and since their populations flourished over tens of thousands of years, the maize is pretty (no pun) amazing.

So I'll assume it's maize starch, not cornstarch. But I'm still going to do more research on the question.

Returning to the description of my smoothie, I can detect the uncooked starch, which reveals its presence in the same way uncooked cornstarch does --miniscule grains of grittiness that don't intrude on flavor and (to me) aren't unpleasant, but I know they're there. That's no problem for me as long as the starch does what it's supposed to -- it isn't digested in the small intestine but moves through it and acts in the large intestine as fiber, not digested starch. Now that IS amazing, and because fiber keeps blood sugar from rising, so they say, that means my considerable fat deposits for that rainy day that I'm sure is coming are being used for energy. Sounds good to me.

I checked some online sources for more info about what this stuff is.
If you want to look, the links are:

http://www.healthyeatingclub.com/info/articles/nutrients/resisstarch.htm

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/resistantstarch.htm

http://us.f831.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?action=folderv

http://www.crankyfitness.com/2008/03/resistant-starch-diet-potatoes.html

For more about healthy eating club (I'm not associated with it, just discovered it in my starch info search):

http://www.healthyeatingclub.org/who-are-we/index.htm

Now, to the question "is there any discernible effect that I notice after drinking less than 1/2 of the smoothie?"

Yes, I feel extremely full. That may or may not be the starch, because this morning I made a breakfast strata with the remains of a homemade blueberry cake, 4 eggs, and 2 cups of milk (2%). We each ate about 1/4 of the result. We'll give 1/3 of the remaining portion to the raccoon that visits us every day, and will split the rest for dessert after supper.

My hope is, of course, that HI MAIZE will be my silver bullet, but slimming down is still about portion size.

One thing that I gleaned from my minimal research today is that the beneficial effect, if I use HI MAIZE every day, will be that my body will continue burning fat constantly around the clock, whether I use HI MAIZE at EVERY meal or not. Now that's quite a claim and I hope it's true. I'm not sure who much one should use per day. That may be an open question at this time.

We'll see. I've just examined the remnant of the smoothie: it's thicker than when it was 10 minutes old, so there is some increase in the size of the fiber granules from the liquid in the drink, and that may be part of the fat-burning stimulus too -- if I can't hold anymore due to having consumes lots of fiber, I'm not consuming calories. If that's what's happening, and I think it may be because I'm VERY full, the raw starch trick works for me, whether corn is maize, or maize is corn.

Should someone try to duplicate this experiment using cornstarch? Probably. Will I? Not until I've gone through this bag of HI MAIZE that I bought as a substitute for some of the flour in Peter Reinhart's wonderful recipes so that I can eat bread without guilt!

Have any of you guys being paying attention. For g...

2008-08-24T21:52:00.000-04:00

Have any of you guys being paying attention. For goodness sake. You are all responding as if we are supposed to eat RAW potatoes. Anyone with half a brain cell would have read it properly and done a little research themselves...you cook the potato, let it cool, out it in the fridge and eat it over the coming days.,..COOKED BUT COOLED...not raw. You can have it with a tuna pasta salad..just add in the diced cooled potato. It's not rocket science guys. Gee, no wonder this world is full of illinformed people. Annie

It is amazing to me that so many people can read a...

2008-06-28T14:12:00.000-04:00

It is amazing to me that so many people can read and comment on this article by Prevention and totally miss the fact that it is only cold potatoes that have enough resistant starch to make a difference. So potatoes in your stew pot, mashed with garlic and butter, or cut into sticks and fried are all still out! I've been doing this for a couple of days now (not a long time, I know), but I've already noticed that I eat a lot fewer calories and have not had the blood sugar spikes and subsequent plummets that I normally do when I eat potatoes or pasta. In addition, I've found that at room temp I can enjoy many of the foods that I normally consume heated. But I've been reading the research on resistant starch and wanted to mention another caution: if your meal also contains high amounts of fat, the benefits of resistant starch are substantially lower.

Anyway, I hope it doesn't turn out to be just hype because I have five kids to feed and low-carb can get really expensive!

I think what needs to be really stressed about the...

2008-06-24T11:37:00.000-04:00

I think what needs to be really stressed about the benefits of eating resistant starches is that the food must be cold!!!

Once you re-heat the food the benefits are reduced largely.

I eat resistant starches (which are cold), and I've seen some benefits. Also, I feel I am not as hungry. I generally don't eat a lot of meat, and eats lots of green vegetables with my starches. I also take it with a digestive enzyme (which have been a life save - my digestion has never been better).

I really don't think of resistant starches as a diet - rather, it is how everyone should eat. My father is a diabetic, and since eating digestive enzymes, pre & probiotic foods, and taking fish oil - his blood sugar readings have been more or less normal.

In sum, I think the key is to eat a balanced, whole food (and as raw as possible to maintain as much of the enzymes as possible) diet (which include resistant starches) that can be properly digested where any waster/toxins are eliminated regularly from your system.

OK -- I posted a little too quickly. Terrie indica...

2008-03-16T14:47:00.000-04:00

OK -- I posted a little too quickly. Terrie indicated that she is a diabetic and mentioned her blood sugar elevation after eating potatoes.

You might talk to a diabetic (and there may well b...

2008-03-16T14:43:00.000-04:00

You might talk to a diabetic (and there may well be some among the readers/responders to this post) about the effects of white potatoes on their blood sugar levels. A good friend who is diabetic says that a baked potato negatively impacts (i.e., raises) his blood sugar levels far more than a Snickers bar or other high-sugar food item. If it sounds too good to be true....

"Mankind has been eating potatoes, corn and rice a...

2008-03-12T14:28:00.000-04:00

"Mankind has been eating potatoes, corn and rice as a major dietary staple since we climbed out of the primordial ooze."

This is not even remotely true. Corn and rice are seeds and were only available seasonally, and then only in small quantities, until the advent of agriculture and storage about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The date on which we climbed out of the primordial ooze is somewhat open to intepretation, but it was on the order of millions of years ago. Before year-round availability of seeds, we ate primarily fish, game, and the other (non-seedy) parts of plants.

Poatoes, of course, are native to the Americas, and when we did crawl out of the primordial ooze, we did it in Africa. Again, the date of human arrival in the Americas is somewhat controversial, but the earliest I've ever seen is about 50,000 years ago.

Katieo - I'm sorry you didn't like it. I suppose r...

2008-03-11T10:05:00.000-04:00

Katieo - I'm sorry you didn't like it. I suppose raw turnip would be out of the question for you then, eh?
(Hilary, how could you say that!!?)

LR - you're right about the sedentary lifestyle, b...

2008-03-11T09:47:00.000-04:00

LR - you're right about the sedentary lifestyle, but we consume too many calories overall. Carbs are not evil (excepting for those dealing with diabetes). We've been through it all before. Everyone jumps on the high fiber, no fat, no sodium, no this, more that bandwagon and then science says ... well actually some this is good for you and even necessary, and too much that can cause other problems entirely.

Moderation is the key, as in all things.

This sounds more like propoganda from the grain in...

2008-03-11T05:24:00.000-04:00

This sounds more like propoganda from the grain industries most notably the corn folks. Almost everything is made from corn now. I found that when I cut out/down the corn foods and corn based sweeteners in particular, weight fell off me faster.

On a side note, can I get that potato picture on a t-shirt? That would be so cool.

It's a Bag Lady family conspiracy and I'm with Kat...

2008-03-11T01:37:00.000-04:00

It's a Bag Lady family conspiracy and I'm with Katieo.. raw potatoes are gross.

Bag Lady, I just tried it.It was gross.

2008-03-11T01:07:00.000-04:00

Bag Lady, I just tried it.

It was gross.

Mmmm, raw spuds! I try to limit myself to just one...

2008-03-10T20:46:00.000-04:00

Mmmm, raw spuds! I try to limit myself to just one or two bites when I am cutting them up to cook them. As for the study coinciding with the sudden availability of products containing resistant starch - that is too much of a co-winky-dink for me.

The Bag Lady urges all of you to go to your kitche...

2008-03-10T19:35:00.000-04:00

The Bag Lady urges all of you to go to your kitchens, peel a potato and eat it raw (with a little salt)!! C'mon people, live on the edge...
(Just make sure if there's any green parts, to cut that off, 'cause it tastes bad, and it's not good for you...)

I don't know about the starch thing, but the whole...

2008-03-10T17:34:00.000-04:00

I don't know about the starch thing, but the whole MUFA and Flat belly diet thing from prevention has worked great.

I'm sure potatoes and corn are fine in our diets -...

2008-03-10T16:59:00.000-04:00

I'm sure potatoes and corn are fine in our diets - but not processed into chips and topped with cheese. What you'll never read in a mag like Prevention is that if we would cut all the processed crap out of our diets most of us wouldn't have a weight problem. Or health problems. But then Prevention would have no advertisers.

McB, you're totally right that we've been eating p...

2008-03-10T16:06:00.000-04:00

McB, you're totally right that we've been eating potatoes and rice and corn for centuries and millennia. However, it's also true that we're much much more sedentary than our ancestors, so those same foods hit the midriff so much faster.

I think I might have to try this raw potato thing, since everyone seems to think it's so awesome. Maybe raw corn too (I'm soo looking forward to corn season, but it won't be for months and months...)

Going back to a previous Crabby/Merry post, I did make beets recently, with balsamic and salt and they were very tasty :)

Hmmm... I'm a little skepty too.... I have a hunch...

2008-03-10T15:33:00.000-04:00

Hmmm... I'm a little skepty too.... I have a hunch that if I ate cold potatoes and cold rice I would puff out and pack on some poundage.
I'd have to see some convincing evidence and decent 'before' and 'afters' to be willing to give this new concept a try....

I think this study sounds ridiculous, and is proba...

2008-03-10T15:24:00.000-04:00

I think this study sounds ridiculous, and is probably a ploy from the corn and potato farmers/distributors who have most likely been losing money due to the whole "low-carb" fad.

Similar to when they introduced the Canada food guide to tell you how many servings or different food groups you should be having, and it was recently revealed that the proportions of certain foods (like bread) were overemphasized because they were in surplus in the Canadian food market at the time....

Yes this comment makes me sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theorist... I know..

Breakthrough, my arse. I just love "studies." Ma...

2008-03-10T14:48:00.000-04:00

Breakthrough, my arse. I just love "studies." Mankind has been eating potatoes, corn and rice as a major dietary staple since we climbed out of the primordial ooze. Then scientists spent billions of dollars to tell us that the very stuff that has kept civilization going was suddenly bad for us. Now, billions more dollars later, they turnabout and say, oh, well maybe your primitive ancestors knew what they were doing all along. We need to stop researching, that's what we need to do. It just messes with everybody's head.

Raw potato slices, salted. Yum.

Great post! And really interesting comments too. ...

2008-03-10T14:07:00.000-04:00

Great post! And really interesting comments too. I am of the opinion, like Katieo, that if a food comes from nature (as opposed to in a box) then it's good for you. I love all plant foods! That said, I do eat potatoes, rice, corn etc. in moderation. But then these aren't binge foods for me either (helloooo ice cream!)

PS> Raw corn is the BEST. So much sweeter than when it is cooked.

Potatoes, bananas, rice - this sounds like my type...

2008-03-10T13:59:00.000-04:00

Potatoes, bananas, rice - this sounds like my type of diet. Now can I have the butter, cream and sweet and sour pork needed to accompany them?

Don't dis the Brussels sprouts! I love them. You...

2008-03-10T12:56:00.000-04:00

Don't dis the Brussels sprouts! I love them.

You've probably only had them overcooked and mushy. Ever tried them steamed to what restaurant menus call "crisp-tender" with a nice vinaigrette?

OK, so maybe you have and you still don't like them....