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Potato starch

In the paper I linked to earlier, there is a chart of a few foods with their proportions of rapidly digested starch and the various types of resistant starch.

Canned kidney beans stand out as having a lot of resistant starch.
They have 25% rapidly digested starch, 15% rs2 (that's naturally occurring resistant starch) and 60% rs3 (that's retrograded and formed by the canning process, ie heating, autoclaving and then cooling the starch)
That accounts for their very low GI . I suspect though that if you put them in a chilli con carne and cook them for some time then themoist heat would reverse some of the retrograding. This would in turn account for why some people find that they have a bigger influence on glucose levels than others.
 
Cblake843 said:
I couldn't find any potato starch in my local supermarkets last night, I will widen my search over the weekend. I have read also that unripe (green) bananas contain a fair amount of resistance starch, I'll be trying one or two over the upcoming weekend. I have eaten any type of banana in ~ 2 years due to my low carb regime.
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If your still experiencing insulin resistance despite dropping saturated fat from your diet why don't you ask your consultant about Metformin, I know of one member on here who experienced the same as you and after going on a high dose of Metformin this helped with the problem.
 
Got a bag of potato starch , 1 Kg for 1.50 Euros from a nearby Asian market. The experimentation starts tomorrow, you've got try everything once (with some notable exceptions)

If your still experiencing insulin resistance despite dropping saturated fat from your diet why don't you ask your consultant about Metformin, I know of one member on here who experienced the same as you and after going on a high dose of Metformin this helped with the problem.
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Thanks for the advice Noblehead. My morning readings don't qualify as insulin resistance to my Doctor or probably to most forum members . This morning I woke up at 4.3 mmol , cycled 9 miles to work and was still at 4.3 mmol , before lunch and after 2.5 units humalog with breakfast I was at 5.4. It get pretty much the same readings during the working week if I stick to the same regime. Weekend results are better as I'm not stuck behind a desk all day.
 
Cblake843 said:
Not sure where this post belongs ....

I've read on numerous sites that potato starch can be beneficial to diabetics , i.e. 3-4 teaspoons a day can improve insulin sensitivity and even lower blood sugar significantly. Looking at all the various potato starch products they all seem extremely high in carbohydrates.

Does anyone have any experience of this or can recommend any particular products or is potato starch the same i.e high carb.
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All I know about potato starch is that it is added to ready grated cheese to stop it clumping together
 
I wrote ""starch is a carbohydrate. It doesn't matter the source" not to be reactioary, but because I get frustrated by the lack of understanding of what molecules are. Starches are made up of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen bonded together. There are many various units from which starches can be built They all have some fatures in common .. That does not change the fact that starches are carbohydrates. Whole foods like potatoes, or cereals ARE NOT CARBOHYDRATES. They contain carbohydrates. It's a matter of scientific language and definitions. What I wrote isn't reactionary, it's Biological Chemistry or Molecular Biology.
Hana
 
Cblake843 said:
Thanks for the advice Noblehead. My morning readings don't qualify as insulin resistance to my Doctor or probably to most forum members . This morning I woke up at 4.3 mmol , cycled 9 miles to work and was still at 4.3 mmol , before lunch and after 2.5 units humalog with breakfast I was at 5.4. It get pretty much the same readings during the working week if I stick to the same regime. Weekend results are better as I'm not stuck behind a desk all day.
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I can't really see why you would want to change things as far as insulin sensitivity is concerned, your already on low doses and I can't for the life of me think why including potato starch in your diet is going to make a huge difference, in your shoes I would leave well alone.
 
I'm now on day 5 taking potato starch , I'm currently taking one tablespoon ~ 40 grams a day. The 'gas' side effects are highly unpleasant but only seem to come in to play after a hot meal in the evening, not sure why. No notable change in blood sugars. I'm going to give it another 10 days.
 
Thanks for the good links here. One of Mark Sisson's basic planks of his primal (paleo) diet is eating stuff that metabolises indirectly via gut fermentation, rather than directly metabolises. So this is a small subgroup of starch that needs gut fermentation. Should improve GI and general gut health. I doubt that the potato approach would work for me as cold and raw potato disagree with me violently. A 'nightshade' problem perhaps. But beans or other sources of resistant starch could be useful.

Well done CBlake for being the guinea pig.
 
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