Discussion Board

I've been wondering the same thing...can't wait to see answer...

Potatoes and rice are not fattening so cold potatoes and cold rice are not less fattening.



In Health
Jeff

Why?

There is no problem with them warm.

Enjoy them as you like them, hot, warm or cold.

In Health
Jeff

Reliable in what way?

Potatoes and brown rice are excellent foods.

Eating them cold does not make them "more" excellent.

The whole point of the argument is off-base and is focusing on a minutia that is irrelevant to anyone following this WOE.

In Health
Jeff

How so?

There is a lot of hype out there about resistant starch, most of it has nothing to do with someone who is following the guidelines and principles recommended here.

A cooked baked potato has about 1 gram of RS per 100 grams. Increase that by 10% and you have 1.1

Cooked Brown Rice has 1.7 per 100 grams. increasing that by 10% and you have 1.87.

You said above that this is important to you in regard to, "someone who wants to lose weight." Well, the impact of this 10% would be miniscule and not relevant.

Let's take a closer look.

RS is still absorbed and yields calories but instead of the it yielding 4 cal/gram, it yields about 2 cal/gram.

Even if you consumed nothing but hot potatoes, 2000 grams would be 1860 calories. The 2000 grams would yield 20 grams of resistant starch. If you cooled the potatoes and increased the yield of RS 10%, you now have 22 grams of RS, not 20. You have 2 more grams. And those 2 grams would now yield 2 calories each and not 4. So, 2 grams x 2 calories each is 4 calories, so you would have reduced the total caloric load of the diet by 4 calories.

If you run the numbers on a 2200 calorie diet consuming nothing but brown rice, the difference will be 3.4 grams of resistant starch, and the calories saved would be 6.8

As you can see, the reduction in total calories of the food is miniscule, even if you ate nothing but cooked potatoes or brown rice.

However, understanding the principles and guidelines of calorie density, would be more important.

The average calorie density of brown rice and potatoes is about 500 cal/lb. Now, all you are talking about is increasing the amount of RS by 10% and thus, reducing a small portion of the calories absorbed.

In regard to calorie density, even if you could reduce the absorption of "all" the calories in the brown rice and the potatoes by 10%, they would now be 450 cal/lb, which is still in the exact same "range" of calorie density as before and would not have an impact to anyone following the guidelines and principles of calorie density.

Therefore, again, the impact of temperature on the RS is miniscule to anyone following this WOE..



In Health
Jeff

In Health
Jeff

Super duper fun info!! I love hearing about all this stuff!!! You sound like me with a lot of your questions Phoenix!!
Thanks for asking this question And thank you Jeff for always answering so thoroughly

Someone PM'd me and asked if I would comment on beans. They said beans are being touted as the food highest in RS, making up about 30% of the calories and so using beans would make a larger difference as you would only get about 70% of the calories listed.

Let's take a closer look at beans and RS.

First, most all my previous comments above apply, as you will see.

Second, to be accurate, as there are many numbers circulating on the internet about the amount of RS in foods, we will use the the current Standard Reference for Resistant Starch, which comes from this study.

Resistant starch intakes in the United States. J Am Diet Assoc. 2008 Jan;108(1):67-78.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18155991

It compiled the data on RS from many studies. It also pointed out how earlier methods of calculating RS were not accurate and used animal models, test tube analysis, etc etc and how they have tried to correct for all of this. That is why there may be varying numbers out there and why we will use the Standard Reference.

So, knowing there are some limitations on the numbers and how they are analyzed and calculated, here is the info on beans and the amount of RS per 100 grams.

Legumes - Amount of RS per 100 grams

Beans, black/brown, cooked/canned - 1.7
Beans, kidney, cooked/canned -2.0
Beans, mung, cooked- 1.6
Beans, pinto, cooked- 1.9
Beans, white, cooked/canned -4.2
Chickpeas, cooked/canned- 2.6
Cowpeas, cooked - 0.6
Lentils, cooked- 3.4
Lima beans, cooked/canned- 1.2
Peas, mature, cooked/canned - 2.6

The average of these is 2.2 grams of RS per 100 grams.

However, lets use a "best case" scenario and use one of the higher foods tested, lentils, so we really see how big the impact of RS is and how the numbers work out.

Lentils are 3.4 grams of RS per 100 grams, which is about 1/2 cup and about 116 calories. The 3.4 grams would yield about 13.6 calories if it was totally digestible. That means 12% of their calories are RS, which they say you do not absorb. Subtracting that amount from the total would lower the calorie value from 116 to 102.4

However, RS yields about 2 calories per gram so using the 2 calories per gram, instead of lowering the calories value 12%, it would only lower it 6% and the calories would go from 116 to 109.

Some actual studies have shown that RS actually yields 2.2 to 2.8 calories per gram.

("Resistant starch averaged 2.8 kcal/g for all 24 subjects but only 2.2 kcal/g in the hyperinsulinemic subjects" Resistant starch as energy. J Am Coll Nutr. 1996 Jun;15(3):248-54.)

So, if we used the 2.8 cal/gram, the calorie yield would only be lowered from 116 to 111.9, which is only 3.6%

And, that is a "best case scenario" using one of the higher legumes tests. However, according to the Standard Reference, the actual average amount of RS in beans is only about 2.2 grams per 100 grams, or about 2.2 grams per 1/2 cup cooked. So, the impact would be much lower.

On average, 100 grams of cooked beans is about 1/2 cup and about 115 calories and contains 2.2 grams of RS. The 2.2 grams of RS would yield 4.4 calories instead of 8.8 and so lower the total calories from 115 to 110.6, or about 3.8%.

At 2.8 calories per gram of RS, the 2.2 grams of RS would yield 6.16 calories instead of 8, lowering the total from 115 to 113.16 or about 1.6%

In Health
Jeff


PS From the SR Database, here is the RS in 100 grams of other recommend foods

Potatoes, baked -1.0
Potatoes, boiled -1.3
Pasta, whole-wheat, cooked- 1.4
Rice, brown, cooked- 1.7
Barley, pearled, cooked -2.4
Buckwheat groats, cooked- 1.8
Millet, cooked- 1.7
Pita, wheat- 1.3
Whole-wheat bread -1.0
Tortillas, corn- 3.0
Sweet potatoes, cooked- 0.7
Yam, cooked -1.5

Jeff
I really love that explanation.
I have wondered many times about the hype over resistant starch and stressed about the fact that legumes are just not great for my system.
Thanks

I'm a little baffled about the info presented here re resistant starch - because the only studies, articles, etc. I've come across have been that cold potatoes, rice, beans etc. contain more resistant starch which minimized blood sugar spikes. Not making you gain or lose weight. But maybe it's because in the absence of resistant starch there is necessarily more insulin produced to deal with the glucose.

There are many health claims being made for resistant starch which include both blood sugar control and weight management.

Weight management is one of the often cited & commonly touted benefits

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistan ... #section_3

http://www.resistantstarch.com/Resistan ... anagement/

In Health
Jeff

Pardon my dumbness, but what is starch restitant and why does it even matter.?

If you notice, neither Dr McDougall nor I have made a big deal out of it. The reason is, just like as with fiber, if you are following the guidelines & principles recommended here, you are getting it in and getting its benefit. It's just another aspect of eating a healthy diet they have identified.

This article gives a brief overview.

In Health
Jeff




Resistant starch: metabolic effects and potential health benefits.

Authors
Higgins JA.
Journal
J AOAC Int. 2004 May-Jun;87(3):761-8.

Affiliation
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Center for Human Nutrition, Box C225, 4200 E. Ninth Ave, Denver, CO 80222, USA. Janine.Higgins@UCHSC.edu

Abstract
Although there is strong evidence that the amount and type of fat in the diet can have dramatic effects on metabolism, the case for carbohydrate subtypes influencing metabolic parameters is emerging. By definition, resistant starch (RS) is any starch that is not digested in the small intestine but passes to the large bowel. Here, RS is a good substrate for fermentation which gives rise to an increase in short-chain fatty acid production. The differing rates of absorption between RS and digestible starch are thought to denote their differential metabolic responses. RS intake is associated with several changes in metabolism which may confer some health benefits. RS intake seems to decrease postprandial glycemic and insulinemic responses, lower plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, improve whole body insulin sensitivity, increase satiety, and reduce fat storage. These properties make RS an attractive dietary target for the prevention of diseases associated with dyslipidemia and insulin resistance as well as the development of weight loss diets and dietary therapies for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. This review analyzes the body of literature examining the metabolic effects of RS consumption and discusses possible mechanisms whereby increased short-chain fatty acid production in the bowel could account for some of these effects. The effects of RS in the large bowel per se are the topic of other reviews and are not addressed in this paper.

PMID 15287677 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]