In Defense of Fiber: How Changing Your Diet Changes Your Gut Bacteria The Good Gut

[LivingwithFibro]

http://time.com/3936636/diet-gut-bacteria/

 

[adreno]

Here’s why fiber is so important to intestinal flora: gut your microbes feed on it and produce short-chain fatty acids, which get absorbed into the bloodstream and regulate the immune system and attenuate inflammation, Sonnenburg says. “That means if you’re not eating dietary fiber, your immune system may be existing in kind of a simmering pro-inflammatory state,” he says—the very state that predisposes us to different Western diseases. “Our diet and deteriorated microbiota are really a major piece of the puzzle in trying to understand why Western diseases are rising like crazy.”

 

[LivingwithFibro]

Hear Hear, Adreno!

 

[JPV]

Loading up on fiber-fortified processed foods isn’t likely a good way to increase the kind of fiber that benefits the gut. Studies done on single fibers—those, like inulin, which are added to foods—haven’t shown to have the same effects as fiber that occur naturally in whole foods. “All of the vegetables we’re encouraged to eat by our mothers and by the government guidelines, these are all filled with fiber, and filled with a diversity of fiber, and probably the best route for encouraging a diverse microbiota,” Sonnenburg says.

 

[paul80]

So for those on the Perfect Health Diet, how do you get most of your fibre, potatoes and rice?

 

[adreno]

So for those on the Perfect Health Diet, how do you get most of your fibre, potatoes and rice?

Letting it cool before you eat it will increase the resistant starch (RS) content substantially. RS is great food for your microbiome, in particular species which produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs).

 

[South]

Cooked and then cooled potatoes or rice, like @adreno mentioned, are good sources of resistant starch (either of these can then be reheated after cooling, without losing the resistant starch that had formed during cooling).

And there does seem to be talk here and there that eating these two cooked and cooled things works better than the powdered "potato starch", or other powdered fiber-like things - powdered resistant starch may break down too quickly, perhaps.

For anyone who doesn't have time to read the massive Resistant Starch thread on Phx Rising, there's a basic summary on the very first post in that thread, but back when it was written, the powder form of resistant starch was the big topic, so read that first page carefully to find info on the cooked-and-cooled actual, real rice or potatoes.

 

[Richard7]

for those interested in RS in rice this may be useful
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/03/low-calorie-healthy-rice-resistant-starch

 

[Little Bluestem]

Does anyone know if you get resistant starch when you cook and cool instant rice? Maybe it already has resistant starch since it has been parboiled, then cooled and dried.

 

[paul80]

for those interested in RS in rice this may be useful
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/03/low-calorie-healthy-rice-resistant-starch

That link says reheating after the cooling didn't reverse the process. I thought it did.

 

[South]

You CAN reheat cooled rice or cooled potatoes -- the reheating does not destroy the resistant starch that had formed when those foods had first cooled.