While bananas are recognized for giving various health benefits, including an increase in potassium, that isn't the only unexpected side effect you'll see when eating them. In reality, eating bananas can offer your body a chemical called resistant starch, which aids digestion and keeps you feeling full.
Here's why resistant starch is important in your diet.
What is resistant starch?
The latest hip kid on the carbohydrate block is resistant starch. It reduces blood sugar after meals, feeds beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiome, and assists weight loss by slowing digestion and keeping us fuller for longer.
Resistant starches are part of a larger category of carbs known as low-digestion carbohydrates (LDC), which aren't completely digested. Fiber and sugar alcohols are examples of other LDCs. In fact, due to a lack of absorption, foods high in resistant starch supply half the calories of their typical starchy equivalents, according to some research.
Resistant starch is a carbohydrate that acts more like fiber than a carbohydrate. This starch gets its name from the fact that its strong outer wall genuinely "resists" digestion. This digestive resistance has a significant role in hunger and has downstream consequences on appetite and blood sugar levels.
"Resistant starch is not digested and goes unmodified through the GI system, acting as a prebiotic and soluble fiber," says Kate Gerweck, MS, RD, LD. "Banana resistant starch has been examined about bowel health and has been proven to considerably enhance stool quality, reducing reports of painful, cracked, or hard stool, improving bowel frequency, and reducing medication use."
The cook-and-cool method is commonly used to produce good resistant starch. Cooked potatoes, for example, do not contain resistant starch. Cooking and cooling potatoes overnight in the fridge, on the other hand, produces resistant starch. Bananas are unique in that they do not require cooking to gain the benefits of their resistant starch!
When you eat greener bananas, you get more resistant to starch.
Bananas are special in that the benefits of their resistant starch content must be consumed when they are still green. Green bananas have a gritty aftertaste, which is caused by resistant starch. When a banana turns yellow or develops brown specks, the starch content decreases and is replaced by sugars. For this reason, brown bananas are famous for making wonderful banana bread! While eating a plain green banana may suit some of us, we can conceal the chalky flavor by blending it into a smoothie.
What are the health benefits of resistant starch?
Researchers have discovered that resistant starch has a positive impact on three major bodily systems. The first is insulin resistance and blood sugar management.
"The most undervalued item in a blood sugar diet is resistant starch," says Kelly Schmidt, RD. "Resistant starches should be highlighted since their advantages support overall wellbeing, including gut health and insulin sensitivity."
Because nearly half of the carbohydrates in resistant starch are not digested, they never reach the bloodstream to cause blood glucose to surge! If you've been diagnosed with diabetes or insulin resistance, adding this amazing molecule to your diet could help! According to studies, eating up to 40 grams of resistant starch per day can help people with metabolic syndrome improve their insulin sensitivity!
The effects of resistant starch on the gut microbiome are a second developing field of investigation. The GI tract is home to a four-billion-strong army of bacteria that controls many aspects of metabolic health, including weight loss, hunger signals, and cravings.
Eating meals that enhance the diversity of beneficial bacteria in our gut is the greatest strategy to create a healthy gut microbiome. Prebiotic foods are what they're called. Prebiotics nourish the healthy bacteria in our stomach, allowing them to outnumber the bad over time. Include foods high in resistant starch to achieve this balance!
"A banana's resistant starch functions as a prebiotic, meaning it feeds the healthy bacteria. Blood sugar levels have been linked to increased gut flora balance, "Lacy Ngo, RD MS, agrees.
The third method resistant starch benefits your health is by regulating your appetite. Because this starch is resistant to digestion, it slows stomach emptying. Our hunger signals are prolonged for hours after consuming a meal or snack high in resistant starch due to this. Choosing slow-digesting foods will keep us full for hours, allowing us to make better choices at our next meal and, overall, lowering our total daily caloric consumption.
To summarize, eating foods high in resistant starch keeps us fuller for longer, has half the calories of other carbohydrates and may help us consume fewer calories in a day? It sounds like a weight-loss magic trick.
This little-known starch can help you achieve your goals, whether you're aiming to lose weight, enhance your gut health, or boost your metabolic health.