Some of the health benefits of Resistant Starch foods include:

• They act as natural laxatives. They are not digested and absorbed, so they add weight, and bulk absorbing water to the waste material in our large intestine.
• They aid reabsorption of minerals including calcium back into our cells, and they help the microflora of our G.I. tract stay healthy (this aids our immune system and absorption of nutrients!).
• They also increase transit time of solid foods through our intestines (a healthy thing) which means they usually help us to eliminate more often. This can be especially helpful if we have a " sluggish system" (We also need to drink more water when we eat more fiber, otherwise we may experience constipation). A few other benefits of insoluble fibers are,
• 
  They slow down the digestion of other starches, delaying rapid blood glucose absorption into our blood while not adding to it's rise.
  They can also help prevent digestive ailments such as diverticulosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and constipation by adding weight and increasing transit time, thus lowering internal pressure through our large intestine.
• 
  They also are hypothesized to help lower colon cancer risk by increasing the removal of solid waste material from our bodies, protecting us from bacterial build-up (one possible anti cancer mechanism).
• 
  They also aid fatty acid oxidation (this means that these fibers aid our using our fat for energy!!)

The foods:

Navy beans 1/2 cup cooked 9.8 grams
Banana, raw 1 medium, peeled 4.7 grams
Cold potato 1 2” diameter 3.2 grams
Lentils 1/2 cup cooked 2.5 grams
Cold pasta 1 cup 1.9 grams
Pearl barley 1/2 cup cooked 1.6 grams
Oatmeal 1 cup cooked 0.7 grams
Wholegrain bread 2 slices 0.5 grams

So, let's not forget to include these healthy carbohydrate rich foods in our daily eating plan.

Here's to Mother Nature's pharmacy!

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