Resistant Starch Diet and WIC 4
A new buzz word is floating around in the nutrition and diet community: Resistant Starches! Studies are showing that eating plenty of these foods can help with weight loss, shrink fat cells, boost fat burning, increase muscle mass, control blood sugar, lower cholesterol, and increase feelings of fullness causing you to eat less calories overall. Sounds like a good thing to me.
So what is a resistant starch? Simply put, it’s a starch that’s resistant to digestion in the small intestine. Resistant starch is considered the third type of dietary fiber, as it can deliver some of the benefits of insoluble fiber and some of the benefits of soluble fiber.
Now what does this have to do with WIC? Well it looks like many of the foods that are naturally high in resistant starch are also WIC approved foods. Check out this list of food that Wikipedia cites as being high in resistant starch.
Examples of naturally-occurring resistant starch
Food | Serving Size | Amount of Resistant Starch (grams) |
|---|---|---|
| Navy beans | 1/2 cup cooked | 9.8 |
| Banana, raw | 1 medium, peeled | 4.7 |
| Cold potato | 1/2” diameter | 3.2 |
| Lentils | 1/2 cup cooked | 2.5 |
| Cold pasta | 1 cup | 1.9 |
| Pearl barley | 1/2 cup cooked | 1.6 |
| Oatmeal | 1 cup cooked | 0.7 |
| Wholegrain bread | 2 slices | 0.5 |
Potatoes made the list of resistant starch foods, and since potatoes are not a WIC approved food, no doubt the potato industry is going to be quick to point out one more reason they should be included on the WIC food list.
However, I must say it looks like WIC is doing a GREAT job making sure pregnant and nursing moms and young children have access to plenty of resistant starch foods! Beans, bananas, lentils, whole grain bread, and oats (in oatmeal and WIC approved cold cereals like Quaker Oat Squares) are all foods that WIC offers!
I’m in the middle of a lot of reading right now about ways to be healthier, which my reliance on WIC hinders the implementation of a healthier lifestyle. Here are some quickie blog posts that cover some things mentioned in the list of books I’m reading. Interesting stuff:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2010/11/whole-grains-cause-cavities/
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2010/07/what-white-rice-better-than-brown/
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2010/02/why-skim-milk-will-make-you-fat-and/
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Interesting stuff, I’d heard some of it. I’m not sure I agree with everything Price says but I do think he is more on track with nutritional health than our governments idea of what is healthy!
I’m not ready to give up a high fiber diet though. I will totally buy that fiber from fruits and veggies is better than fiber from grains but fiber from grains I think is better than not enough fiber at all and in our family if we didn’t get fiber from grains we would not get enough fiber from fruits and veggies. (just because we don’t have the best eating habits)
You aren’t going to believe this but when I was a breastfeeding peer counselor I went to a National WIC conference because it was being held in our town and Ramiel Nagel the dentist you were referring to in one of those articles I’m almost positive was one of our guest speakers. I can’t be 100% sure but that name sounds familiar and I know he was a dentist that was talking highly of Weston A Price.
Cassandra if you ever would like to make a guest post on here about any WIC foods I would be happy to publish it.
I’ve been thinking about it, there’s a lot of writing I’d love to do. Part not enough time, part not enough confidence in producing something actually good. Still having some issues with the PPD I guess :) I love what you’re doing here though, it needs to be out there.
Cassandra recently posted: Picture Time!
Different types of dietary fiber have different benefits. You should still eat a high fiber diet. It’s just that resistant starch – which is considered an insoluble dietary fiber – has particular benefits that other types of fiber don’t seem to have. It is fermented in the large intestine and produces short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These SCFAs trigger metabolism changes by increasing the production of hormones related to insulin sensitivity, and hunger. It increases insulin sensitivity and helps you to feel less hungry not only a few hours after you eat RS but also the next day. It’s probably one of the reasons why dietary consumption of cereal fiber correlates with reduced risk of diabetes (while fruit & veggie fiber does not). You need different fibers for different reasons.