What is resistant starch (RS)?
Health conscious people seek to protect their health by eating foods high in fibre. In bygone days, high-fibre diets were a way of life, but with one important difference – the diets of our ancestors included a particular kind of dietary fibre that is largely missing from modern foods – this missing fibre is resistant starch (RS).
Resistant Starch, or RS, is a type of starch which contributes to our intake of dietary fibre.
Like other fibres, it resists digestion in the human small intestine and makes its way to the large bowel. However, unlike other types of dietary fibre which largely act as bulking agents, RS delivers most of its benefits by providing fuel for the resident bacteria and encouraging a healthy intestinal microflora. It is the products of these bacteria – in particular a substance called butyrate – that helps maintain bowel health. By nourishing these bacteria, RS can be regarded as a fibre with prebiotic effects.
In other words, RS is an important type of dietary fibre with large bowel and general health promoting properties as a result of its interaction with large bowel microflora.
