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Are Starches Good or Bad?

What comes to mind when you hear the word “starches,” or “starchy foods”? For most people, it’s probably processed food — especially bread products like dinner rolls, crackers, and cookies. But there are also many whole, unprocessed foods that are high in starch: rice, corn, quinoa, and potatoes, for example. In fact, most traditional human diets have been centered around starches.

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Articles of Interest

Are Starchy Foods Healthy? Know What Experts Say

Foods with starch are replete with nutrition and are part of a regular diet worldwide. Foods like legumes, whole grains, winter squash, rice, and potato are rich in starches, along with fiber and other essential nutrients. Some starches are resistant to digestion (or digest slowly) and help improve satiety and suppress hunger. Resistant starch, along with fiber, helps improve gut health and ease digestion. But are all starchy foods healthy?

Ask the Expert: Legumes and Resistant Starch

The high level of both starch and dietary fiber raises a very interesting question. If most of the carbohydrate is made of starch, how can legumes be such good sources of dietary fiber? Isn’t all starch rapidly digested to glucose? This was the prevailing view of starch until the 1980s, when two English researchers, Hans Englyst and John Cummings discovered that not all starch is rapidly digested to glucose in the small intestine.

Cutting Carbs? Don’t Say ‘No’ to These Starchy Foods

“Simple carbs (other than fruits and milk) should be avoided in the diet. Complex carbs should prevail,” says Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD. The difference in the two is directly related to fiber. Because your body can’t digest fiber, it slows your digestion, which can help with weight loss.

Is Starch a Beneficial Nutrient or a Toxin? You Be the Judge

There are literally billions of people eating high-starch diets worldwide, and you can find many examples of cultures that consume a large percentage of calories from starch where obesity, metabolic problems and modern, inflammatory disease are rare or nonexistent.

What Is Bad About Starches Medically?

Starches are a complex carbohydrate, which were thought to be better than simple carbohydrates, such as sugars. However, some starches can actually be worse for your health than sugar.

Resources

4 Starches That Don’t Belong on Your Plate

While not all starches are bad, eating too many processed starches can stall your weight loss progress, our dietitians say. Here are four kinds to avoid...