Peter Attia

This is actually something that I learned in the prep for this podcast.

I didn't appreciate the temperature component of this.

So a resistant starch is a type of insoluble fiber where the word resistant is referring specifically to the fact that they resist digestion.

Now they're subdivided into five types, RS1 to RS5, which actually I think would really be a better car name, the Audi RS1 or the Audi RS5, but we'll put that aside for now.

But the most common types we encounter are RS1, RS2, and RS3.

So RS1 are the starches that are physically inaccessible to digestive enzymes in the GI tract.

They're typically found in whole grains, seeds, legumes, and other minimally processed foods that are high in fiber.

RS-2 are naturally resistant starch granules.

So they're present in raw potato starch, unripe green bananas, anybody's up for that, and some high amylose maize starches.

That's just a type of corn.

This is the type you're most likely to find in supplement form.

If you're looking to double down on RS-2, you're going to be buying an RS-2 supplement.

RS3s are known as retrograde starches because these are starches that have been cooked, which disrupts the starch structure, but then cooled, which causes the starch to retrograde into a crystalline form that resists digestion.

In practice, and by the way, again, this is not something I knew until a few weeks ago.

In practice, this looks like cooking your starchy food, like your potatoes or rice, and cooling them in the refrigerator overnight.

Now, it can be warmed up, but if it gets too hot, the resistant starch will break down.

So what's really interesting here is I'm the only person in my family, Nick, that loves eating cold food.

starchy food.

So if we have leftover mashed potatoes, if we have leftover potatoes of any kind, if we have leftover rice, I am simply too lazy to heat that stuff up.

So I'm always eating it cold, much to my wife's chagrin.