Why Probiotics May Often Not Be Enough for Healthy Microbiomes: The Necessity of Prebiotics Like Resistant Starch

One of the latest nutritional discoveries that only recently began gaining good press and widespread awareness is something called resistant starch, or sometimes known as safe starch. This is a food quality, and it’s not relegated to one food - several different foods fall into this category. Resistant starch has been studied with increasing awareness of its ability to serve as a prebiotic, a fermentation fiber food source for friendly bacteria in the intestinal or gut flora. The results of an enhanced microbiome, in turn, lead to greater immunity to disease and improved overall health. Several different carbohydrate plant foods contain resistant starch. And some are enhanced with resistant starch by cooling after cooking. If it were not for the increased awareness of the microbiome’s friendly bacteria content and function over the past couple of decades, this resistant starch research information would probably still be under the radar of nutritional health awareness.