Plantain Flour for Resistant Starch

So I'm into the whole resistant starch tip.  I'd of course first heard about it on the Bulletproof radio podcast.... in case you wanted to know.

You've probably already read about the different ways to ingest resistant starch but this particular post is only about plantain as resistant starch.  This is my take:

Green plantain is easy enough to purchase from your local international market.  So I brought about 10 green bananas - I tried to pick the darkest-green ones I could find with as few spots as possible.   Got'em home and soaked them in a bath of vinegar and water in the sink for as long as I could - like an hour.  Then I proceeded to scrub them clean, as much as possible, with baking soda and a scouring sponge .  For some reason I find green banana contains some kind of residual oil that scrubs off as black when you clean them.  I don't know what that is buuuuut, whatever!  I'm not eating that part anyway.   Still yet, my suggestion is to wear gloves when you clean green plantain.

Then I took a potato peeler and peeled off the skin.  I immediately put the cleaned banana in salt water as it awaits its friends to arrive in the bowl.

After all of the bananas are cleaned with no residual - just completely yellow banana flesh exposed - I sliced them about the thickness of a cracker.  I then laid them out on dehydrator trays and dehydrated them over night at around 135 degrees.

After they are all dried out I put them in a jar and just ate them like crackers, spreading GF butter on them for snack and such.  I love the subtle taste of dried green plantain and the way it feels all chewy in my mouth.  HOWEVER, the gas that results  is... errrr.... ummmm... let's say 'not so good' may be an understatement.  Still yet, my understanding is that when you do have gas it simply means your intestine is working as it should.  Be that as it may, I don't want to have to emit my fumes, as lovely as they may be, in the office around my co-workers (ya know they smell ya!) or in the car with my husband ("Hey!  What's the smell?" ... "huh?" "I don't smell anything!").  Nonetheless I do want to experience the benefits of resistant starch - of which I won't go into here as I'm sure you've already checked all of that out.  I will tell you one thing, I did notice right away that the plantain chips almost immediately enhanced the dream state - and for that, the gas alone is worth it!

Moving on.  So after a few weeks of chips and gas and chips and gas, I got the inkling to try RS flour from plantain.  All I did was take the chips I already had, dropped a bunch of them in my BlendTec and grounded them down to a fine, soft and airy powder.  With that, I started out just trying a bit in water.  I saw immediately it melts right into the water with no clumping.  I drank that first attempt and thus far I've been drinking a little more everyday.  And guess what?  I haven't had half the gas I got from the chips.  Amazing.  I'm adding it to soup, coffee, water - whatever!

                                                                    RANT
I don't want to buy a big ole bag of that resistant starch from potatoes and then find out that its just going to sit on my shelf as another oddball purchase I've made.  I need to know that resistant starch is something I remotely want to play with before I convince myself that my dollar should go toward it.  Too, as far as I'm concerned, if you can't make from scratch or at least know how to make from scratch what you need in order to hack your body, well then you're just wasting your time.  Some of the 'body hack' stuff like probiotics and such, can be extremely expensive.  So when and if the economy fails, yet again, or your income drops, welllll you're just going to be SOL on your fancySchmancy pill purchases.  So its great if you can afford to spend upwards of $40.00 for probiotics that may or may not just sit up on a shelf because you realize "I can't take that shit!"But if you can get a glimpse of what may work just about the same, then I say 'let's try that first'.

                                                                                   COME'ON MAN!
I do believe, as they say, its all about the gut biome - we have more bacteria in our stomach then cells in our body - is that true?  But I don't want to buy into the whole pill thing right away - or at all if I don't have to.  I mean, man survived ... blah, blah, blah - you know the drill.  The reality really is that you should get what you need from food and not McDonald's or that package off Amazon.  You should (I'm about to shood on you) make ya own damn food at home!  Christ! I mean, get up off ur'rass and cook something!  Geeez!

                                                                                                                  BREAD
So my next experiment will be cooking with my home made plantain RS.  I'm about to run to the store to purchase more GBs for flour makin.  Once I have more than enough I'll start experimenting with making pancakes or something like a bread.  I want to try adding it with coconut flour, but I'll see first how the bready tries go and will keep you - IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE? -posted.

Peace and luuuuuuv!
Miel

Step One

Firstly, my observation is that if you immediately dehydrate the peels right after removing the flesh (inside of the banana), the skin will dehydrate but will maintain a bit of its thickness.  If you freeze the peels or refrigerate them for a day or so, the skin will seem to be very thin and wet when thawed or brought to room temperture.  Once you dehydrate the thinner skinned peel it will also come out of the dehydrator thinner than if you dehydrated the peel straightaway.

So  you can dehydrate the peels in a dehydrator until they are crisp like potato chips, or you can do so in the oven at about 200 degrees for 45 minutes or until they are crisp like chips.

Once they are crispy simply put them in your blender (hopefully you have a Blendtec or Vitamix) and grind to a powder.

Making a cup of Banana Peel Tea
This what the peel looks like once it is dehydrated and ground.

1.  Boil water to a rapid boil

2.  Reduce heat

3.  Immediate place one small amount of the powder into the pot.  That will bring the boiling point to its height.  The reason you only place a small amount in is because a larger amount WILL boil over onto your stove.

4. Once the boiling point has been raised, place a nice heaping teaspoon into the pot.

5. Turn off the heat and stir.

6. Let it steep for about 10 minutes.

7. Stain, pour into a cup, sit back and enjoy.

Now I find that drinking this tea is the equivalent of taking a Tylenol.  You have to sit still and let it do it's thing.  Don't drink this tea and then go shopping or painting a wall.  It should make you drowsy and a bit sleepy.  Maybe even a bit dreamy.

Try it for at least 3 nights and see if you notice any difference in your pain level.  If you do note any reduction in your pain level, please leave a comment.  If you don't, well then I really don't care.  Just move on - there's nothing here for you to see.

Dehydrated Banana Peel Tea FOR PAIN RELIEF?

So you probably are just looking for some information on Banana Peel tea and found this blog.  As was I but couldn't find exactly the information I was looking for.  So here's the deal:  I was watching Dr. Oz one day and he talked about boiling some banana with the peel to aid in sleep.  So I tried it and it seemed to work ok.  Not great, but I did notice some calming effects.  I looked around the internet a little more and saw that someone suggested making a tea out of the banana peel.  It wasn't for any medicinal purposes, but was just to have a decaffeinated black tea.  They said to just roast the peels in an oven until they're dry and crisp, break up a few pieces and steep in hot water.  "Walla!"  Black tea!  Ok, so I thought 'well that sounds interesting.  I think I'll try it.'  So instead of roasting the tea with the possibility of burning the peels, I decided to just put them in the dehydrator.  I set the dehydrator at around 125 overnight.  In the morning I have/had very black and crisp, but not burnt, banana peels.  I then place them in the BlendTec and grind them down to a powder.

Normally at night I take about a tablespoon of the powder and steep it in about 2 cups of hot water, strain and then drink.
                                                       THE PART ABOUT PAIN

Ok, so here's really what happened.  I'd been in pain, like really bad back, front and side pain for like an unusually long period of time.  I'm talkin years!  Yes!  I was literally in pain for YEARS!  I'd been managing my pain the best way and just about any way I could find.  I mean from soup to nuts.  One doctor told me to take Tylenol for like 3 times a day for TEN DAYS!!!! Seriously????!!!  You want me to do WHAT?  Well that was a 'Hell-to-the-Nah' moment for me.  But still yet, if I took an Advil or Tylenol the pain would go away... temporarily, of course.  Too, if you know anything about NSAIDs you know they kill.  And 'kill' isn't the relief I've been looking for.  So I continued my quest for relief.   So one night I drink the banana tea and I wake up in the morning in...yes... LESS PAIN???!!!  Whaaaaaat?!!!?!!  Yes.  My pain level was decreased!  Decreased I tell ya!  Decreased.  HalllllaLuuuuYa!  So now drinking the tea is what I'm doing to control the pain.  This seems maybe too good to be true but I don't have anyone or anything to bounce this off of.  I'm not a lab scientist and I don't have any spare rats to test this on.  All I have is you? : )

Now its your turn to please tell me if you've ever tried anything like this or if you even know anything about this.  Could this be real?  What could be in dried banana peel that would work so strongly on pain.  How much of it can I take and be in the safety zone.  Can I overdose on BP tea?  I tried to ask someone at a compounding pharmacy, but he had no clue.  I contacted a lab to see if they'd do analysis, but they said no.

Added:  9/14/14 - If you want to fall asleep fast, add some cinnamon to the BPT.  This should put you into a nice deep sleep.

If anyone out there is willing to try this and let me know what happens, I'd be grateful..