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
