Stop Counting Carbs: The Resistant Starch and Microbiome Factor No One Talks About!
Stop Counting Carbs: The Resistant Starch and Microbiome Factor No One Talks About!
What if the reason carbs are labeled “bad” these days isn’t because of carbohydrates themselves, but because we’re no longer eating them the way humans always have?
For decades, we’ve been taught by nutrition experts to think of carbohydrates as one of three macronutrients, the body’s main source of energy, and a source of 4 calories per gram. Furthermore, carbohydrates are broken into simple carbs, such as store-bought white bread, and complex carbs, such as sweet potato, which provide fiber. But that explanation ignores a very powerful, misunderstood category—resistant starch.
In his book In Defense of Food, my favorite food writer, Michael Pollan, criticizes the prevailing reductionist explanation of how nutrients work in the human body. He argues that by reducing food to its nutrient components, such as percentages of fats, carbs, proteins, as well as the role played by vitamins & minerals, we do not take into account that food is much more than what appears on a food label. Nutrients should be thought of first and foremost as existing within a food matrix – not as isolated components.. He would also advocate for a mostly whole-food diet that does not require a label.
Our western-centric approach ignores the fact that traditional diets have successfully nourished people for thousands of years without scaring people into avoiding carbohydrates. Furthermore, traditional cultures have developed vastly different approaches to diet that reflect local climate and spiritual beliefs. For example, the nomadic Maasai tribe of Kenya famously subsists on mostly blood, raw milk, meat, and the occasional tuber, while many groups in India refuse to harm animals and yet thrive on a high-carb vegetarian diet of lentils, flatbread, rice, and vegetable curries.
The only diet in the world that consistently promotes sickness is our Standard American Diet (SAD) of highly processed foods full of added sugar, salt, and unpronounceable chemicals designed to make food habit-forming rather than nutritious. And yet, ironically, we are the ones dishing out nutrition advice.
How many American influencers have you heard shame people about eating carbs?
What do Traditional Cultures Know About Carbs That We’ve Forgotten?
Resistant starch complicates carb counting, slows glucose response, nourishes the gut microbiome, and helps explain how many traditional cultures thrived on high-carbohydrate diets without widespread metabolic disease.
Let’s start at the beginning….
What Is Resistant Starch?
Resistant starch is exactly what it sounds like: starch that resists digestion in the small intestine.
Instead of being rapidly broken down into glucose, like white bread or sugar, resistant starch passes through the small intestine intact and reaches the colon, where it becomes food for beneficial gut bacteria.
Common food sources include:
Cooked and cooled potatoes
Cooked and cooled rice
Green bananas and plantains
Lentils and beans
Traditional whole grains
This is very different from refined flour products, such as sugary breakfast cereals and frozen waffles, which are rapidly digested and absorbed. These carbs break down quickly into sugar that spikes insulin levels.
Why Carb Counting Gets Tricky
When you count carbohydrates on a nutrition label, resistant starch is usually included in the total carbohydrate number.
But metabolically, it doesn’t behave like typical digestible starch.
Here’s what happens:
Digestible starch → broken down quickly → glucose enters bloodstream → insulin rises.
Resistant starch → bypasses the small intestine → fermented in the colon → minimal immediate glucose rise. Amazingly, two meals with the same “total carbs” can produce very different metabolic responses depending on the amount of resistant starch they contain.
That’s why a cooled potato salad can produce a very different glucose curve than hot mashed potatoes—even though the carb grams are identical.
For people tracking carbs for metabolic health, diabetes, or weight management, this distinction matters.
The Microbiome Advantage
Resistant starch acts as a prebiotic. A prebiotic is a compound that nourishes beneficial microorganisms in the gut, much like fertilizer nourishes plants in the garden.
When it reaches the colon, beneficial bacteria ferment the starches, producing short-chain fatty acids—especially butyrate.
Butyrate is critical because it:
Strengthens the gut barrier
Reduces inflammation
Improves insulin sensitivity
Supports metabolic flexibility
Promotes the overall health of colon cells
Protects the colon against the DNA-damaging effects of high meat consumption (Le Leu et al., 2015).
Unfortunately, colon cancer rates worldwide are skyrocketing among the young. Theories as to why this is happening include the effects of microplastics, obesity, and low-fiber and butyrate diets (eBioMedicine, 2025).
Resistant starch builds metabolic resilience and protects the body, especially the colon.
A Clue From Traditional Diets
There’s a long-standing puzzle in nutrition:
How did many traditional cultures eat high-carbohydrate diets without epidemic obesity and diabetes?
Consider:
Rural Asian populations consume large amounts of rice
Central and South American communities rely on beans and maize
African diets centered around tubers and plantains
These diets were often 60–80% carbohydrate by calories, yet metabolic disease was rare prior to industrialization.
Why?
Here are several key differences:
Frequent cooking and cooling cycles increase the formation of resistant starch!
Whole food carbs are naturally high in fiber
Whole food carbs are minimally processed
The carbohydrates in these cultures weren’t ultra-processed, rapidly absorbed glucose bombs. They were embedded in fiber matrices and often rich in resistant starch.
Their gut microbiomes were diverse and well-fed.
Modern ultra-refined carbs, by contrast, digest quickly and leave little behind for the microbiome. As a result, many cancers are on the rise, especially among younger people, such as colorectal cancer.
Resistant Starch and Metabolic Health
Research shows resistant starch can:
Improve insulin sensitivity
Lower sugar spikes
Increase satiety
Support fat oxidation
Improve bowel regularity
For someone struggling with blood sugar regulation, adding resistant starch strategically may be more beneficial than indiscriminately slashing carbohydrates.
The question then shifts the focus from “How many carbs?” to “What kind of carbs?”
Practical Ways to Use It
Here are some ways to increase resistant starch:
Cooking and cooling rice or potatoes before eating
Including lentils or beans regularly
Using green banana flour in baking
Allowing leftovers to cool fully before reheating
My favorite resistant starch is steel-cut oatmeal. I like to call it the inexpensive “tofu” of breakfast foods because there are many ways to eat it. My technique is to soak a big batch of oats overnight, cook them in the morning with a combination of water and milk (and a scoop of protein powder), and add cinnamon. I then reheat the oats during the week, adding nuts, berries, coconut flakes, and maple syrup, or whatever sounds good.
I also always have either refried beans or a lentil-based dahl on hand. Both can be reheated during the week and used to accompany a protein and veggies of choice.
Lastly, storing my farmer’s market sourdough bread in the freezer also creates resistant starch.
All of these ideas are inexpensive, healthy ways to increase resistant starch in the diet.
The Bigger Picture
Carbohydrates are not metabolically identical.
Resistant starch reminds us that nutrition is more nuanced than a single macronutrient number. It challenges simplistic carb-counting models and highlights the importance of gut health in metabolic outcomes.
Traditional cultures didn’t avoid carbohydrates—they prepared them in ways that supported their microbiome and slowed glucose absorption.
Perhaps the lesson isn’t that carbs are the enemy. Modern cooking methods (or lack thereof) and our reliance on heavily processed foods are the real hindrances to health.
When we understand resistant starch, we move from fear of carbohydrates to informed strategy—supporting both metabolic health and the gut ecosystem that sustains it.
In conclusion, enjoy resistant starches as your ancestors did – without counting carbs!
Disclaimer
The included information is not meant to or should not be used to replace or substitute medical treatment, recommendations, or the advice of your physician or health care provider. The information contained within is strictly for educational purposes and is based on evidence-based nutrition. If you believe you have a medical problem or condition, please contact your physician or healthcare provider.
References:
eBioMedicine (2025). The colorectal cancer conundrum: the rising burden in younger adults. EBioMedicine, 115, 105757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105757
Le Leu, R. K., Winter, J. M., Christophersen, C. T., Young, G. P., Humphreys, K. J., Hu, Y., Gratz, S. W., Miller, R. B., Topping, D. L., Bird, A. R., & Conlon, M. A. (2015). Butyrylated starch intake can prevent red meat-induced O6-methyl-2-deoxyguanosine adducts in human rectal tissue: a randomised clinical trial. The British journal of nutrition, 114(2), 220–230. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114515001750