It’s cheap, it’s humble, you can find it in all grocery stores, but, even if we don’t use it much at home, or not always, thanks to this ingredient we can improve metabolism and help intestinal regularity.

No, it’s not baking soda (which also helps away from meals).
No, it’s not apple cider vinegar (which also helps just before meals).
Instead, it is potato starch. I know, it seems unlikely.

Potato starch to improve metabolism and intestines

Yet it is so.
Potato starch, therefore the starchy part of the potato, generally used in sweets or as a thickener, produces a greater number of short-chain fatty acids through intestinal fermentation.

It has long been known through a series of studies and the latest findings on the link between metabolism and the gut, that short-chain fatty acids such as butyric acid, acetic acid or propionic acid are linked to higher metabolism .

Those who produce the most naturally have a healthy variety of gut flora bacteria, and burn more calories.
In particular, a high metabolism is related to the greater presence of butyric acid in the intestine.

Now, a University of Michigan study has found that there is a relationship between the digestive breakdown of some polysaccharides and the production of butyric acid.

Scientists analyzed inulin, corn starch and potato starch (or starch) in digestion, and found that the gut responds to potato starch by producing more butyric acid, and increasing the number of good gut bacteria.

Clearly, there is no need to start eating potato starch, especially if we have slow digestion.

However, you can start to prefer potatoes in your diet first, instead of bread, pasta or rice.

An aid to digestion can come by associating the potatoes with ghee, or clarified butter, rich in butyric acid. Then we can move on to potato starch, making it more present in our dishes.

How to use potato starch in your diet?

1. 1. 1. As a thickener: thickens soups, creams, even without the use of eggs, bechamel.
      2. In cakes, replacing half of the flour. A cake with half potato starch and half wholemeal flour, buckwheat, quinoa, is a very good dessert for the intestine and regularity. But there are also breakfast cakes that can be made with potato starch alone. For 30 percent it can replace flour in shortbread.
      3. For soft and crumbly biscuits: in this case the starch can replace the flour.
      4. In gluten-free crepes: use a third of starch and two thirds of rice flour.
      5. For the potato gnocchi.
         They are much more digestible if we use 15 grams of starch and 15 grams of cornstarch for 300 grams of potatoes instead of flour.
      6. As an added ingredient in bread and focaccia.
         You can use the starch to make bread and focaccia, in combination with rice and corn flour for a gluten-free dough or with normal flour for a dough with a softer and higher crumb.