Beyondveg blatant error and oversight

[PaleoPhil]

Here's some ammo for Tyler and anyone else to debunk Beyondveg.com with. My point is not to promote oats, but to point out the error in Beyondveg.com and their (and Richard Wrangham's) major oversight in dismissing the importance of the resistant starch content of raw foods (RS is highest in raw foods) without even making an effort to refute its value. But because oats are involved, I put it in Off Topic (perhaps it should have gone into Hot Topic?).

Here's the error at Beyondveg:

On the other hand, some resistant (indigestible) starch is formed by cooking. Resistant starch is present [Englyst 1985] in smaller amounts in (dehulled, rolled, steamed) oats than in cornflakes or white bread. However, about 94% of the carbohydrates are digested. Uncooked oats don't contain resistant starch, so their starch is totally digestible if left long enough in test tubes, but in practical terms it is less digestible than in cooked form.
http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2a.shtml

Raw oats do contain resistant starch--

Grams of resistant starch in a 100g serving:
Oats, cooked .2 - .4
Oats, Rolled, "Uncooked" (meaning not further cooked beyond the initial brief steaming done during processing) 7.8 - 14.8

Source: http://freetheanimal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Resistant-Starch-in-Foods.pdf

Totally raw steel-cut oats would likely contain even more resistant starch, as RS content is highest in raw foods. Yes, some retrograde RS is produced in cooking and cooling, but it never reaches the levels in the original raw foods.

More importantly than this one error is the fact that Beyondveg and Wrangham treat RS as a downside of raw eating, apparently assuming that its resistance to digestion in the stomach and small intestine is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, the very indigestibility of resistant starch is its great strength, because this enables it to reach the colon where it feeds our probiotic mutualistic gut bacteria, which in turn provide our bodies with beneficial short chain fatty acids (like butyrate) and vitamins. Thus, those who believe Beyondveg and Wrangham and think that RS and rawness of foods are unimportant and cook everything to death will starve their gut bacteria.

[cherimoya_kid]

Don't bother reading or responding to anything on that site.  It's not worth your energy.   

[nummi]

Don't bother reading or responding to anything on that site.  It's not worth your energy.   

You spent some of yours? Dumb to ask I guess...

[PaleoPhil]

Don't worry, Cherimoya, I didn't go to that site intentionally. I only stumbled upon that Beyondveg error while I was Googling for something else, and then I recalled seeing an article on the main Raw Paleo site debunking Beyondveg and figured whoever worked on that article might be interested. Plus, RS is also useful ammo showing Wrangham to be "Wrongham," like Tyler says.  And maybe the errors or omissions re: RS by Beyondveg and Wrangham might be helpful ammo for the Wiki that Tyler works on and asks for help with. RS seems to be an important benefit of certain raw foods that Beyondveg and Wrangham are largely ignoring.