I was reading an article today and it spoke of "resistant starch." Starch in certain foods takes so long to digest that it passes through the small intestine without being digested at all. What the article was saying was that since these starches aren't digested then their calories don't have to be counted.
I have a difficult time processing this.
Is anyone knowledgeable about this? I googled it and there is a lot of info, but I'm sure you will still gain a pound if you ingest 3500 calories whether it's black beans or candy. Right?

Without having read it, I have no idea, but I would tend to be a little skeptical. Where was this article from? I mean, I would take it a lot differently reading it on PubMed then on oh, say wikipedia .

LOL It was on the Livestrong site. So I don't know what that means. I need a guinea pig to test this on (eyeing husband).

MzKiki - I'm not a nutritional expert, but I will say that it isn't so important what you "ingest", but what you "absorb". If you, for one reason or another (illness, drugs etc.) your body isn't actually using the calories, like with "resistant starch" (though I have no idea if that's a real thing!), they they aren't going to be turned into fuel and potentially fat by your body.

One that I know is legit is the sugar alcohols. Our bodies will absorb some of the carbs from them, but they are used for diabetic candy, because they aren't absorbed totally and they are absorbed slowly. But there is a warning on there that if you eat too many of them at a time, you will have bowel problems - they go right through your system without stopping.

So, even though the most accurate way to measure what we are getting is by what we eat, that may or may tell the whole story if all of what we eat isn't actually making into our bloodstream. I am pretty confident that if you don't eat a calorie it won't make it in though (though there are some days I wonder!).

Ilbnej you're absolutely right! And I once ate an entire bag of sugar free jelly beans Oh my goodness! I can attest that those things went in and out! When my stomach was really bothering me I finally read the bag "excess consumption may have a laxative effective." Lesson learned lol.

Oh dear! If that had been me, I don't know if I'd ever be able to eat any jelly bean (sugar free or not!) again!

Resistant starch is what the "Carb Lovers Diet" is based on. Essentially it is putting a new spin on fiber. It's not that resistant starch foods are not digested at all it is that the fiber content means the calories are not all absorbed. From their website ... here are a few examples.

■Beans
■Corn
■Bananas
■Oatmeal
■White beans
■Lentils
■Potatoes
■Plantains
■Garbanzo beans
■Pearl barley
■Whole-wheat pasta
■Brown rice

So - resistant starch boils down to marketing. Don't forget your veggies!

The way I see it, "resistant starch" may or may not be a thing, but choosing stuff that purports to contain it as my carb component of a meal can't hurt. The foods on that list that JohnP provided also happen to be pretty nutrient-rich; if you're going to eat a higher-carb food, why not make it a banana, lentils, beans, or brown rice instead of sugary cereal or potato chips?

Can't hurt, might help.