When it comes to Anti-Inflammatory soups, this Turmeric Ginger Butternut Squash one is 💯! Packed with anti-inflammatory ingredients and vegan (unless you want to add some shredded chicken!), this will warm you right up in those cold fall and winter months and keep you cozy!
Ingredients
Butternut squash
This fall and winter squash has a creamy texture when pureed, and is packed full of phytochemicals. They can be a little intimidating to cook the first time, but once you’ve done it, you’ll see it’s no problem.
Baby Spinach
Baby greens like this are amazing ways to get in your calcium, folate, iron, and other minerals and vitamins. Also, since it’s cooked in this butternut squash soup, you’ll absorb more calcium and iron.
Turmeric and Ginger
Both of these ingredients are well known for their anti-inflammatory properties.
Lentils
Lentils are a staple of the Mediterranean diet, and I love the use of them in this recipe because they add some plant-based protein and fiber. This helps prevent blood sugar spikes, which also helps stave off chronic inflammation.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 F, cut butternut squash in half and lay it facing downward on a pan covered in foil. Cook for 40 minutes.
In a large pot, drizzle oil and add onion, garlic, and ginger. Cook until the onions are clear, stirring often.
Pour in the milk, broth, and lentils, and stir. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, until lentils are cooked through.
When the squash is finished cooking, remove from oven, spoon out and discard seeds. Then scoop out the flesh and place in a high-powered blender.
Add half of the soup mixture into blender and puree until smooth. Pour back into the soup pot.
Stir in the baby spinach and simmer until the spinach is wilted.
Divide into bowls, serve, and enjoy!
Notes
*Save some time by buying butternut squash already cubed and steaming it to get it soft enough to puree.
*Kale can be subbed in for the baby spinach.
*If you like your soup to feel ‘chunkier’, cook the lentils and add them AFTER you puree the other ingredients. This may also help to have an even lower blood sugar response.
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This delicious and cozy anti-inflammatory soup really should be a staple in your household in the fall and winter months. Chock full of anti-inflammatory ingredients, this butternut squash soup will also give you an injection of vitamins and minerals.
Preheat oven to 400 F, cut butternut squash in half and lay it facing downward on a pan covered in foil. Cook for 40 minutes.
In a large pot, drizzle oil and add onion, garlic, and ginger. Cook until the onions are clear, stirring often.
Pour in the milk, broth, and lentils, and stir. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, until lentils are cooked through.
When the squash is finished cooking, remove from oven, spoon out and discard seeds. Then scoop out the flesh and place in a high-powered blender.
Add half of the soup mixture into blender and puree until smooth. Pour back into the soup pot.
Stir in the baby spinach and simmer until the spinach is wilted.
Divide into bowls, serve, and enjoy!
Notes
*Save some time by buying butternut squash already cubed and steaming it to get it soft enough to puree.
*Kale can be subbed in for the baby spinach.
*If you like your soup to feel ‘chunkier’, cook the lentils and add them AFTER you puree the other ingredients. This may also help to have an even lower blood sugar response.
When it comes to healthy tricks- knowing how to increase resistant starches in foods should definitely be in your health toolbox.
So, in case you don’t know already– Resistant starches are a type of carbohydrate that can resist digestion in the small intestine and reach the large intestine, where they can feed the good bacteria in your gut.
Benefits of resistant starches
Now both of these two things are really important, especially for those with insulin resistance. This is because resistant starches, since they’re not digested in the small intestine, can help keep blood sugar from spiking.
Short-chain fatty acids
The second reason resistant starches are really important is that they help produce short-chain fatty acids in the large intestine by becoming food for the good gut bacteria through fermentation. They’re really good at this because they’re not absorbed in the small intestine and can reach the colon intact.
Short-chain fatty acids play a crucial role in maintaining gut health and have been linked to various health benefits, such as reducing inflammation, promoting satiety, and improving insulin sensitivity.
Short-chain fatty acids can reduce inflammation in the gut and the body, which can help prevent chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel disease and type 2 diabetes.
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Short-chain fatty acids can also improve insulin sensitivity, which can help regulate blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of developing diabetes.
Short-chain fatty acids are believed to support the immune system and protect against certain types of cancer.
And, as a bonus, Short chain fatty acids also play a role in regulating hunger and satiety, which can help with weight loss or maintenance.
Overall, Short chain fatty acids are an important component of a healthy gut and a healthy body.
Foods that Contain Resistant Starches
One way to increase your intake of resistant starches is to add foods that naturally contain them to your diet.
There are many foods that contain high amounts of resistant starches. Some examples include:
Green bananas: Unripe bananas are a great source of resistant starch. Just remember that as the banana ripens, the starch is converted into simple sugars.
Beans and legumes: Foods like lentils, chickpeas, black beans, and navy beans are all great sources of resistant starches.
Oats: Oats are not only high in fiber, but they also contain resistant starches.
Whole grains: Whole grains like barley, rye, and quinoa contain high amounts of resistant starches.
Nuts and seeds: Some nuts and seeds, such as almonds and pumpkin seeds, contain resistant starches.
How to Increase Resistant Starches
One thing we’ve learned in the last couple of decades is that foods made with refined flour like pasta are really bad for blood sugar levels because they cause spikes. This is something even those without insulin resistance want to avoid for metabolic health but truly needs to be avoided for those with insulin resistance conditions like prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, and PCOS, among others.
A few years ago, some researchers from the University of Surrey were curious about what happens to pasta when you cook it and cool it in terms of resistant starches. What they found is that the starches actually increase when the pasta was cooked and then cooled, which helped blunt the blood sugar response.
Then they went a step further and cooked it, cooled it, then reheated it—and what they found is that this next step reduced blood sugar spikes by 50%!
This study cites that other reviews also showed the same results with rice, potatoes, and maize porridge.
This is important, not only because of the difference in blood sugar response but also because increasing the resistant starches decreases the number of calories absorbed. This matters for weight loss, gain, or maintenance.
Just know that this isn’t permission to go crazy with pasta and rice if you’re insulin resistant—you still need to manage the total amount of carbohydrates. But it does give a few more options in terms of better carbohydrates.
Guidelines for increasing resistant starches in foods:
One thing to note about anything with nutrition is that results from studies and trials give an average—meaning that things don’t react the exact same way for every single person. So just know that you could have a different response in some way than even someone you’re related to.
That being said, the only way to know is just to Test it!
You can do this using a manual blood glucose monitor or a continuous glucose monitor.
How to test your blood sugar levels to determine the effects of food:
Check blood sugar immediately before eating;
Check @ 1 hour and 2 hours after, which is called the postprandial blood glucose level;
Test it against the food when you didn’t cook and then cool to truly see the difference.
Now when you’re doing this—think of it as a science experiment- (make sure to use as few variables and same conditions—same recipe, same time of day, same meal, same order of macros, etc) to get as accurate a result as possible.
If you’re ready to start feeling amazing with an anti-inflammatory diet, grab the free Anti-Inflammatory Quick-Start Guide below! 👇
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When it comes to carbohydrates for an Anti-Inflammatory diet, confusion abounds–so I’m here to answer the question: What is a resistant starch, is it anti-inflammatory, and is resistant starch good for me?
I think this is a really important topic to cover in this dietary style because there’s a lot of confusion over whole grains and carbs in general when it comes to reducing inflammation in the body.
A lot of this is because of the constant battle regarding carbs in the last two decades. People have a hard time distinguishing between sugars and complex carbohydrates and what they should or shouldn’t be eating. This becomes especially complicated when you’re trying to manage a condition that really relies on an anti-inflammatory diet as a basis for controlling the symptoms and pain of that condition.
So let’s start out with answering what a resistant starch is first.
What is the difference between starch and resistant starch?
The three forms of carbohydrates that we consume are (1) sugar, (2) starches, and (3) resistant starch.
Sugar is pretty obvious, besides the limitless disguises it’s given on food labels. But let’s take a look at the difference between starch and resistant starch.
Starch
Starches are long chains of sugar molecules, and come from those plant foods that we consider refined carbohydrates that are not straight sugar. Those would be refined flours that are used to made breads, crackers, pasta, and bakery items.
Even though these foods aren’t straight sugar, they’ve been broken down and have so much starch degradation that they are absorbed extremely fast into the bloodstream to have the same effect of straight sugar.
The foods that contain these non-resistant starches usually contain no fiber and are frequently paired with sugar and unhealthy fats to create a trifecta of inflammatory triggers in the body.
Most starchy foods in this category are ones that should be avoided for a variety of negative effects on human health. Alongside sugar, they’ve been shown to induce insulin resistance, inflammatory conditions, and contribute to heart disease.
Resistant starch
Resistant starches are still considered starches and carbohydrates, but they are slowly digested starch and also act as a prebiotic. Instead of breaking down into sugar for energy, they resist digestion and pass through the small intestine and into the large intestine.
Once they’re in the large intestine bacterial fermentation occurs and assists the colon in producing short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate.
Short-chain fatty acids matter because they help blood flow and absorption of minerals while blocking the growth of harmful bacteria and toxins. And butyrate suppresses colonic inflammation.
This nifty job is what helps generate a posh home for our good gut bacteria, which is why we should promote an increase in resistant starch intakes while eliminating regular starch and sugars.
Various varieties of resistant starch is found within many foods, and the addition of these into the diet is beneficial to digestive health.
Resistant starches also contain less calories than normal starchy food: we extract approximately 2 calories per gram of resistant starch, while regular starch is absorbed at approximately 4 calories per gram. That’s DOUBLE!
This means that the higher resistant starch is in food the less calories it contains. This helps tremendously if trying to lose weight or maintain it but have problems with appetite and feeling full.
These types of resistant starch do, however, still contain vitamins and minerals that are available for absorption.
(Note that this is not permission to go crazy with pasta. It’s still a good idea to reduce calories from these types of foods and increase your vegetable intake when your goal is weight loss or increasing insulin resistance.)
Is resistant starch good for you?
The resistant starch is also known as soluble starch and is considered an insoluble dietary fiber. These varieties of resistant starch offer many health benefits and have lower calories than non-resistant starch.
Several human studies show resistant starch can improve insulin sensitivity and blood pressure, decrease hunger and can help support a healthy digestive system, which has many health benefits in and of itself, including:
Prevention or treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases
All of these factors, individually and cumulatively, add up to anti-inflammatory effects in the body.
Is resistant starch good for diabetics?
Although those with type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and PCOS (and other conditions with poor insulin sensitivity) are generally told to shift into a low-carb or even ketogenic diet which severely limit all starch including resistant starch, studies have shown numerous health benefits of resistant starch intake for these conditions by following and Anti-Inflammatory Diet in the form of the Mediterranean Diet.
Since resistant starch (especially when fiber is paired) helps blunt a blood sugar spike, improves gut health, and triggers short chain fatty acids, it can be especially helpful at improving overall health, including increasing insulin sensitivity.
Since many people with metabolic issues like type 2 diabetes are also overweight, including more resistant starch in their diet will also help with feeling full and satisfied to assist in weight loss (which is what many doctors recommend to those who are diagnosed with these conditions.)
What are types of resistant starch?
There are five types of resistant starch (a fifth category was added to include those produced by food manufacturers), aptly named, “Type 1”, “Type 2”, “Type 3”, and “Type 4”, and “Type 5”. Let’s discuss where you can find each one and what their pros and cons are.
Resistant Starch Type 1:
This refers to starchy food that has a seed or germ as its outer coating.
Can be found in grains, seeds and legumes. Type 1 resistant starch is unable to broken down by our digestive enzymes. This means our digestive system does not absorb its nutrients due to them being attached to fibrous tissue walls, as long as it is intact or just cracked (ie, not ground down into flour.)
Resistant Starch Type 2:
This type of resistant starch is naturally found within the starches of certain foods. The more raw these foods are, the more resistant the starches are. Once they are heated, the starch is more easily digested. These include:
raw fruits
potato starch from raw potatoes
corn
some legumes
hi-maize resistant starch products
green (unripe) bananas
plantains
Resistant Starch Type 3
Type 3 resistant starch is referred to as retrograded starch. This is starchy food that is cooked, then cooled. This heat and cooling application increases the resistant starch content.
These would include foods like sushi rice, and pasta or potatoes that are cooked and then cooled for a salad (for example.)
Resistant Starch Type 4
This type of resistant starch is chemically modified starch created by food manufacturers from starchy foods. The end products are resistant to digestion, but start out as rice, raw potatoes, or corn. These are created so that food companies can increase thickness or improve texture by adding resistant starch.
Resistant Starch Type 5
This is a new category that was recently added. This is another type of resistant starch that manufacturers also produce, but they heat and cool the starchy foods with fatty acids, waxes, or other lipids.
What is the best source of resistant starch?
Although types 2 and 4 have been shown to increase levels of good bacteria in the gut, the types of bacteria are different. This, along with the fact that each person is so different, makes it difficult to determine which would be better from a gut health perspective.
Aside from that, the most feasible options we have come from types 1-3. These include the resistant starches we can cook whole intact (or cracked) grains like:
rice,
farro,
oats,
amaranth,
barley,
quinoa,
teff, and
wheat berries
Also lentils; soybeans; and legumes.
And lastly, this includes raw fruit, green bananas, and plantains.
How do you increase resistant starch in food?
A great way to increase resistant starches if you’re not able to find whole or cracked grains (like the ones listed above), but must make do with whole grain pastas or even potatoes in a recipe is to plan ahead.
If you start out with whole grains (or even lentil pasta), you can create dietary resistant starch in those foods if it’s cooked and cooled.
Further research done on resistant starch at the University of Surrey showed that blood sugar levels can be even further controlled when those foods are then reheated again.
Their study showed that it reduced blood sugar spikes by a whopping 50% when food was then reheated again! This has been confirmed with a study published by researchers in 2019 in the journal Foods.
All in all, resistant starches and the fiber that’s present in these types of foods have been shown to be immensely beneficial to gut health, prevention of certain diseases, blood sugar control, and assist in weight loss. Based on the data we have, resistant starches’ ability to do all these things has mega anti-inflammatory benefits.
That being said, as long as there are no food allergies or sensitivities to any of the foods listed as resistant starches or those where resistant starch could be made or increased, these are definitely foods that are recommended on the Anti-Inflammatory Diet.
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When it comes to easy and nutritious, nothing comes closer than this simple roasted tomato soup. Not only is it full of phytonutrients from tomatoes, onion, and bell peppers, it’s also a great warm weather soup or cold-weather comfort food.
When it comes to bulk recipes that are easy to grab-and-go, you can’t get much more balanced than these Green Smoothie Protein Muffins!
Not only do these powerhouse muffins have spinach in them (hence, the green color), but they’re also packed with fiber and a boost of protein to make these perfectly balanced.
3/4cup whole milk (organic, or non-dairy unsweetened milk of choice))
2 eggs
2cups oats (rolled or steel-cut or old-fashioned)
1 TBSP baking powder
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350ºF (177ºC) and line a muffin tin with liners. Brush the liners with coconut oil or use silicone cups to prevent the muffins from sticking.
In your blender, combine the baby spinach, bananas, protein powder, dates, and milk. Blend until smooth, then add the eggs, oats, and baking powder. Blend again until a batter is formed.
Scoop the muffin batter into the cups. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.
Let cool and enjoy!
Notes
Recommended Protein Powder
This recipe was developed and tested with a plant-based protein powder. If using a different type of protein powder, results may vary.
Leftovers
Store in an airtight container in the fridge for 4 days, or freeze for two months or more.
Add-Ins
After blending, stir in chocolate chips, fresh berries, walnuts, or anything else you like to add to banana muffins!
