Everyone knows that the key to good health comes from treating your body properly and eating a well balanced diet. This includes eating the foods your body is designed to digest naturally – fresh fruit, vegetables, and whole grains.  In short, a healthy diet should contain a variety of carbohydrates and dietary fiber to help you feel well and stay healthy.  Hi-maize resistant starch can help. Hi-maize is a natural source of insoluble dietary fiber from corn.^[1] It’s now available as an ingredient and can be utilized to provide a nutritional boost to help you manage your weight, help maintain healthy blood sugar levels and promote a healthy digestive system. 

Increase your dietary fiber

It is important to eat the right amount of fiber to stay healthy and well.  Across the United States, an intake of dietary fibre ranging from 19 to 38 grams is recommended for adults, yet we eat a daily average of 14 to 17g.^[2]  In fact, only 4% of Americans are getting enough fiber in their diet.^[3]  This means your body is not getting what it needs.  Hi-maize resistant starch can help you eat the way you should by increasing your dietary fiber intake without you noticing it!  It boosts the fiber content of everyday foods like bread, pancakes or pasta without changing the taste or texture. For example, a slice of white bread containing Hi-maize provides the same amount of fiber as a slice of wholegrain bread.  But you won’t be able to taste the difference. So with Hi-maize, you can eat more fiber without compromising on the carbohydrate-rich foods you love to eat.

Supports a healthy weight

Dietary fiber can help you feel full and manage your weight. However, not all fibers are the same. Different fibers trigger diffferent responses within your body, which can have very different effects on your appetite, your metabolism and your weight.  Hi-maize resistant starch supports a healthy weight in two important ways:  

• Hi-maize resistant starch contains fewer calories than the flour that it replaces in foods.  It contains only 1.4 kilocalories/gram compared to 4.0 kilocalories/gram of flour. 
• Some (but not all) published studies have suggested that Hi-maize resistant starch helps people eat less food and/or feel less hungry over 2-3 hours, ^[4] and over 14-24 hours.^[5] 

Helps to maintain healthy blood sugar levels

Many of today's processed foods are refined carbohydrates, which are digested quickly which create a rapid increase in blood sugar (a high ‘glycemic' response). This in turn, raises levels of insulin in your blood.  Insulin is the hormone responsible for moving glucose or sugar out of your blood and into muscle and tissues where it is utilized as energy.  Replacing ordinary flour in everyday foods with Hi-maize has several beneficial effects:

• It reduces the amount of high glycemic carbohydrates you digest when you eat these foods.  Foods containing Hi-maize cause smaller rises in your blood sugar and therefore you experience less fluctuations in your blood sugar and blood insulin levels.^[6] 
• Hi-maize helps your body to properly use the insulin it produces to maintain healthy blood sugar levels.^[7] 
• After you eat Hi-maize resistant starch, it helps to lower the glycemic impact of the next meal, whether that meal occurs 3-4 hours later or 10-14 hours later.^[8] 

Promotes digestive health

Most people don't fully understand the importance of a well functioning digestive system.  The fact is, if we're not digesting well, we can't perform at our best.  One of the keys to optimal digestive health is to ensure we have a healthy balance of the good bacteria or 'bugs' that we all have in our digestive system.  That's where resistant starch can play an important role.

Your gut is home to millions of friendly bacteria that help to fight off harmful bacteria entering your system. 
Hi-maize resistant starch feeds the friendly, beneficial bacteria and encourages their growth.  This creates the ideal environment to ensure that your gut stays stronger and better protected.^[9]  Promoting a healthy digestive system  helps you maintain a greater feeling of health and well-being.

When resistant starch reaches the large intestine, it is broken down by the healthy bacteria already there and starts generating a range of beneficial substances, in particular a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate. Butyrate is the primary fuel or energy for healthy colon cells.

Butyrate helps to keep the cells lining the large intestine healthy.^[10]  Resistant starch produces the highest amounts of butyrate compared to other types of dietary fiber.  As well as producing butyrate, resistant starch:

• produces a mild laxative effect which helps keep you "regular"
• encourages the growth of healthy bacteria in the large intestine - the 'prebiotic effect'
• beneficially increases the bulk of your stools

All of these changes help improve the overall health of your intestinal system.