Amy Nett: That’s a great question. I want to say yes you do particularly when if it’s— I’m trying to think if you’re eating hot versus. eating it cold because I haven’t actually used potato starch in baked goods, but I think if you’re eating the baked good and it’s at a room temperature or colder, it should be fine and still getting the prebiotic benefit. We’ve actually kind of moved away from potato starch for a little bit more now in the way of plantain flour, green banana flour, PHGG. I use lots of combinations of different fibers, but I know we’re not as big on potato starch, but I don’t see why you would not get prebiotic benefit from it in baked goods. As far as I know, the baking wouldn’t destroy it, but it might not be as beneficial if you’re eating it hot.
I just think there’s a little bit more slightly mixed research in terms of potato starch as a prebiotic, and so, I would say overall plus a lot of our patients tend to tolerate some of the other prebiotics a little bit better. Just because there are so many options for prebiotics and because there’s a little bit of mixed research on potato starch and in “mixed” we’ll say maybe opinions. I don’t even know all of it is true research or just sort of anecdotal. But since the recommendations for potato starch that I’ve seen are a little bit more variable in terms of the types of bacteria it supports, whether or not you’re getting high glyphosate levels in it, that sort of thing, I’ve just shifted away from potato starch to something that feels a little bit more kind of universally accepted that I haven’t heard the controversy about because again it’s so easy to use whether it’s partially hydrolyzed guar gum or green banana, flour plantain flour, so many different options. I just go with those, and I also try to rotate prebiotics as well because different probiotics probably support different populations of the microbiome. Then, I even more so will try to use food sources of prebiotics. Really, the only time I’m really using prebiotics for patients is when I see an insufficiency dysbiosis on testing or sometimes after we’ve done an antimicrobial protocol and I really want to support the microbiome, but long term, I don’t generally use probiotic supplements with patients. They tend to just as they verse a plant-based diet as we can, and when I say plant-based, I’m not excluding animal products, but I tell patients when you look down at your plate I want two-thirds to three-quarters of that being plant foods being vegetables, starchy, nonstarchy, a little bit of a mix depending on what our goal is in terms of their carbohydrate and their macronutrient content, but I want to see colors, phytonutrients, and using food is as best we can.