這一碳水化合物吃不胖!

Carbohydrates sound so innocent: mere starches, sugar and fiber that the body uses for energy. Yet health-conscious Americans despise them, designing entire diets just to cut them out. But out of the pile of cast-off carbs, there are some you should keep. New research around a certain kind of carb, called "resistant starch," suggests that they could be a key way to help control weight.

宣傳語中的碳水化合物何其無辜的：只是爲身體補充能量的澱粉、糖和纖維。但是，注重健康的美國人卻對碳水化合物持鄙視態度，杜絕攝入碳水化合物。但在一堆被摒棄的碳水化合物中，這些種類還是值得繼續享用的。關於某種碳水化合物（稱爲"抗性澱粉"）的新研究表明：它們或許是控制體重的關鍵。

When we eat refined carbohydrates, like white bread and cookies, our bodies absorb them very quickly, and the hormone insulin ushers them into our cells. Eat a lot of them, and the body will store most of those calories instead of burning them-which is why we gain weight on high-carb diets.

攝入精製碳水化合物的時候，比如白麪包和餅乾，我們的身體能快速吸收。此外，胰島素會帶領此類碳水化合物進入人體細胞。攝入大量精製碳水化合物時，身體會存儲而非燃燒大部分的熱量--所以，高碳水化合物飲食會導致體重增加。

But that's not the case with resistant starches, so named because they resist digestion. These kinds of carbs bypass the small intestine (where most food is digested) and head to the large intestine (also known as the colon) to be metabolized. There, they're fermented and turned into short-chain fatty acids, which the body burns as energy. Resistant starches also serve as powerful prebiotics-food for intestinal bacteria in the colon.

但這並不適用於抗性澱粉，其命名緣由是因爲它們能抗消化。這類碳水化合物會繞過小腸（能消化大多數食物），直奔大腸（也稱爲結腸）進行代謝。它們在大腸中發酵並轉變爲短鏈脂肪酸，從而被身體燃燒。抗性澱粉還可充當結腸中腸道細菌的強效益生元食物。

Most intriguing and surprising of all is that so many leftovers contain resistant starch. When you cook a certain starchy food, like white rice, pasta or a potato, and then cool it in the refrigerator, the food develops resistant starches. "Cooking the carbohydrate starch alters the chemical bonds in the food," Arciero explains. Stick it in the fridge, and as the food cools, those bonds reform in a new design. "The ensuing structure of those bonds during the cooling process is what makes them resistant to then being digested in the small intestine," Arciero says. Even if you heat them up again, they retain their new resistant starches.

最引人入勝的驚奇之處在於，很多剩菜都含有抗性澱粉。烹飪澱粉類食物之後，比如白米飯、意大利麪或土豆，將其置於冰箱冷卻。之後，它們就會變爲抗性澱粉食物。"烹飪碳水化合物澱粉會改變食物中的化學鏈，"阿爾切羅解釋道。將其置於冰箱內，隨着食物的冷卻，這些化學鏈會發生重組。"冷卻過程中發生的化學鏈結構的變化使其具有抵抗性，不會在小腸中被消化，"阿爾切羅說道。即使再次加熱，這些食物也會保留新產生的抗性澱粉。

In all of its forms, resistant starch shows promise for helping people control their weight. It's too soon to tell if resistant starch can help people lose weight. But the new evidence suggests that it may help control weight by altering body composition and increasing satiety.

各類抗性澱粉食物都有望幫助人們控制體重。雖然現在就得出抗性澱粉有助於人們減肥的結論還爲時尚早，但新證據表明：它或能通過改變機體組分和增加飽腹感來控制體重。