inulin (from Duncan Crow)

[Guest guest]

We've discussed inulin before. Here are Duncan Crow's comments, forwarded

with permission. He adds that googling for " inulin references " will reveal the

document " Inulin: A Comprehensive Scientific Review " by Tungland, which

contains this information in detail.

__________

Darrell, the answers to those questions are already in recent

research and have also been validated by extensive practice over the

last 5,000 years or so. I think the history of inulin speaks for

itself.

I'll explain briefly that inulin is the a SET of polysaccharides with

varying chain lengths. The problem you read with " inulin " is

propagated by misinformed Specific Carbohydrate Diet zealots, who to

this day do not bother to differentiate between FOS, native inulin,

and sugar-free inulin, which also has had the FOS removed.

Inthe research, some bad bacteria can be cultured, under optimal

conditions, on " native " (natural) inulin, presumably on the sugar and

short-chain FOS components, in the lab, using pure cultures. But in

the bowel the bad bacteria is not in a pure pathogenic culture and

the good bacteria quickly assert themselves.

Be that as it may, if people wish to avoid the slightly problematic

(initially gassy) FOS and sugar components of the inulin, the

solution is of course to use sugar-free.

Looking at the research, you can see that pathogenic organisms are

generally not cultured on long-chain sugar-free inulin, even in a

pure culture under optimal conditions in the lab.

regards,

Duncan Crow