Can I use regular CORNSTARCH instead of UCAN?

I should add that UCAN is just a refined cornstarch product.

Raul Runyan wrote:

I should add that UCAN is just a refined cornstarch product.

What do you mean "refined"

Try a mix of cornstarch and water on a long run and see if it works.

Southbound 35 wrote:

Raul Runyan wrote:

I should add that UCAN is just a refined cornstarch product.

What do you mean "refined"

UCAN is a a corn based product. The base is essentially cornstarch.

On the UCAN website they talk about a high heat and water treatment process. That process is a secret; that's where they make their money.

cheap experiment wrote:

Try a mix of cornstarch and water on a long run and see if it works.

I'll try it next time I have a run longer than 2 hours, I probably wont do any of those for about a month or so. I wanted to ask and see if anybody else has had success with this.

After I try it, I will post on the results.

According to this article, this kind of starch is called resistant starch because it is resistant to digestion by humans:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooling-resistant-starch#section3

Part of the benefit appears to be that the resistant starch can be digested by some species of enteric bacteria. This digestion causes the enteric bacteria to produce short chain fatty acids, which are absorbed by your intestine.

Starches found in many foods can be made resistant by cooking then cooling the food. It sounds like leftover rice or potatoes in your frig are likely to have higher resistant starch content than food that is still hot from cooking. Starches that contain the sugar amylose are also more resistant to digestion according to Wikipedia.

My guess is that the UCAN product contains cornstarch that has been processed such that it has higher levels of resistant starch. I wouldn’t say that this product isn’t beneficial, but it sounds like so many other dietary products out there that become trendy then fade away. Ultimately nothing is more beneficial than a diverse diet that is high in fruits and vegetables, coupled with regular exercise, which everyone should be aware of by now. If you are doing these things then save your money. If you are not doing these things, then do these things and save your money.

Enterobacter wrote:

My guess is that the UCAN product contains cornstarch that has been processed such that it has higher levels of resistant starch. I wouldn’t say that this product isn’t beneficial, but it sounds like so many other dietary products out there that become trendy then fade away. Ultimately nothing is more beneficial than a diverse diet that is high in fruits and vegetables, coupled with regular exercise, which everyone should be aware of by now. If you are doing these things then save your money. If you are not doing these things, then do these things and save your money.

I am not looking for an overall diet change- I agree that a diet high in fruits and vegetables is better than any of the fad diets. I have had a history of boning during marathon length races, and I'm looking for race fuel specifically. I would never eat/drink UCAN or starch as a weight loss strategy or in my everyday diet, it's just for during races to keep glycogen levels up.

I tried it.

1. It tastes like sh!t. You will end up flavoring it with Mio or some other artificial sweetener that you are probably trying to avoid in the first place.

2. You will have to cook it. I tried baking it, and never quite got the time and temp dialed in.

3. If you don’t cook it right, you won’t digest it, and you will get all kinds of GI distress.

All that said, try it. If you perfect a recipe that you feel gives you a benefit, please share it.

OK, I see what you’re getting at.

Resistant starch has been shown to be effective for a hypoglycemia-inducing condition called glycogen storage disease.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3808112/

The hypoglycemia caused by GSD is similar in ways to bonking. The rationale for how resistant starch works is that it’s digestion-resistant nature leads to slower production and absorption of monosaccharides through digestion. Thus resistant starches would have lower glycemic indices than comparable starches.

This sounds like it might be a good candidate for race-day fuel, but an important caveat is that resistant starches are also “feeding” your enteric bacteria, which may increase intestinal gas and cause cramping. So like anything else you might do on a race day, you should test it out ahead of time.

Getting back to your original question, the fact that starches can be processed to increase their resistant content means that it’s not a given that UCAN is equivalent to ordinary starch from the same plant. If you do try UCAN vs ordinary starch, I would cook then cool the starch first to increase the resistant content.

The paper that I linked says that conventional Argo cornstarch is 60% resistant whereas the modified starch that they used in the study is 67% resistant (Table 1), so the difference is small enough that you might achieve this by cooking it at home. They also cite this study as the source of their protocol for making resistant starch:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17514432/

I have been using Ucan for a year now and it is definitely a game changer. No question.

If you have the money go for it. It does get quiet expensive but if you just use it for those long runs or rides. You can feel the benefit. It can replace a few gels so if you are spending money on gels anyways then you might save money on the powder. 1 scoop is equivalent to 2 gels. It definitely works, you have to try it before you knock it.

Used it for my Ironmans and many triathlons and marathons

There's your problem! You can't expect to run a good marathon if you are stopping for a mid-race quickie.