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.
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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.
Duncan Crow reacted in inulin (from Duncan Crow)