I have been following the research on resistant starch and diet.
I am tying to cut down on my carbohydrate intake (got about 20 pounds to lose). The idea behind resistant starch is that these are not broken down into sugars as quickly as standard starch. I used to have a real problem with gastric reflux and have been taking a couple spoonfuls of potato starch blended with a glass of milk and some protein powder each morning and that has eliminated the problem. The body doesn't digest it but it is fantastic food for the flora in the gut. Happy gut, happy body.
From the BBC:
Is reheated pasta less fattening?
There are few things that really surprise me about nutrition, but one of the experiments from the latest series of Trust Me, I'm a Doctor really did produce quite unexpected results.
You are probably familiar with the idea that pasta is a form of carbohydrate and like all carbohydrates it gets broken down in your guts and then absorbed as simple sugars, which in turn makes your blood glucose soar.
In response to a surge in blood glucose our bodies produce a rush of the hormone insulin to get your blood glucose back down to normal as swiftly as possible, because persistently high levels of glucose in the blood are extremely unhealthy.
A rapid rise in blood glucose, followed by a rapid fall, can often make you feel hungry again quite soon after a meal. It's true of sugary sweets and cakes, but it's also true for things like pasta, potatoes, white rice and white bread. That's why dietitians emphasis the importance of eating foods that are rich in fibre, as these foods produce a much more gradual rise and fall in your blood sugars.
But what if you could change pasta or potatoes into a food that, to the body, acts much more like fibre? Well, it seems you can. Cooking pasta and then cooling it down changes the structure of the pasta, turning it into something that is called "resistant starch".
It's called "resistant starch" because once pasta, potatoes or any starchy food is cooked and cooled it becomes resistant to the normal enzymes in our gut that break carbohydrates down and releases glucose that then causes the familiar blood sugar surge.
So, according to scientist Dr Denise Robertson, from the University of Surrey, if you cook and cool pasta down then your body will treat it much more like fibre, creating a smaller glucose peak and helping feed the good bacteria that reside down in your gut. You will also absorb fewer calories, making this a win-win situation.
The testing protocol:
Dr Chris van Tulleken roped in some volunteers to do the tests. The volunteers had to undergo three days of testing in all, spread out over several weeks. On each occasion they had to eat their pasta on an empty stomach.
The volunteers were randomized to eating either hot, cold or reheated pasta on different days.
On one day they got to eat the pasta, freshly cooked, nice and hot with a plain but delicious sauce of tomatoes and garlic.
On another day they had to eat it cold, with the same sauce, but after it had been chilled overnight.
And on a third day they got to eat the pasta with sauce after it had been chilled and then reheated.
On each of the days they also had to give blood samples every 15 minutes for two hours, to see what happened to their blood glucose as the pasta was slowly digested.
And the test results:
Well we were fairly confident the cold pasta would be more resistant than the stuff that had been freshly cooked and we were right.
Just as expected, eating cold pasta led to a smaller spike in blood glucose and insulin than eating freshly boiled pasta had.
But then we found something that we really didn't expect - cooking, cooling and then reheating the pasta had an even more dramatic effect. Or, to be precise, an even smaller effect on blood glucose.
In fact, it reduced the rise in blood glucose by 50%.
This certainly suggests that reheating the pasta made it into an even more "resistant starch". It's an extraordinary result and one never measured before.
Very interesting - I usually cook up a pound of angel-hair and whatever we do not eat that night, I will save for the office lunch for the next few days. Feeling a lot less guilty about eating so much pasta now.
