The question of the moment: is resistant starch good for diabetics? Yes, but what exactly is resistant starch? Hopefully, it is a part of your every day diet.
Here’s the gist. Resistant starch is basically starch that passes through your stomach and intestines without being fully digested. It ends up in your colon and becomes a wonderful source of nourishment for all the good bacteria that keep you healthy.
In my deep dive into discovering why starches that were cooked and then cooled seemed helpful to Milly’s blood glucose levels after eating, I found several amazing articles. We had stumbled upon this “secret” in a book called Culinary Reactions in a chemistry course we used in our homeschool.
As the commonalities emerged, I started cooking and then cooling potatoes, rice , and pasta before using it in a recipe or warming as a side dish. Every time I used this method, her levels were more steady. Conversely, when someone made potato salad or pasta without cooking and cooling the starch, her numbers went on a much wider swing.
How is resistant starch good for diabetics?
There are several different types of resistant starch that occur based on the food. From naturally occurring in seeds or beans to man-made, the type of food and the preparation of it make a difference. Seeds and grains with more fiber tend to have more naturally resistant starch. Yet, other naturally occur foods have differing levels of resistant starch that can change throughout the growing process. For example, green bananas have more resistant starch than ripe ones. By the time a banana is turning brown or spotted, the amount of resistant starch has drastically decreased so the affect of the banana on Milly’s BG is much immediate and the spike is much higher.
Basically, the idea is that the mushier and darker the banana, the less resistant starch. So, if the banana is perfect for banana bread, the resistant starch has pretty much been dissolved.
Putting the theory to a test
Milly tends to be hyperglycemic, and she is extremely sensitive to carbs. As we were stepping into the brave new world of diabetes management, we decided to use our science class in our homeschool to research new ideas as we came across them. This theory made a fun experiment that allowed our girl to gain direct insight into how her body processed different types of starch.
We first tested things out by trying baked potatoes. By accident, she discovered that a small leftover potato in the refrigerator affected her levels much less than a small potato of equal size she had eaten for dinner the night before. That experiment proved true when repeated, so we decided to explore other starches by refrigerating them before serving.
To create a side by side comparison, we used a recipe that we had already hacked. My grandmother’s baked macaroni and cheese has always been a favorite, so we made two batches with the changes we had already figured out just as in our recipe Mealtime Mac and Cheese. For one batch, we used regular store bought pasta and cooked it according to the directions on the box. For the second batch, we used the same pasta and cooked it according to the directions on the box as well; however, we rinsed it and put it in the fridge over night before using it in the recipe.
The results proved the theory to be true for Milly. Cooked and cooled pasta had less of an impact on her levels. Since the changes had worked for pasta and potatoes, we knew we were on to a really helpful trick for our family.
Try it for yourself
Every person’s body responds in its own way, so try a couple of simple experiments for yourself. Sometimes a bit of purposeful trial and error can lead to discoveries that make life just a little bit easier.
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