Resistant starchy foods play a significant role in managing diabetes and promoting good health-by Harold Gunatillake
Scientists have discovered a simple way to cook rice that dramatically cuts the calories.
Hello viewers, today’s topic may come as a shock, but it will be welcome news for
people with diabetes who are often restricted in their dietary choices. Your endocrinologist will tell you you must limit your carbohydrate intake to low-glycemic index (GI) foods and control your gastric load (GL).
As you know, all dietary carbohydrates are broken down into glucose and absorbed through the gut into the portal veins, which then go directly to the liver.
When glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream, it causes an immediate spike in blood sugar levels, especially in people with diabetes. This can lead to a range of symptoms and, if not managed, can have serious long-term effects on health.
In the long term, repeated spikes in your blood sugar can cause heart problems, kidney problems, problems with eyesight, and nerve issues like neuropathy, where you lose feeling in your fingers and toes.
What happens if the blood sugar is too high?
Hyperglycemia occurs when blood glucose levels become too high. It can affect people of any age and cause a range of symptoms, including excessive thirst, hunger, fatigue, and an urge to urinate in more significant amounts than usual.
You can manipulate such carbs to resistant starch, which resists digestion in the small gut and leads to fermentation by the beneficial bacteria in the large gut.
This unique property means it doesn’t cause the rapid spikes in blood glucose levels typical of other carbohydrates, making it particularly beneficial for individuals with diabetes.
When foods like your favourite biryani, fried rice and lumpia rice are cooked and then cooled overnight, the starch undergoes a transformation that increases its resistance to digestion. This process slows down glucose absorption into the bloodstream, providing a more stable energy release and preventing the sharp sugar spikes that can be detrimental to diabetic health.
However, the benefits of resistant starch extend beyond blood sugar control. In the large intestine, resistant starch acts as a prebiotic, feeding the good bacteria in the gut. These beneficial microorganisms, in turn, ferment the starch and produce short- chain fatty acids (SCFAs) such as acetate, propionate, and butyrate.
SCFAs have several health benefits, including:
- Nourishing Colon Cells: Butyrate, in particular, is the preferred energy source for the cells lining the colon, helping to maintain a healthy intestinal barrier.
- Reducing Inflammation: SCFAs can help reduce inflammation in the gut, which is beneficial for preventing inflammatory bowel diseases.
- Protecting Against Cancer: SCFAs protect against colorectal cancer by nourishing colon cells and reducing inflammation.
In summary, resistant starch is a powerful ally for people with diabetes and those looking to improve their gut health. It offers a way to manage blood sugar levels naturally while supporting the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and promoting overall colon health.
So, how do you make resistant starch in foods like biriyani and lumprai or just plain rice?
Well, research has shown that cooking white rice with coconut oil, then allowing it to cool and be reheated, decreases the glycemic index and increases the levels of resistant starch – a prebiotic.
This applies to all starchy foods like potatoes and pasta, and you may want to consider cooking them a day or two before you want to eat them. Cooling these foods in the fridge overnight or for a few days may increase their resistant starch content.
A cup of white rice has about 200 calories—not insignificant, considering it’s most often used as a small part of a larger dish. But there’s an easy, natural way to make rice less caloric: add a little fat, then let it cool. According to research presented at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting, using a few drops of coconut oil and a refrigerating overnight can slash calories by as much as 60%.
Rice comprises digestible starch and this modification by adding a few drops of coconut oil, refrigerating overnight, makes the starch more resistant to digestion and absorption.
Recent research suggests that cooking with a tablespoon of coconut oil may be essential for weight control by making the rice, resistant to digestion and absorption as mentioned earlier. Humans do not have the enzymes to digest resistant starch, so it is not transformed into sugar and absorbed quickly in the bloodstream like digestible starch. Instead, it bypasses the small intestine and is metabolised in the colon by beneficial bacteria, fermented into short-chain fatty acids that feed healthy colonies of gut bacteria. The more resistant starch a food has, the fewer calories our bodies will absorb from that starch. Resistant starch is plentiful in legumes, beans, whole grains, uncooked potatoes and unripe bananas.
Researchers from the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka wanted to figure out if they could convert some of rice’s digestible starch into the non-digestible type, making it less caloric. By testing out 38 different kinds of rice and simulating human digestion in a test tube, they devised a recipe for the least caloric way to cook rice: drop a teaspoon of coconut oil into boiling water, then add half a cup of non-fortified white rice and cook it for about 40 minutes. After cooking, stick it in the fridge for 12 hours.
Here’s how it works: the glucose units in hot cooked rice have a loose structure, but when it cools down, the molecules rearrange into very tight bonds more resistant to digestion, says Pushaparaja Thavarajah, PhD, who supervised the study. Scientists already know that it works in potatoes, but in a new study, researchers thought adding fat like coconut oil could add extra protection. It seemed to. The fat molecule wedges its way into the rice, Thavarajah says and provides a barrier against quick digestion.
Thevarajah, a professor at the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka, and his mentor, James, have been tinkering with a new way to cook rice that can reduce its calories by as much as 50 percent and even offer a few other added health benefits. The ingenious method, which is based on a simple manipulation of chemistry, involves only a couple of easy steps in practice, as mentioned earlier.
Making rice starch more resistant has other perks besides cutting calories. It’ll also feed your good bacteria. “The resistant starch is an excellent substrate, or energy source, for the bacteria inside the human gut,” says Thavarajah.
Best of all, the researchers found that reheating the rice didn’t change the levels of resistant starch—so the calorie hack is safe for leftovers, too.
Leaving aside the nitty-gritty of research done, what you and I are interested in is, “Can we eat biriyani and yellow rice, pilaf style of rice and lumpia, even daily and keep our weight down, and keep our sugar controlled in the blood, especially among people with diabetes who are told to avoid such foods.
You cannot go to a restaurant, eat biriyani, fried rice, or lumprai, and expect your blood sugar not to rise.
For the rice to be resistant and have its benefits, it is essential to keep the cooked rice in the fridge overnight and eat it the next day after warming, which will not be practical in a restaurant.
The prospect of less caloric rice is a big deal. Obesity rates are rising around the world, particularly in the developing world, where people rely more heavily on cheaper food staples. China and India, already seeing rising obesity problems, are huge rice consumers. Rice, of course, is not the sole cause of weight gain. But reducing the number of calories in a cup of rice by even as little as 10 per cent could have an enormous impact on future generations, says Thavarajah.
Our grandmothers knew this. They believed that the leftover rice in the cooked clay pot, referred to as’ Dankuda’ in Sinhalese, was healthy to eat the next day.
If prepared as mentioned earlier, people with diabetes can guilt-free enjoy their favourite fried rice, biryani, or lumprai.
Cooking starchy foods like potatoes, rice, and pasta and then cooling them in the refrigerator overnight can increase their resistant starch content. It’s okay to reheat these foods before eating, as reheating does not decrease the amount of resistant starch
So, until we meet again, goodbye for now.
