Make some pasta or white rice and refrigerate overnight. By the next day, the natural starch in the food is converted into a healthier form of resistant starch, which can provide a variety of health benefits, including lowering blood sugar, improving gastrointestinal health, and reducing the risk of certain types of cancer. The idea that a food can change its health properties simply by cooking and cooling it sounds too good to be true. But according to experts like Balaz Baika, a gastrointestinal physiologist at King’s College London, there is some truth to this statement.
What Is Resistant Starch?
Resistant starch is a type of fiber found naturally in certain plant foods, such as whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, green bananas, and plantains. However, the resistant starch content may also increase after cooking and cooling in foods that are based on regular starches, such as rice, pasta, and potatoes.
Cooking and cooling causes the starch molecules in food to become tighter and harder to digest, Baika said. This means that the starch is “resistant,” meaning its sugar molecules are not as easily broken down and absorbed into your bloodstream.
What Are the Health Benefits of Resistant Starch?
Kimberly Ross-Francis, a Florida dietitian who specializes in caring for people with diabetes, says that because they are less digestible, resistant starch won’t cause your blood sugar to spike like regular starch.
It stays in your gut and becomes food for beneficial microbes, Baika says. This helps nourish these microbes, which produce beneficial molecules that have been linked to reducing cholesterol and inflammation and improving overall gastrointestinal health.
There is also evidence that resistant starch may help reduce the risk of certain types of cancer, but more is needed, said dietitian Annette M. Goldberg of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
In a recent trial of more than 900 people with Lynch syndrome, a genetic disorder that increases the risk of many types of cancer, researchers divided the subjects into two groups: One group took 30 grams of antibiotics daily. Starch supplements were given for the longest period of four years, while the other group received a placebo.
Twenty years later, the researchers found that the subjects’ risk of colorectal cancer had not changed, but those who took the resistant starch supplement were half as likely as the placebo group to develop other types of cancer, particularly in the stomach or pancreas. (The supplements used in the trial were provided by a company that makes starchy foods, but the company was not involved in the design or analysis of the study.)
By cooking and cooling a starchy food, you’re increasing its fiber content, says Mindy Patterson, associate professor of nutrition and food science at Texas Woman’s University.
Fiber has been linked to many health benefits, including a reduced risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. Consuming it in the form of resistant starch doesn’t seem to cause discomfort like gas or bloating as much as other forms of fiber, Patterson says.
Conclusion
Eating more fiber would be beneficial for most people, whether in the form of resistant starch or not, Patterson says.
Good sources of fiber include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. In addition to eating foods that naturally contain resistant starch, such as beans, barley, green bananas, and oats, Patterson says you can increase resistant starch levels in foods like pasta, potatoes, and rice by cooking and cooling them.
Rose-Frances encourages many of her diabetic clients to try cooking and cooling rice, pasta, or potatoes to see if it changes their blood sugar levels.
She said this could be a very powerful approach for them – because many people with diabetes avoid eating certain starchy foods out of concern that they might spike their blood sugar. This may explain why one of her short TikTok videos discussing the issue has 1.3 million views. “It gives people hope,” she said.
