Stop eating your potatoes hot.
One Minute For Your Health #10
Did you know that potatoes don’t count as one of your 5 daily portions of fruit and veg?
Potatoes may be a vegetable, but hot, white potatoes do the same thing to your body as a piece of cake.
In other words they are full of easily absorbed carbohydrates, which lead to a serious blood sugar spike just a short time after eating.
Cooked and cooled potatoes on the other hand have a totally different effect.
Which is why my (great) grandma’s potato salad is the ultimate way to eat potatoes.
The middle photo has my great grandma, my grandma and me - the only woman missing from the generational line up is my mum. And all of us use my great grandma’s recipe to make her famous potato salad.
It’s delicious, but it’s actually also healthy. Which I learned during my nutritional therapy MSc.
Why are cooked and cooled potatoes healthier?
When cooked potatoes cool down they form something known as resistant starch.
Resistant starch doesn’t exist in many foods, but it’s really important food for gut bacteria in our colon.
These bacteria turn the resistant starch into short chain fatty acids, which have a bunch of protective effects on our health.
Resistant starch can only be properly be digested by those gut bacteria, which means the energy from cooled potatoes is absorbed much more slowly than from hot potatoes.
Slowly absorbed energy means less blood sugar spikes (check out my porridge post in the archives if you need a reminder why blood sugar spikes are bad), feeling fuller for longer and having more sustained energy after eating.
Other foods that contain resistant starch are:
Cooked and cooled rice
Linseeds
Whole-grains with the seed hull in tact
Legumes
Green bananas
My challenge for you:
This week try to eat your potatoes cold. It’s a good idea to cook a big batch at the beginning of the week so you can easily add them as a carbohydrate to your salads.
I’d love to see your salad creations, tag me @efias_kitchen on Instagram or @insideefiaskitchen on Facebook so I can see and share what you’re making.
If you’re lucky, I may even share my grandma’s potato salad recipe. Comment on this post if you want to see it!
Remember to use the #1M4YH so others see what you’re up to too.
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Links and References:
Fuentes-Zaragoza, E. et al. (2010) "Resistant starch as functional ingredient: A review", Food Research International, 43(4), pp. 931-942. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2010.02.004.
Nugent, A. (2005) "Health properties of resistant starch", Nutrition Bulletin, 30(1), pp. 27-54. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-3010.2005.00481.x.
Book tip: Happy Food. https://www.amazon.com/Henrik-Ennart-author-Niklas-Ekstedt/dp/1472959981
Images from www.canva.com and the beautiful photo of my great grandma, grandma and I was shot by my grandfather
Learn more about me at www.efiaskitchen.com