Cold potatoes

[Heather Yovanoff]

Hi I saw this posted by a reader on Daily Mail this morning.

Potatoes are an excellent source of resistant starches if they are cooked, cooled and eaten cold, resistant starches have starch-blocking properties, helpful for a variety of medical conditions.

Does eating potatoes cold have any effect as far as Diabetes is concerned?

Thanks (I love my spuds, especially cold, so fingers crossed).

 

[Bubbsie]

Does eating potatoes cold have any effect as far as Diabetes is concerned?

Thanks (I love my spuds, especially cold, so fingers crossed).

The method of cooking and variety of potato can affect the GI value of potatoes ...New potatoes tend to have lower GI than old potatoes...waxy potatoes have lower GI values than floury potatoes...diabetics may also benefit from eating potatoes with the skin on...potatoes with skin have almost twice the amount of fibre...fibre is important for diabetics...it helps slow the digestion preventing large spikes in blood sugar...some studies indicate that boiling red potatoes...refrigerating overnight...eating them cold the following day resulted in a GI value of just 56...in comparison to baked & roasted potatoes which had a higher GI of 85 - 90...I guess the only way to resolve this would be to try some...then test a couple of hours later to see if you have an unacceptable spike.

 

[Beck S]

There have been studies on pasta which came to a similar conclusion. Pasta that had been cooked and left to cool, had less of an effect on BG levels of the test subjects than freshly cooked. Pasta then reheated had an even better effect. Michael Mosely has covered this as well on one of his tv shows. Of course, you would need to test it for yourself as there's no guarantee it would work for all diabetics, but it could work. I've tried it in little bits and it's been ok.