Resistant Starch

Jodee

Jodee

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Didn't work for me.
If there are carbs in food then I digest them - my gut seems to take it as a challenge to get every last bit of carb out of foods so I really do need to count every gram and ignore nothing.
 
I am sure I’ve seen slightly better / more reliable / gentler results since the lockdowns where we got into the habit of having bread in the freezer. I still have to prebolus for it, but I am sure it’s been better behaved of late.

And freezing converts some of the carbs to resistant starch.
 
Jodee said:
I vaguely remember reading something about this before, but I must get into the habit of doing this when I want to eat same 😉
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This is what the British Nutrition Foundation has to say:-

Resistant starch cannot be digested in the small intestine. As a result it is classified as a type of fibre. It’s formed when starchy foods like potatoes and pasta are cooked then cooled, and there is good evidence that post-prandial glycaemic responses are reduced compared to digestible carbohydrates.

DUK has a section about it too:-

Carbs and cooking

Pasta, potatoes and rice... are all carbohydrates that cause a surge in blood glucose levels as they are broken down. For people with diabetes, these surges in glucose can be tricky to manage and cause problems over time. But what if simply changing the way these foods were prepared and cooked...
www.diabetes.org.uk www.diabetes.org.uk
 
Can i throw in my usual plea and that is to take great care when talking about carbohydrate and assigning numbers to carbohydrate content. The term carbohydrate refers to anything that has the generic formula, Cm(H2O)n, and includes every thing from the simplest sugars to the most complicated starches. Some carbohydrates will be converted to blood glucose, some will not. As @Drummer keeps pointing out, quite what will be converted is very dependent on the individual.

Carbohydrates are chemical compounds and more than likely than not will work like any other chemical compound. Heat it up to temperatures above around 100C (i.e. cook it) and all sorts of chemical reactions will be going on. Some of those reactions might make more of the carbohydrate "digestible" whereas other reactions might make it less "digestible". Same with freezing except there you are talking about damage that might be done by formation of ice crystals rather than chemical reactions. There are an awful lot of variables to get your brain round and I'm thinking that the whole thing is a bit chaotic and it is unwise to make simple predictions about the outcome of any particular process.

As such, it seems to me, in this area you can talk in broad generalities but no more.
 
Docb said:
Can i throw in my usual plea and that is to take great care when talking about carbohydrate and assigning numbers to carbohydrate content.
Click to expand...
But we don't assign numbers, we simply read them off the nutrition panels on food packaging or pick them up from the nutrition information on websites. What else are we supposed to do to manage our carb intake?
 
@beating_my_betes, I am referring to the numbers you see in the apps and on the sides of packets. The numbers, especially those on the sides of packets are not as precise as implied by the way the numbers are quoted. They are, as far as I can make out, not measurements, but estimates made by the manufacturer. Probably pretty good estimates, but estimates none the less. Trying to split those numbers into resistant and non resistant starches looks to me a bit of a dodgy business and trying to decide whether some processing has altered the ratio of one to the other is something very hard to demonstrate. Chuck into the mix the wide range of individual reactions to carbohydrate and it becomes more an interesting theoretical exercise than precise science.

@Martin.A - You have to go with information on packets and in apps, it is all that there is, but it is wise to remember that they are broad estimates and to use them on that basis. My suggestion is you use the app/packet information to control the big hitters to reduce overall carb intake and then use blood glucose monitoring if you want to do fine tuning. In the broad, that's how T1's do it, and they are the experts.

I guess my overall thought is that when it comes to carbs, don't try and be too clever. You can get near enough to decent blood glucose control by controlling carbs without much effort and for most purposes near enough is good enough.
 
In truth I've never reduced my carbohydrate counts to allow for how much resistant starch would have been created, for two reasons - I have no clue as to how I would do it, and I've never seen anything which has put numbers on the effect of cook-cool-reheat or cooking from frozen. I've just accepted that it gives a little less of a carb hit, which seems to be the consensus.
 
I’ve always been much more of a guesstimator than a scrupulous adder-up where my carb counting is concerned. So I suppose I’m less interested in the numbers involved, than a general sense of “does this technique seem to have a positive impact on meal outcomes?”

I wouldn't reduce my dose for a slice of bread that has been frozen, vs one that hasn’t, but my hunch / gut feeling is that bread behaves more gently / kindly if it has been frozen. Hunch and gut feeling being the pinnacle of experimental observation studies, of course!
 
Martin.A said:
But we don't assign numbers, we simply read them off the nutrition panels on food packaging or pick them up from the nutrition information on websites. What else are we supposed to do to manage our carb intake?
Click to expand...
I kept finding that with certain meals my blood glucose at the two hour mark was higher than expected, always when I'd eaten peas or beans without pods.
After a while I worked out that I can get about 180% of the listed value out of legume seeds.
Things in pods, french or runner beans are just a little higher, but not really significantly higher.
Having a blood glucose tester is very useful when working out what to eat and in what amounts.
When I tested freezing potato or bread there was possibly a tiny reduction, but not very significant. My blood glucose still went rather high.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
I am sure I’ve seen slightly better / more reliable / gentler results since the lockdowns where we got into the habit of having bread in the freezer. I still have to prebolus for it, but I am sure it’s been better behaved of late.

And freezing converts some of the carbs to resistant starch.
Click to expand...
yes and I recall something about bread being toasted changes things into better option for diabetics. I do freeze bread but then mostly always toasted.
 
Docb said:
Can i throw in my usual plea and that is to take great care when talking about carbohydrate and assigning numbers to carbohydrate content. The term carbohydrate refers to anything that has the generic formula, Cm(H2O)n, and includes every thing from the simplest sugars to the most complicated starches. Some carbohydrates will be converted to blood glucose, some will not. As @Drummer keeps pointing out, quite what will be converted is very dependent on the individual.

Carbohydrates are chemical compounds and more than likely than not will work like any other chemical compound. Heat it up to temperatures above around 100C (i.e. cook it) and all sorts of chemical reactions will be going on. Some of those reactions might make more of the carbohydrate "digestible" whereas other reactions might make it less "digestible". Same with freezing except there you are talking about damage that might be done by formation of ice crystals rather than chemical reactions. There are an awful lot of variables to get your brain round and I'm thinking that the whole thing is a bit chaotic and it is unwise to make simple predictions about the outcome of any particular process.

As such, it seems to me, in this area you can talk in broad generalities but no more.
Click to expand...
I generally agree 🙂
 
Martin.A said:
This is what the British Nutrition Foundation has to say:-

Resistant starch cannot be digested in the small intestine. As a result it is classified as a type of fibre. It’s formed when starchy foods like potatoes and pasta are cooked then cooled, and there is good evidence that post-prandial glycaemic responses are reduced compared to digestible carbohydrates.

DUK has a section about it too:-

Carbs and cooking

Pasta, potatoes and rice... are all carbohydrates that cause a surge in blood glucose levels as they are broken down. For people with diabetes, these surges in glucose can be tricky to manage and cause problems over time. But what if simply changing the way these foods were prepared and cooked...
www.diabetes.org.uk www.diabetes.org.uk
Click to expand...
Thanks for link Martin, I keep forgetting about our local sources of info :D
 
Jodee said:
I do freeze bread but then mostly always toasted.
Click to expand...

Me too!

Toast is one of the great joys in life for me. Thank goodness for rapid insulin.
 
Docb said:
@beating_my_betes, I am referring to the numbers you see in the apps and on the sides of packets. The numbers, especially those on the sides of packets are not as precise as implied by the way the numbers are quoted. They are, as far as I can make out, not measurements, but estimates made by the manufacturer. Probably pretty good estimates, but estimates none the less. Trying to split those numbers into resistant and non resistant starches looks to me a bit of a dodgy business and trying to decide whether some processing has altered the ratio of one to the other is something very hard to demonstrate. Chuck into the mix the wide range of individual reactions to carbohydrate and it becomes more an interesting theoretical exercise than precise science.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you're referring to. But did you watch the video posted by the OP?
 
beating_my_betes said:
I'm not sure what you're referring to. But did you watch the video posted by the OP?
Click to expand...
Yes I have looked at the video. What it gives is a whole load of assertions with no backing. The claims made might be OK, they might not be OK. There is no way you can check what sources have been used so you cannot make a judgement. It is typical of many such videos where the main aim is to catch your attention in the hope that you will get others to look at it. The more views they get, the more money they make from it. Also, the "in your face" style of presentation ordering you believe something is not something I appreciate.

The term "resistant starch" is like "glycaemic index". It has no recognised definition and no way of measuring it. It is an interesting idea but no more than that and to claim, as the video does, that by some method or other you can change non resistant starches (whatever they are) into resistant starches is stretching things a very long way. As an experimental scientist, I cannot see a way of establishing whether the idea has any merit. You need to have an understanding of he variables and something you can measure as an outcome. Total carbohydrate cannot be easily measured and without some definition of what is meant by resistant starch that cannot be separated from the total. Things are nowhere near as clear as the video suggests.

What I am referring to is the quality of the numerical claims made the proponents of one thing or another. All I ask is that people are wary when looking at this sort of stuff.
 
Yes @Martin.A and it contains a load of caveats and error bars on the numbers quoted because it is designed to inform. Very different to the Youtube videos which are designed to attract clicks.
 
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