If you eat potatoes cold, like in potato salad, or cool and reheated, you can get a lower glycemic impact of about 40%.
When you systematically combine all the best studies on potato consumption and the risk of chronic diseases, the association is found in the risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure—but that’s French fries. Consumption of boiled, baked, or mashed potatoes was not associated with the risk of high blood pressure, but there was still a negative link with diabetes. Overall, eating potatoes is not associated with the risk of many chronic diseases, but boiled potatoes may cause a small increase in the risk of diabetes. That’s one reason why some question whether it should be counted as a vegetable when trying to reach the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables.
If you look at other plant foods—nuts, vegetables, fruits, and legumes (beans, split peas, peas, and lentils)—they are associated with longevity. Very little risk of dying from cancer, dying from cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, and 25% less likely to die prematurely from all causes combined. But no such protection is found in potatoes for cancer, heart disease, or overall death. Therefore, the fact that potatoes do not seem to affect death can be seen as a bad thing. Now, it’s not like meat, which can shorten your life, as you can see below and at 1:28 in my video. The Glycemic Index of Potatoes: Why You Should Cool and Reheat.
But there may be an opportunity cost to eating white potatoes, as every bite of potato is a lost opportunity to put something even healthier in your mouth—something that could make you live longer.
Therefore, potatoes are a kind of “double-edged sword.” The reason that the consumption of potatoes may have a neutral effect on the risk of death is that all the fiber, vitamin C, and potassium in white potatoes may reduce the negative effects of their high glycemic index. Not only is a diet with a high glycemic effect “strongly associated” with the development of type 2 diabetes, but current evidence shows that this relationship is cause and effect.
A leading group in the potato industry called the Alliance for Potato Research and Education sponsored a study that found that eating unfried potatoes did not affect blood sugar symptoms, compared to the likes of Wonder Bread, which is not saying much. Foods with a glycemic index (GI) higher than 70 are considered high GI foods (high glycemic index foods), and those below 55 are low GI foods. Sugar-free water, for example, is often rated at 100, and white bread and white potatoes are also high up there as foods with a high glycemic index. But when you compare them to whole grains, such as barley (also known as barley), which is a very low GI food, you can see that refined grains and potatoes are very different. Look at the numbers below or at 2:47 in mine video.
Is there a way we can get our potatoes and eat them, lowering their glycemic index somehow? Well, when you boil potatoes and put them in the fridge to cool, some of the starch crystallizes into a form that can no longer be broken down by the starch-digesting enzymes in your gut, as you can see below and at 3:06 in mine. video.
However, the amounts of this so-called resistant starch are small, making it difficult to recommend frozen potatoes as a solution. But when tested, you see a dramatic drop in the glycemic index in cold potatoes compared to hot potatoes, shown below and at 3:23 in mine. video.
So, by eating potatoes as a potato salad, for example, you can get about a 40% lower glycemic impact. Therefore, the cooling effect may slow the rate at which starch is broken down and absorbed. Therefore, people who want to reduce the glycemic index of food can consider pre-cooking potatoes and refrigerating or reheating them. The downside to eating cold potatoes is that they may not be as filling as eating hot potatoes. But you can get the best of both worlds by cooling it first and then reheating it, which is exactly what was done in that famous study I included in my book. How not to eat. One of the many satiating foods tested was boiled-then-cooled-then-reheated potatoes, as you can see below and at 4:09 in mine. video.
There is indeed an appetite-suppressing protein in potatoes called potato protease inhibitor II, but the way you prepare your potatoes makes a difference. Both boiled and mashed potatoes are more filling than fried potatoes, as shown below and at 4:26 in My. video.
That was for the fries, anyway. How about French fries? People had more appetite after eating boiled mashed potatoes, compared to white rice or white pasta, which is where French fries, and French fries were made. So, while baked fries may be your BFF, they’re not very satisfying.
Doctor’s Note
Just to be clear, you don’t need to reheat. Chilling is an important step to significantly lower the glycemic index, so you can enjoy a cold potato salad. If you’re trying to control your weight, however, you may want to avoid even baked fries.
This is a five video series about potatoes. If you missed the first two, here you go Do Potatoes Increase the Risk of Diabetes? again Do Potatoes Increase the Risk of High Blood Pressure and Death?.
Chilling isn’t the only trick to blunting the glycemic impact. You can also add vinegar, lemon, or broccoli.
Stay tuned for the last two videos in this series: How to Reduce the Glycemic Impact of Potatoes again The Healthiest Kind of Potato.
Join the resistance! Check out the related post below.
