I kid you not. Potatoes, pasta, corn, legumes, oats, rice and bread can all be good for you.
How? Leftovers.
Yes, leftovers often taste better the next day. They can also be better for you the next day.
Let’s take potatoes, for example. Whether boiled or baked, potatoes go through a chemical process during cooking that, when cooled overnight in the refrigerator, transforms them into medicine for your gut and blood sugar.
The commonality between potatoes, corn, bread, rice, legumes, and pasta is that they all contain starches. The science? Starch cokes in two forms – amylase and amylopectin. They are polysaccharides made up of glucose units.
Cooking those foods starts a process of gelatinising the starch. This loosens the bonds in crystalline granular form of the starches. The starches become amorphous, disordered, dispersed in water.
Cooling the cooked potatoes, corn, etc, rapidly on the bench and then in the refrigerator initiates the process of retrogradation, where the starches reform in a more structured state. This is the magic. The more structured state transforms that same chemical compound, C6H10O5, in a different form, and makes it a resistant starches.
What’s so good about resistant starches? It’s good for your gut, and good for your blood sugar.
How?
Resistant starch is prebiotic. Prebiotics feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut.
Resistant starches have a lower glycaemic index. This helps to stabilise blood sugar levels.
The fascinating thing, to me, is that these starches don’t change their chemical notation. It remains the same from before cooking, through cooking and gelatinisation, through cooling and retrogradation, and through reheating. It’s the way that two or more of these starch molecules are bonded that make the difference.
Granules, gelatinised, then reformed into granules again but in a different structure than they were before cooking.
Food chemistry is kitchen magic.
My favourite recipes for the next day, and those resistant starches?
Pasta pie
Pasta salad – take your pick or make up your own.
If you need more information:
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 