New Processing Technique Could Make Potatoes Healthier

upstart writes:

Approach is designed to slow starch digestion to avoid blood sugar spikes:

"There is a perception that potato foods are unhealthy because eating a large amount of some potato foods can cause a rapid increase in blood sugar, which is a risk for people with diabetes or those who want to control body weight," said Amy Lin, PhD, the study's principal investigator and lead of the Food Carbohydrate Program of the Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI) at A*STAR. "Our team revealed that toggling the accessibility of two digestion enzymes- -amylase and mucosal -glucosidase- in the small intestine is a successful strategy to make dietary glucose slowly and continuously release from potatoes."

For the new processing technique, researchers cut potatoes into cubes and blanched them in hot water with a food grade ingredient for 30 minutes. [...]

This process causes a reaction with pectin, a water-soluble fiber in potatoes, creating a gelling structure that acts as a barrier between starch granules and digestive enzymes. This protective layer is porous, and the processing method allows the size of the pores to be controlled to moderate how quickly -amylase is able to penetrate the potato parenchyma cells and degrade starch to small molecules. [...]

"Without our treatment, enzymes move freely in and out of cells, and starch is quickly degraded by both enzymes and rapidly converted to glucose," said Lin. "The treatment allows the starch to be slowly degraded to prevent a spike in glycemia and then fully converted to glucose to meet our energy and nutritional needs."

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