Is "resistant starch" something different from "complex carbohydrates"? Other than the comment about letting potatoes and rice cool, (which presumably causes some structural change), the list looks familiar in that it omits the high glycemic index simple carb items like pasta, non-whole grains, sugars and the like that digest too quickly and spike blood sugar levels. .

I've started to do that since I first heard about it a couple of years ago. I'm amazed that the change in structure is retained even with heating (i.e. you don't have to eat it cold, like a pasta salad).

"Is "resistant starch" something different from "complex carbohydrates"?"

Yup. A complex carb might be a resistant starch, but it might not be. Broccoli is a complex carbohydrate, but not a starch at all (let alone a resistant starch).

"I always cook extra rice and potatoes but I've read that you're not supposed to reheat rice. I didn't understand why but I still do it."

I've never heard that. All those egg fried rice dishes in Chinese cuisine involve reheating yesterday's rice.

"A complex carb might be a resistant starch, but it might not be.

Oh my, it's needless pedantry day. (Is that redundant?)

My intended meaning, not at all misleading by my word choice, might have better been said as "is a resistant starch different from a complex carbohydrate starch" but I left the word out. My examples showed my intent and of course there are carbohydrates that aren't starches. To make up for the word I left out, I put in and perhaps should have left out "sugars".

Carry on.

I'm not eating rice currently, resistant or not, but I was curious about the above warnings not to reheat rice and it turns out that there is some info I did not know, that there is a possibility of food poisoning depending: https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/

We don't eat rice at all, other than what sushi rolls and pieces are attached to. It seems like a food offering only empty calories with no flavor. "You didn't order rice" is a common comment we hear when ordering Chinese or Thai food.

To jmm's comment, a Chinese acquaintance once told me that fried rice as a dish (that has ingredients added to it to create new flavors) is a way of using up excess cooked rice and is not a cooking destination of its own. Not unlike the variety of uses in different European cuisines for stale, crusty bread. Added to soup to thicken it, added to salads (croutons), added to meatballs (after being rolled to produce bread crumbs) to spread out the meat (a la Hamburger Helper), etc.

I've never heard of this but I naturally do it. I make enough oatmeal, steel cut cooked with chopped apples and walnuts, for several days and reheat it in the microwave. I make brown rice in huge quantities and freeze it and pull out what I want for dinner. I like potatoes but I rarely eat them.

Lucille - that article about reheating rice is true of any cooked food. It needs to be refrigerated quickly and consumed within a few days. I don't think rice is any more risky than any other leftover.

As for fried rice dish not being a cooking destination of its own, I disagree. Many dishes in many cuisines are based on efficient use of leftovers - think soups using chicken carcasses, ham bones and/or leftover vegetables, panzanella and bruschetta using stale bread, frittattas, etc. Reimagining plain steamed rice into prawn fried rice is a terrific destination to aim for and one I arrive at with a degree of regularity.

Disclaimer: I have 6 different types of rice in my pantry at the moment. What can I say? 😉

There is resistant starch that occurs naturally in many foods. It's healthy fiber, nothing more or less. It will fill you up just like other fiber will. Good for the gut like any safely ingested fiber. However the idea of some magical transformation in starch by refrigerating it is a myth. Following unscientific ideas found in books and on the internet has the potential of being dangerous or harmful to those with diabetes.

The John Hopkins the OP posted piece notes this. It is referring to naturally starch resistant foods. It says the resistant starch will not lessen by being being cooked ahead and kept in the fridge. No fanciful claims in the piece that it will increase.

"Many dishes in many cuisines are based on efficient use of leftovers"

Of course. By saying, not a destination of its own, the implication was to say that what I was told was that rice is not cooked fresh for a meal to be made into fried rice for that meal. It is a use of a leftover.

I can give you the phone number of the Chinese colleague who told me this and you can call and quibble with her. I was repeating what I was told in, as it happens, a Chinese restaurant where we were having lunch that she'd ordered after a conversation with the waiter, without consulting a menu.

I'm not quibbling, Elmer. For me, fried rice is a destination dish in its own right. I do have a right to my own opinion, you know.

And I don't find rice tasteless or I wouldn't need six different types, now would I?

Anyway, I reckon that, if I'm not eating rice with my curry or stir fry, not allowing it to sop up the sauce, absorb the flavours and add another texture, I'm missing half the dish. And how about a good risotto? Hardly what I would call tasteless.

Are you of ethnic Chinese origin? I may have edited and added to my comment before your response but as I've said above, this was what I was told by someone who is.

Elmer - you missed my point. I don't care what your alleged friend said. I/I regard fried rice as a destination food.

I do suggest you expand your culinary horizons: you don't seem to have any grasp or appreciation of the role rice plays in most Asian and a number of European, Middle Eastern and African cuisines. You're missing out on a lot.

Lucille - that article about reheating rice is true of any cooked food. It needs to be refrigerated quickly and consumed within a few days. I don't think rice is any more risky than any other leftover.

Jmm, I am certainly not trying to vilify rice, I used to love rice in certain dishes, (I don't eat rice now) and my Grandma's chicken and rice was a favorite. But a search of Bacillus cereus, while mentioning many foods, frequently mentions rice.

I think that as long as people are aware and as you point out, refrigerate quickly and consume within a few days, there is no cause for fear, but at the same time, there is no harm in being aware that rice is mentioned frequently in connection with this particular kind of food poisoning.

wildchild, the Johns Hopkins article eariler says: The amount of resistant starch changes with heat. Oats, green bananas, and plantains lose some of their resistant starch when cooked. Another type of resistant starch is made in the cooking and cooling process. Cooked rice that has been cooled is higher in resistant starch than rice that was cooked and not cooled.

Then later it says: How to Add Resistant Starch to Your Diet

• Try cooking rice, potatoes, beans, and pasta a day in advance and cool in the refrigerator overnight. It’s ok to reheat the starch before eating. Reheating doesn’t decrease the amount of resistant starch.

They say it's a mixed bag -- some foods gain, some lose when heated. I'm not convinced this one article tells the whole story. I vaguely remember reading a few years ago that reheating the food lost the benefit of cooking/cooling the starch. Bottom line for me: I'm not a scientist but I am skeptical enough to not change my lifestyle based on just one brief article, no matter who wrote it! "Overnight oats", forsooth!

The way it’s written especially for rice, can be misleading if diabetics think they can cook white rice and let it cool in the fridge before eating without much concern about the glycemic index. Brown rice has lower GI score than white rice, and it is the recommended choice for diabetics over white rice.

As for fried rice, my mom usually prepared it either from leftover rice or newly cooked rice. Often we don’t have much leftover so she would combine the newly cooked rice with the yesterday rice. Sometimes there was no leftover so she fried rice from the rice cooked few hours earlier. Chinese restaurants typically have fried rice on the menu and almost 100% of it is from the leftover. There’s more than one way to skin the cat here.

"I am skeptical enough to not change my lifestyle based on just one brief article"

However, it's only 1 brief article, because that's all you've chosen to read. If you were interested, you could find many articles, longer and more involved, dating back probably 30 years. It greatly interested me when I first heard of how refrigerating potatoes after cooking kept all of their (great) nutrition, and added better fiberous and glycemic effects......so I looked it up.

This is an excellent article including more science than you probably want, but includes some history of the recognition of not just resistant starches, but the "retrogradation" of them - that is the term used for cooling them after heating, to return their structure to the resistant structure they had before cooking. And the effects on a person's health. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-3010.2005.00481.x There are lots and lots (and lots) of articles out there, but this one seems to strike a good balance between too scientific and too consumer.

". However the idea of some magical transformation in starch by refrigerating it is a myth."

No, it isn't, and it isn't magical either. It's called "retrogradation", and the structure of the starch physically changes after heating in water (i.e. cooking) and then cooling. See my earlier post for a good link, which includes other links if you're interested.

"I do suggest you expand your culinary horizons:"

You know nothing about me but I'll share that this is a very silly, erroneous and baseless presumption. If a person of the origin ethnicity has an opinion that you wish to contradict and assert greater knowledge of as an outsider from a distance, I suspect it's you who needs to open their mind a bit. Not the first time in other but similar circumstances. An alternative for you to consider is that different people have different views and that situation doesn't necessarily lead to a right and wrong or better and worse assessment.

Good to hear that my daily serving of overnight oats is not only easy but healthier than cooking in the morning. But does heating them in the microwave in the morning make them less resistant to digestion?

The discussion of leftover rice and fried rice reminds me of the viral Uncle Roger takedown of a BBC fried rice video (and the subsequent video of a Jamie Oliver version). A common theme -- you make fried rice only with rice that has been cooled down, not with hot cooked rice. The OP's article seems to suggest another benefit.

Toronto Vet, thanks for the longer more sciency article -- I've bookmarked it to read later. FWIW I *have* read about the subject before, including a fascinating book by the "Fast Diet" doctor about gut health and so many things they didn't teach in high school biology class (perhaps because not as much was pinned down 50 years ago!). Again, I'm no scientist, but I understand enough about the way science works to not think any one particular article, book, study, etc, is the "last word". There will always more to learn, especially in the field of biology.

Elmer - my comment was based on your own words. Nothing more, nothing less.  "We don't eat rice at all, other than what sushi rolls and pieces are attached to. It seems like a food offering only empty calories with no flavor." That is the comment of a person who is unfamiliar with the qualities, flavours and uses of different types of rice. It is the comment of someone who has never eaten a risotto, a paella or a biryani. 

And I'm really  not sure what ethnicity has to do with anything at all. You do know that fried rice is not exclusive to Chinese cuisine? Indian and Indonesian cuisines have it as well. So does Thai.  You do know that people who are not ethnically  Chinese, Indian, Indonesian or Thai can be familiar with those cuisines? Your hypothetical friend has an opinion about fried rice. So do I. End of story.

I find it intriguing that you demand your own  right to have an opinion  on all matters while repeatedly disparaging my right to have a different one.

Have a nice weekend.

A Chinese chef taught me three fried rice recipes that should be made only with fresh cooked rice.

1. Fried Rice with Chinese fermented salted fish.

2. Fried Rice with Chinese sausage.

3. Fried Rice with Chinese salted duck egg.

Essentially, the above "recipes" follow the same method. First cook the rice to almost done, then add one of the above main ingredient chopped, and continue to cook the rice until it is done. Now make the fried rice with other typical fried rice ingredients such as eggs, chicken, or pork, or shrimps, etc.

The above main ingredients infuse a very nice flavor/aroma to the rice and make your fried rice recipe very special.

You can order the above fried rice in Chinese restaurants as the main dish.

dcarch

Jmm1837, I'm in total agreement with you when it comes to rice. I keep a variety of rice on hand and I cook extra rice for fried rice. I wouldn't even call it leftover because it is cooked on purpose for another dish. Other than that a resistant starch diet is not one that appeals to me. I don't care for most leftovers especially potatoes. Leftover potatoes do not taste the same as freshly cooked, regardless of how they are prepared,

I'm reading this all with interest.... never heard of this before.

I remember some kids bringing a potato(s) from last night's dinner as their lunch. Perhaps that was a better meal than I realized.

I’m always reheating starchy foods. If this is true, its good news.

Since we’re on the topic, for fried rice lovers here’s a great recipe. She has accompanying videos on youtube for all of her recipes.

https://www.cookingwithmorgane.com/en/recipe/cantonese-stir-fried-rice.html

IMO, the “non-flavor” and texture of white rice enhances the flavors of other foods when eaten together. Many professional chefs use it for this reason. On the other hand, flavored rice (I’m not talking about fried rice or different rice types) can clash terribly with other dishes.

There are many cultures and countries where people are totally ignorant of fat, calories, vitamins, omega 3, antioxidants, gym work-outs, ---

They don't have access to information about dieting. Their body tells them what to eat and how much they should eat. They just listen to their bodies.

I seldom see fat people or skinny people there.

dcarch

I bet the people there do a lot of walking and consume a diet void of processed food, non sugary drinks, and not a lot of red meat, so their guts and their blood are healthy. No need to know or to look for resistant starch.

I walk 7-10 miles everyday with NO effect on my weight. I hate this.

"It was right about the same time as I grew weary of "diet news.""

Knowing about resistant starch isn't diet news, it's nutrition news. Knowing what effects food has on your digestion and health is important, because of comments like amylou321 -- there isn't any one formula for "healthy living," or "maintaining a good weight" -- our bodies are individual, complex biological systems that don't always follow any set of rules. With information you can mix and match and try (and fail) to find the right individual mix for you and your lifestyle. A diet is a regimen, but nutrition is information.

That being said, nutritional information is scientific information and scientific information is always evolving (as we're seeing with diseases too) -- that's a good thing, not a failure. Scientific information is constantly tested and reshaped as we learn new things; that's not a reason to ignore scientific information, it's a reason to accept and welcome changes.

"There are many cultures and countries where people are totally ignorant of fat, calories, vitamins, omega 3, antioxidants, gym work-outs, ---

They don't have access to information about dieting. Their body tells them what to eat and how much they should eat. They just listen to their bodies."

Which cultures and countries are those? That sounds like a 70 year old fairy tale, or you're talking about those hidden indigenous tribes in the Amazon or high in the Himalayas. And this idea of "listening to your body" will help you stay healthy is a myth that only applies if someone lives in an area of deprivation (or seasonal deprivation), because our bodies want lots of salt, sugar, and fat. That's how processed food companies make us want more of their products, but even without processed food, our bodies naturally crave more of those things. If there are fatty or salty foods available, our bodies will tell us to eat more of them, because our bodies think we will need the energy and hydration.

Their body tells them what to eat

My body tells me to eat pizza and cheesecake. I of course don't listen. Anymore.

"----- Which cultures and countries are those? That sounds like a 70 year old fairy tale, or you're talking about those hidden indigenous tribes in the Amazon or high in the Himalayas.----"

Many years ago, I traveled to China, many cities and villages in China. I didn't see one single fat person. Same in Hong Kong.

Many years ago, I traveled to France, I didn't see one single fat French.

I watch many youtube videos about hidden indigenous tribes in the Amazon or high in the Himalayas. I don't remember having seen fat natives.

I walk around in NYC nowadays, 1/3 of the people are overweight.

"---And this idea of "listening to your body" will help you stay healthy is a myth---"

Instead of listening to your body, you of course have the option to listen to food pushers' advertisements and TV famous chefs' recipes. Yeah, cream, duck fat, bacon fat, butter, sugar, salt, marbling------ will make happy life for you.

dcarch

"---My body tells me to eat pizza and cheesecake. I of course don't listen. Anymore.--"

You know, your computer has very useful software to do useful things for you, but your computer can be infected with nasty virus and the computer would do bad things for you.

When your body tells you to eat lots of pizzas and cheese cakes, it is not your body talking.

dcarch

When your body tells you to eat lots of pizzas and cheese cakes, it is not your body talking.

So you are saying that in fact one should not listen to one's body because you never know if it is the 'real' body talking.

Dcarch I have to tell you that I look forward to your beautiful descriptions and pictures of the wonderful food you prepare. But this concept of listening to one's body only if it saying the right thing according to some as yet unmentioned authority mystifies me.

Thanks Lucille!

The dialog between you and you body is totally nonverbal, obviously. It's a dialog nonetheless.

You know that your body "tells" you to breath and you breath even without thinking about it. Once you "learned" the language of the body, you can actually tell your body what to do. You can stop breathing or breath faster or deeper.

Your body tells your heart to beat and your heart beats. But try to tell the heart to beat faster or slower, you will find it not possible. But that's because you have not learned the "language" of the heart.

Some people can. They can change their heart beat at will. You can too. There is a method using biofeedback equipment to teach you that language.

As a matter of fact, you can learn to change your body temperature, change the size of your pupil, improve you B movement, etc. using biofeedback.

Who knows what other involuntary bodily functions you can learn to voluntarily control.

dcarch

"Many years ago,"

"Many years ago"

Yes.....many years ago. Now, in France, about 40% of the people are overweight (or obese). It's among the lowest rate in developed countries, but there's no doubt a significant percentage of their population is overweight. In rural China, about a third of the adults are overweight (or obese).

"listen to food pushers' advertisements and TV famous chefs' recipes."

Huh? I didn't mention advertising or famous chefs. In fact, I specifically mentioned that our bodies don't need advertisements or encouragement to tell us they want more fat and salt. And they don't. That's what our bodies want more of.....as Lucille said, there are biologic and physiologic reasons our bodies tell us to eat another piece of pizza of cheesecake. Our minds can override that and say "no", but our bodies want more fat, salt, and sugar. We can definitely blame the abundance and cheap cost of processed foods full of salt, fat, and sugar, but those are just how we could choose (or not) to answer our bodies' call for more salt, fat, and sugar. There are lots of non-processed, non-commercial ways to get those things too. Or we could stop listening to what our bodies tell us they want, and use our brains more.

I think the point was that humans in some regions managed over the millennia to develop relatively healthy cuisines  regardless of what the body was telling them.  So it's quite true to say that 30 or 40 years ago you would seldom see obesity in China, southern Asia, or southern Europe. Unfortunately, in the modern era those cuisines have been subverted by the commercialisation and simplification of food products.  All the traditional, healthy cuisines relied on fresh produce, a higher proportion of vegetables and grains and a much lower proportion of meat than is the case for modern North American (and Australian) diets. Unfortunately, the penchant for the cheap and fast has penetrated into the homelands of those cuisines, and I do tend to think that's the influence more of the mind (this is cheap and easy) rather than the body.  I mean, seriously, does anyone actually think a fast food burger tastes better than one you make yourself?  But it's convenient and so we buy into it the same way that people buy into mediocre coffee from Starbucks.  That's the mind, not the body, running the show.

Nutrition news IS diet news. Your diet,i.e what you EAT, is now you get your nutrition no? And how your DIET,ie what you EAT affects your body is diet information.

"So it's quite true to say that 30 or 40 years ago you would seldom see obesity in China, southern Asia, or southern Europe

I agree with the perception but it's evidence for a different conclusion

Take China and look back 40-50 years. Poverty, malnutrition/under nutrition and periodic famines in some regions were still common. Adults (especially men) were much shorter than the world's averages because of sub-average food intake. It's why traditional Chinese food is heavy in rice and vegetables and low in meat content because they ate what they had. And what meat there is in traditional dishes is sparse. and often cut into small pieces. Yes, I know, small pieces also used to accommodate eating with chops sticks. The key word for meat is sparse. Same was true in many other underdeveloped areas in SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent. And, as you've mentioned, in Southern Europe. Folks from the Iberian peninsula, Southern Italy, Greece, were all shorter than averages at this time, and for the same reasons - poverty and limited availablity of food.

Turn the clock forward 50 years and with the greater availability of food in these areas, the children of those of the equivalent of baby boom age in these regions, and their children in turn and future generations are taller and less underweight than their parents. Also more obese.

That's not a different conclusion.  The basic Chinese or Vietnamese diet was and is a healthier diet than the North American one. So are the various Mediterranean diets.  The lower level of meat in all of them may have been driven by scarcity but it was much healthier than our meat-heavy cuisines.  Still is.  The  Chinese and French are not getting fat on eating their traditional foods but on changing their diets by adding more meat and processed foods.

I'm agreeing with Elmer, outright poverty was a big reason people were thinner (and shorter) in prior years, especially in (then) underdeveloped countries. Much has changed in 50 years. It's good more of the world's population is getting sufficient calories. (And awful that many still are on the verge of starvation, but that's a different subject.)

But most of us reading here at the KT live in "first world" countries. And we've had a big change too. In home movies from the 1960's I see few morbidly obese people. Many fewer than I see today. Our culture has changed, our diet has changed, it hasn't all been good.

I think you're ignoring the point that those "underdeveloped countries" were in fact quite wealthy and advanced countries by the standards of the times when their cuisines developed.

Through much of my lifetime in a state with a lot of diversity and Chinese inbound immigration, male Chinese immigrants to the US were rarely taller than a few inches over 5 feet. They were noticeably shorter than everyone else. I saw the same on numerous trips to Asia in the 70s. I remember riding on a public bus up to Hakone Lake in Japan for which the space between the seat back and the front of the seat in front of me was too small for my legs to squeeze in so I couldn't sit, but the ceiling of the bus was too low for me to stand upright. All because of the people being short. I remember walking around cities in Japan and also in Hong Kong and feeling like a giant even though I'm just a tad over 6 feet, the locals were short.

I remember visits to Spain, Italy and Portugal in the 1970s and wondering why everyone was so short. I suspect I'm much more familiar with all of these cited areas during these years. I had friends when growing up whose families were of Southern European origin. Whose parents (some foreign born) were short. Whose ancestors came here because they were starving. Ever run into a tall Sicilian immigrant in the US in the 50s-80s? I never did.

Later generations here are much taller for peoples of all origins than their ancestors who left lands where people were malnourished. Same is true in their home countries too, nutrition has improved and, in the case of China and other parts of SE Asia, fewer famines and starving people.

Diets with inadequate calories and so lacking in proper nutrition as to stunt the growth of children and people well into adulthood are not healthier.

I'm not going to argue with you, you seem to argue just to argue. Those are my REAL experiences, you can be silly and dispute them as you tend to like to do. Come up with a different explanation and tell me I didn't see what I saw.

To your point, Elmer: Pregnant women are also much healthier and that means a lot to the growing fetus. Moms who choose to nurse thier babies have more nutrious milk than former generations. All this accounts for healthier, taller children.

Good point. But widespread stunted growth patterns, a result of inadequate nutrition during growing years and thereafter, have greatly changed as poor and limited food supplies improved in the areas mentioned. General health and life expectancies have improved as a result too.