Love pasta, but fear sugar spikes? The good news is that it can be cooked in a diabetes-friendly way. It’s not just the ingredients that can help lower blood sugar spikes, but also the duration of your cooking that can make all the difference.
So apart from choosing a whole grain version of your favourite guilty indulgence, you may try reducing the cooking time to see the magic.
French biochemist Jessie Inchauspé in her latest Instagram post reveals how the duration of cooking pasta can impact your sugar levels.
Inchauspé explains that cooking pasta for a long time can make it very easy to digest which could cause a big spike in blood glucose. A shorter cooking duration on the other hand could control the spikes.
The best way to cook your pasta
“Pasta is about 75% starch and starch is just chain of glucose molecules so when we eat it our body breaks it down into glucose. Now here is something interesting when pasta is cooked for a long time the starch becomes really easy to digest so the glucose rushes into our blood faster and we see a big spike but when pasta is cooked al dente, the starch structure isn’t as broken down,” says the expert, who’s popularly known as the Glucose Goddess on Instagram.
Inchauspé says our body takes a bit more time to digest it which reduces the blood sugar spike, and this can reduce the metabolic stress on our body.
“That means the time spent with high glucose are both a little smaller. This is cool because it reduces inflammation, insulin release and the stress caused by the glucose spike on our body,” she adds.
Cook, cool, and reheat
The French biochemist and author shares another trick, that can further reduce the blood sugar spike. She says cooking, cooling and then reheating pasta can convert some of the starch into resistant starch, which again balances blood sugar levels.
“That means your body absorbs less of it as glucose, meaning slightly smaller spike, and slightly less impact on your body,” she adds.
Dining and Cooking