New, healthier alternatives to processed food starches with a lower GI, or glycaemic index, may soon be on the menu, thanks to scientists in China and the US. The researcher have begun to unlock the secrets of starches that make dehusked grains, potatoes, and processed foods such as biscuits and breakfast cereals less healthy compared with low GI foods. Their statistical analysis of starchy data could lead to new processed carbohydrates that do not cause the worrying blood sugar spikes associated with conventional processed starch.
Now, Hamaker and his colleagues have looked at the various physical properties of rapidly digested starches (RDS) and SDS (slowly) to try and determine the underlying differences. They have found that the degree of crystallinity of the starch content is key. Semicrystalline structure is critical to the beneficial slow digestion properties of low GI foods but cook, or otherwise process, an SDS, however, and this semicrystallinity can be lost and a once-slow starch becomes an RDS.
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