Blood sugar level
Potatoes, pasta or rice: which side dish is the healthiest?
The potato is no longer particularly popular with Germans.
© CTK digifoodstock / Picture Alliance
They’re arguably the most popular side dishes: potatoes, pasta, and rice. It is difficult to argue which of them is the best. It’s a matter of taste. Or? Not only. Because not all side dishes are equally healthy.
It is and will remain the German’s favorite tuber: the potato. It’s a tradition. It once helped to survive famine, but became a staple food by the 19th century at the latest. In the meantime, more potatoes are grown in this country than anywhere else in the EU. A Germany without potatoes? Unthinkable. Especially since there is hardly a classic dish without potatoes, pasta or rice as a side dish. But when it comes to your metabolism, which of these side dishes is the best choice? Do pasta, potatoes or rice provide the most power for the day without beating your hips?
In an examination of 8000 data sets, scientists from Perfood investigated the question of how much the blood sugar level rises on average after which side dishes. The higher the blood sugar levels after eating, the more difficult it is for the metabolism to effectively convert the glucose into energy. Instead, the risk of food cravings, fatigue and unwanted fat deposits increases.
Pasta is wholesome
Starting with the tuber. Apart from the fact that the good old potato has a piey image, frumpy and grandmotherly, it is said to be fattening up. It is comparatively low in calories, provides protein, vitamin C, magnesium, zinc and iron. But potatoes also have a high glycemic index (GI), which means that they make blood sugar rise faster. The analysis confirms this. Accordingly, a potato meal drove the blood sugar up by an average of 64.5 to 70 milligrams per deciliter (mg / dl).
In contrast, pasta and rice were much more digestible for the metabolism. For example, the wheat pasta, which was considered “unhealthy”, clearly beat the potato. Although noodles have a lot of carbohydrates in them, they also have a low glycemic index. The average blood glucose fluctuation was always below 50 mg / dl. This means that the body releases less of the fattening hormone insulin. And little insulin means that few carbohydrates are stored in the fat deposits. Because insulin promotes the formation of fat and blocks its breakdown. If pasta is cooked al dente, i.e. firm to the bite, its GI is particularly low.
No waiver in the evening
In the analysis, the rice also comes to almost as good, i.e. low, values as the pasta and remains below an average value of 60 mg / dl. So he is clearly ahead of the potato. Although the GI of white rice is 87 higher than that of boiled potatoes (50).
The study also found that the meals consumed in the evening led to lower blood sugar reactions on average for all three side dishes. So is the recommendation not to eat carbohydrates in the evening nonsense? “We keep seeing that dietary recommendations do not generally apply to everyone. The tendencies that emerge from our data rather show that our metabolism has many surprises in store,” said Torsten Schröder, one of the Perfood founders.