Eat Your Potatoes Cold

What happens when you eat a hot potato versus a potato that's been cooked then cooled? Well, during the cooling process, some of the starch in the potato undergoes what's known as retrogradation, which is a fancy word for the starch chains reorganizing into crystal-like structures that your digestive enzymes have difficulty accessing. You could think of digestive enzymes as like little fingers in your intestines trying to pull apart a wire. In this case, that's the starch, and retrogradation is like knotting up this wire real tight so your enzymes can't access it, and as a result, the resistant starch makes its way to your colon where gut bacteria turn it into metabolites with beneficial health effects. For example, in one calorie-controlled human trial, 40 grams per day of resistant starch significantly reduced visceral fat. This doesn't mean a cold potato will cure a beer belly, but sometimes leftovers are upgrades.