Franco Berrino: “Why eating fried potatoes promotes diabetes and other diseases”

More than two hundred studies have found that People who are used to eating a lot of fruit and vegetables are less likely to suffer from heart attacks or strokes, to develop various forms of cancer, to suffer from constipation or digestive problems. However, the same research shows that potatoes do not contribute to obtaining these benefits, and indeed can have negative repercussions on health. Consuming fruits and vegetables, especially the fiber-rich varieties, helps you not gain weightbut potatoes make you fat, even more than sugary drinks and refined flours, probably because the starch of potatoes has a high glycemic index.

When we eat them, our blood sugar rises rapidly, therefore the pancreas produces a lot of insulin which causes blood sugar to drop too low, and when the blood sugar is low we get hungry and eat more; so we get fat. Starches are glucose polymers, chains of thousands and thousands of glucose molecules rolled into small granules, which swell and unwind a little when cooked in water and allow amylases (enzymes found in saliva and pancreatic juice) to digest them. releasing glucose. While millet, wheat and many varieties of rice have linear chains wrapped in very small granules, potatoes and corn contain branched chains that form larger and more easily gelatinizable granules and therefore more attackable by amylases.

Those who regularly eat potatoes, in fact, get more diabetes. The risk is particularly high for fried potatoes, of the order of 30% more, with the same total calories consumed, compared to those who rarely eat them (5-6% more for each extra portion per week). One advantage of potatoes, in addition to the fact that they are good, is that they are rich in potassiumuseful for balancing sodium in the regulation of blood pressure, but unfortunately large studies conducted on nurses and health professionals have found a greater likelihood of developing hypertension in heavy users of potatoes: roasted, boiled, pureed and fried.

Red-fleshed potatoes are rich in anthocyanins, substances useful for cancer prevention, but potatoes contribute a lot to the overall glycemic load of the diet, and the higher the glycemic load, the higher the blood sugar and the higher the risk of cancer (the glycemic load is the sum of the products of the food’s glycemic indices for the portions consumed ). Studies have been done on breast and intestinal neoplasms, where there is an almost double risk for high glycemic loads, but the growth of other tumors is probably also influenced by the glycemic load. Even for those with cancer it is advisable to eat fruit and vegetables but not potatoes, not even the puree we serve every day in the hospital. A worse prognosis for those who regularly eat potatoes, for example, has been found in people with breast and lung cancer.

In our EPIC study, which follows 500,000 people in Europe (in 10 countries) who filled out questionnaires about their eating habits and also gave us blood samples that we store at very low temperatures, we confirmed that, For the same number of cigarettes smoked, those who regularly eat fruit and vegetables (not potatoes) almost halve their risk of lung, throat and esophageal cancer; we also observed that, for the same number of cigarettes and the quantity consumed, the variety of fruit and vegetables confers a further significant protection. So rather than a plate of fried potatoes, a carrot tempura, onion rings, sweet potatoes, squash, or courgette flowers, cauliflower, broccoli… as we do at La Grande Via.

For other cancers, eg. for breast, stomach and colon cancers, the protection assessed with food questionnaires is less clear, but when consumption is assessed by measuring the concentration of protective substances in vegetables in the blood, eg. carotenoids and vitamin C, there are very significant protections. When answering food questionnaires it is inevitable to make mistakes, while the blood does not lie. We therefore eat abundantly fruit and vegetables (the famous five portions a day) and we take advantage of all the variety that the seasons make available to us. I know of no studies that have assessed whether eating only seasonal produce is protective, but is it reasonable to be so, otherwise why would the Eternal Father grow refreshing fruits and vegetables in the summer and vegetables to eat cooked, warm, in the winter? If we respect the order of nature it is difficult to go wrong.