Say YES to carbs: Why eating white rice and pasta WON’T make you pile on the pounds (and could even help control your weight)


  • Class of carbohydrates called ‘resistant starch’ won’t lead to weight gain
  • Includes unripe bananas, whole grains, beans, white rice and even pasta
  • Resistant starch carbs are burnt as energy and make you feel fuller
  • Unlike refined carbohydrates where calories are stored instead of burnt 

Imogen Blake For Mailonline

680

View
comments

We’ve been warned for years that carbs are the enemy and need to be avoided if we want to lose weight.

But new research suggests that one type of carbohydrate won’t make you pile on the pounds – and could in fact help you control and maintain your waistline.

Unripe bananas, whole grains, beans, white rice and even pasta are all part of a class of carbs called ‘resistant starch’.

Scroll down for video 

The plain white rice you get in your takeaway won’t make you pile on the pounds – unless you eat it with a fattening curry or greasy Chinese, that is. That’s because it’s part of the super carbohydrate class, ‘resistant starch’, which the body uses up as energy

Pasta, like spaghetti, also won’t make you gain weight if you eat it once it’s been cooked and cooled

This group take longer to digest and will turn into fatty acids in your stomach – which your body then burns as energy, TIME magazine reported.

This is very different to refined carbohydrates like sugary white bread – which are absorbed rapidly by the body – with calories being stored instead of burned off, leading to weight gain.

It may come as no surprise that much-lauded whole grains won’t make you gain weight.

But white rice and pasta – once they’ve been cooked and cooled – are also surprisingly part of this super carbohydrate class.

That means the plain rice you get with your takeaway won’t make you pile on the pounds – unless you eat it with a fattening curry or greasy Chinese, that is. 

Beans, like butterbeans, are also part of the ‘resistant starch’ type. When you eat resistant starch, you feel full faster, which means you won’t eat as much and gain weight

It probably comes as no surprise that whole grains won’t make you pile on the pounds – but white rice and pasta may be unexpected

Unripe bananas are also part of the ‘resistant starch’ super class

When you eat resistant starch, you feel full faster, which means you won’t eat as much and gain weight, a study in Nutrition Journal found.  

‘After you eat a meal that’s principally carbohydrate, the fact that your body can burn a greater percentage of fat as its energy source is very unusual,’ said Professor Paul Arciero, of US university Skidmore College. 

‘If you can combine a resistant starch with a hardboiled egg, or whey protein, or pea protein, or chicken or Greek yogurt, that’s a pretty powerful combination.’ 

Most watched News videos



  • Smack down! Women slap each other up in an Illinois Walmart



  • Stephen Colbert mocks Lochte in hilarious Late Show sketch



  • Terrified seal jumps into a boat to escape hungry orcas



  • Woman fined for wearing a burkini on the beach in Nice



  • Woman who stabbed three people is shot by police in Brussels



  • Leonardo DiCaprio and model get into Hamptons car crash



  • Harrowing video shows Syrian girl singing before a bomb goes off



  • Jimmy Kimmel tests Hillary Clinton’s health with pickle jar



  • Women burst into tears when she’s surprised with cute puppy



  • ‘Unlimited Pursuit’: Simone Biles featured in Nike commercial



  • Security guard somersaults his way into stunt competition



  • Family of deaf father killed by North Carolina trooper speak out


Comments (680)

Share what you think

The comments below have not been moderated.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

Find out now