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Mashed potatoes are Uncle Mike’s favorite food; at family dinners he would spoon mound after mound of them onto his plate long after everyone else was done eating. Many people seem to feel the same way about these creamy mountains of starch, but is it possible something sinister lurks within, threatening some people with weight gain? To answer that question we first need to understand starch and its role in the human diet, as well as what happens to starch as we digest it, and how this process might differ in different people.
Starch, a principle component of potatoes, corn, pasta, bread, and rice, as seen in Figure 1, is composed of long, branching chains of glucose, which is a sugar and the primary source of energy for living cells. In fact, starch is so rich in glucose, it serves as energy storage for plants to help them survive when the climate is cold or dry. These starchy stores are also exploited by animals, like humans, for energy to grow, stay warm, fight illness, and reproduce.
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