Role of dry matter content and starch digestibility in the impact of potato cultivars

glycemic

The aim of the research was to determine contributions of moisture and carbohydrate digestibility to the glycemic impact of potatoes. Five potato cultivars, including low dry matter, low glycemic index Almera and high dry matter Moonlight were boiled and subsamples taken for dry matter and simulated digestion in vitro. Digestion-time profiles of the different cultivars were of very similar shape, although the quantity of carbohydrate released differed between cultivars. Moonlight gave the highest rapidly available (20 min) carbohydrate (RAC; 16.2 0.9 g/100 g) and Almera the lowest (11.1 2 g/100 g). The cultivars also differed in dry matter content, Almera having the lowest (14.4 0.4%) and Moonlight the highest (23.3 0.5%). However, adjusted to an equivalent 20% dry matter, digestion profiles of all cultivars were almost identical (e.g. RAC: Almera 153 28 g, Moonlight 138 7.8 g). Taking into account water content and serving size, glycemic impact per standard serving of potato was moderate compared with other starchy foods. We conclude that nutritional strategies to reduce the glycemic impact of potatoes may be based on their moisture content independently of the digestibility of the starch in them. Introduction Potatoes are generally regarded as foods of high glycemic index (GI) [1, 2], to be eaten sparingly, especially by those with impaired glucose tolerance. However, the GI of a food indicates the relative effect of its carbohydrate component on blood glucose concentrations compared with the effect of an equal weight of glucose, but does not take into account either the proportion of a food that is carbohydrate, or the amount of a food that is customarily consumed per eating occasion [3]. The FDA now prefers that nutrient values be expressed as reference amounts customarily consumed per eating occasion (RACC) [4], which is generally similar to a serving, because such a quantity is based on the material people eat, namely entire foods, and on realistic intakes. In view of the popularity of potatoes as a staple in the Western diet, and the reputation it has gained as a high GI food, we considered it important to examine the glycemic potential of potatoes in terms of RACCs, by measuring the relative glycemic impact of whole potato (not of the carbohydrate alone, as in the case of GI), taking into account the proportion of carbohydrate present, and the quantity of potato

customarily consumed. The aim was to provide values that more realistically reflect the glycemic impact of potatoes in the diet, and which can be used to give a fair comparison of potatoes with other carbohydrate foods, as a basis for informed consumer choice. Digestive analysis in vitro, using intestinal digestive enzymes for times related to in vivo gut transit duration, has proved to be an efficient way of measuring the glycemic impact of foods at the same time as providing values for total available carbohydrate [5]. The results of in vitro digestion may be expressed as relative glycemic impact (RGI), which is defined as the weight of glucose that would have the same glycemic effect as a specified quantity of food. In RGI, impact is used in the physics sense of an acute loading, and RGI has been shown to accurately predict glycemic response to that loading [6]. An advantage of using RGI to express glycemic potential is that it is expressed as grams 89 of glucose equivalents (GGE), in weight units, in exactly the same way that nutrient values are expressed as grams per RACC, so it allows easy comparison of foods on a per serving or on an equal weight (e.g. 100 g) basis [7]. In the study reported here we subjected several potato varieties, including the cultivar Almera, which has been extensively promoted as being of moderate GI (65) [8, 9], to in vitro digestive analysis to determine: (1) whether or not the intrinsic digestibility of starch differed between the different cultivars; (2) the extent to which any differences between the cultivars in glycemic impact could be attributed to differences between them in carbohydrate content; and (3) how the glycemic impact of potatoes compares with that of other staple foods. We also discuss the nutritional implications of the results. 2 Method 2.1 Samples analysed Almera was supplied by Peter Neilson (Plant & Food Research, Australia), Crop 17 was supplied by John Anderson (Plant & Food Research, Pukekohe), and Agria, Moonlight and Nadine were purchased from PaknSave supermarket, Palmerston North. The tubers were sorted and regular-shaped, undamaged tubers were selected for analysis. 2.2 Procedure Three tubers of each cultivar were weighed individually, boiled gently for 40 min in tap water, by which time the hard core had disappeared, and were reweighed before analysing. Because the study involved comparison of cultivars it was considered better to standardise the cooking time, rather than boil the tubers for the time required to just cook them,

because of the difficulty in accurately determining equivalent degrees of cooking in cultivars of texture. All of the cultivars maintained their weights 114 similarly during cooking (Table 1). The tubers were each squeezed through a potato ricer once and subsamples taken for dry matter and in vitro digestive analysis of each tuber. After pressing through the ricer, the cooked potato had the texture of a slightly granular paste. Dry matter content of the cooked samples was determined as moisture loss on drying for 2 days in a vacuum oven at 60C, attached to a high vacuum freeze drier. In vitro digestion was commenced within an hour of cooking to avoid starch retrogradation. Samples of 5 g of potato were taken from three individual tubers of each cultivar for the in vitro digestion, which involved 30 min of gastric digestion (HCl-pepsin, pH 2.5) followed by pancreatic digestion (0.1% pancreatin, pH 6.5) (Monro and Mishra, 2010). Aliquots (1 ml) were removed at 20, 40, 60 and 120 min into ethanol (final conc. 80%). The ethanol-soluble fraction was considered digested starch (glucose, maltose and short-chain dextrins) and an aliquot of it was given a secondary amyloglucosidase digestion before analysis to reduce it to free glucose, which was measured by the dinitrosalysilic acid colourimetric method [10]. Digestion was expressed as release of glucose equivalents. 2.3 Data analysis RGI values were calculated from the rapidly released (20 min) glucose per serving (120 g) and per 100 g of the cooked potato. A carbohydrate digestibility index was calculated to indicate the relative rates of digestion, as the amount of carbohydrate released up to 20 min digestion as a percentage of total available carbohydrate released at 120 min digestion. Expressed as a percentage it can be regarded as an in vitro estimate of the glycemic index, but without the influence of physiological components that might affect glycemic response indirectly, such as rate of gastric emptying. 3 Results and discussion 3.1 Dry matter The cultivars differed widely in dry matter content (Table 1). Almera contained the lowest dry matter (14.4%) and Moonlight the highest (23.3%), which is a difference of 62%.

3.2 Starch digestion In all the cultivars, most of the starch digested at 120 min had already been digested at 20 min in the freshly cooked samples. That is, most of the available starch was made available as rapidly digested carbohydrate (RDC); the slowly digested carbohydrate (SDC) fraction was small relative to total available carbohydrate (TAC), and was smallest in Almera (Table 2). The digestion curves for all cultivars were very similar in shape (Figure 1). The ranking of the amplitude of the digestion curves appeared to reflect differences in dry matter content of the different cultivars. Therefore the data of all cultivars were adjusted to a dry matter content of 20% and the curves were again plotted. By making such an allowance for differences between cultivars in dry matter content, the differences between the digestion curves were almost eliminated (Figure 2). 3.3 Glycemic impact and in vitro glycemic index. RGI values, calculated as grams of glucose equivalents (GGE) per 120 g serving, ranged from 13.3 g (Almera) to 19.5 g (Moonlight), and per 100 g ranged from 11.1 g to 16.2 g, which placed potatoes in the medium glycemic impact category (Table 3). However, when the rapidly released glucose was expressed as a percentage of total available carbohydrate, to give an in vitro glycemic index estimate, the differences between the potato cultivars were small (Table 2). Comparison of the relative glycemic impact of potato with that of equal weights of other staple foods (Figure 3) revealed that potato was similar to pasta, rice and bread in its glycemic potency. The most striking finding from the present research was that large differences in glycemic potency of the different potato cultivars were completely eliminated by taking water content into account. Conversely, the results showed that there were no differences between the cultivars in the intrinsic digestibility of the starch that they contained, yet their glycemic impact differed considerably. The results raise the question of the role that dry matter content, or conversely, water content, might have in determining the glycemic response to potato. Gastric emptying rate is known to increase with increasing food volume, and to cause an increase in glycemic response at constant carbohydrate intake [11]. When bread of the same macronutrient content was fed to subjects in 50 g available carbohydrate

portions that differed in volume, the GI values obtained were substantially and positively associated with volume consumed [12]. As GI determination requires equal (50 g) doses of carbohydrate to be compared, a potato of low dry matter content, such as Almera, will have to be consumed in a larger portion size but in the same length of time as a high dry matter potato, such as Moonlight, to meet the standard specifications of the GI protocol [13]. Subjects would need to consume 406 g Almera compared with 265 g Moonlight, a 62% difference, for an intake of 50 g carbohydrate based on using the 120 min values in Table 2. What the net effect of the interaction of starch digestibility and water content would be in determining the glycemic response to potato is yet to be defined. In view of the importance that has been attached to the GI of potatoes the role of water content in determining GI differences is important, not only because of possible effects on GI measurement, but also because GI was intended to allow exchanges of foods of the same nutrient content, but differing only in the digestibility of their carbohydrate component [14]. But if differences in GI are associated with differences 189 in water content, nutrient exchange in substituting a low for an equal weight of high GI potato will not be equal. Leaving aside the idea of nutrient-equal food exchanges, there are possible nutritional advantages to be gained from nutrient dilution by the water component of the potato. Given that potato dry matter is mainly starch, and that potatoes are consumed mainly as an energy source, a reduced energy intake per equal size could be beneficial in obesity and diabetes management, especially if low energy is combined with a low GGE density. If tuber size is also small, and serving size is based on number of tubers, there may be an additional reduction in energy intake, as long as the consumer does not compensate by consuming more potato. If all serving sizes delivered equal amounts of available carbohydrate GI would be useful to consumers, but in reality the carbohydrate load per serving differs from food to food, and as the present results have shown, even with a food group, such as potato, the differences can be large. The results suggest that GI may not be a useful guide to the likely glycemic effect of potatoes on a per serving or per equal weight basis, not only because of the uncertain influences of water content during GI measurement, but also because GI is an index value (%) measured by comparing the blood glucose raising effect of a standard amount (50 g) of carbohydrate in foods with the effect of 50 g glucose. It cannot then be used accurately to choose between foods that differ in carbohydrate

content, such as potato cultivars, as the present study has shown, or between potatoes and other staple foods. In the context of reducing glycemia, the advantage of using RGI rather than GI is that RGI is a quantity of glycemic glucose equivalents, so one knows that a quantity of potato with an RGI of 18 g will have the same effect on blood glucose as 18 g glucose. A GI value, as an index based on comparing effects of 50 g carbohydrate in food with effects of 50 g glucose, does not take into account the amount of food consumed or the amount of carbohydrate in the food. Because RGI, on the other hand, is calculated on a food basis it allows one to compare the likely relative effects of quantities customarily consumed, and moreover, to compare foods that differ in composition. Despite the assumption that potato as a food has a large effect on blood glucose because it has a high GI, when the comparison is made in terms of the relative glycaemic impact (GGE dose) per serving, potatoes compare favourably with other carbohydrate staples (Figure 3). 4 Conclusion Potato cultivars that do not differ in starch digestibility may differ substantially in blood glucose-raising potential per serving if they differ in dry matter content. Furthermore, differences in dry matter content may have contributed to apparent differences in GI between cultivars because the volume of potato required to deliver 50 g carbohydrate, as specified in the standard GI protocol, may have been sufficient to affect the rate of gastric emptying. This requires further investigation. Dietary management of glycemia in potato-containing diets requires an appreciation of the role of serving size, starch content and digestibility, encapsulated in glycemic impact, and an appreciation of the limitations of GI in accurate food choice.