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Recently one study conducted by a team of scientists at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology found that foods processed through solar and sun drying possess a lower glycaemic index, which is healthy for consumption.
The study revealed that consuming traditional staples like ‘Konkonte’ processed through solar or sun drying, could reduce your blood sugar levels and lower the risk of heart diseases.
Why is Konkonte a low Glycemic Index food? I provide an explanation in this article based on science.
Konkonte can lower blood sugar levels and is, hence, good for diabetes.
What makes Konkonte unique is that it is made of cassava flour. The key ingredient in konkonte is cassava.
Cassava flour is a good substitute for wheat flour in a variety of recipes.
Cassava flour comes from the root vegetable cassava.
This is a vegetable that is rich in carbohydrates and contains important vitamins and minerals.
To make cassava flour, a person must grate cassava, dry it out, and grind it to a fine powder.
Resistant Starch?
The reason why we get the needed benefits from konkonte is due to the cassava content which is high in resistant starch.
What, therefore, is resistant starch? Magallanes-Cruz et al.(2017) study found that these are starches that the small intestine does not digest.
Their mechanism of action is the same as fibre as found by Nugent(2005).
They resist digestion as they pass through the gastrointestinal tract. Maier et al.(2017) found that resistant starches promote gut health by providing beneficial gut bacteria as they ferment.
These provide several possible health benefits to eating resistant starches in cassava flour such as Konkonte.
As the resistant starch in cassava flour ferments inside the colon, it feeds the healthy bacteria there.
During this process, the starches turn into short-chain fatty acids.
One of these short-chain fatty acids is butyrate.
BY GHANAIAN STANDARD.
