Raw starch is poorly digested. “We need to cook our food to be able to eat it,” said Professor Emeritus Les Copeland AM, an agricultural chemist who has studied starch for 40 years at the University of Sydney. The application of heat and absorption of water disrupts, at least partially, the starch structure, making it more digestible.

Starch is a type of carbohydrate that comprises a long chain of sugar molecules. The body can usually break down starches very easily and use this sugar for energy.

The reason that’s important is that one of the forms of starch, the amylopectin, is more easily digested than the amylose. The greater the amount of amylopectin that you have, the easier the starch is to digest, and the higher the glycaemic index