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I ate the burger first. The fries waited in their paper sleeve while I finished the patty. Every instinct says hot fries come first, so leaving them there felt like a small fight with my own hands. I did it because of a potato study from Adelaide. Researchers there gave eight people with type 2 diabetes the same mashed potato meal on different days. On one of those days a protein drink came half an hour before the potato, and the glucose rise was about half the size.
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-50%
Smaller glucose rise from the same potato meal, protein first
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Starch first, or no protein |
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Protein first |
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| Rice meal, healthy adults |
Rice meal, type 2 diabetes |
Potato meal, type 2 diabetes |
Minutes for the stomach to empty half the meal (published study averages): Kuwata 2016, beef 15 minutes before rice, and Ma 2009, whey 30 minutes before potato
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| Rice, healthy: rice first |
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32 |
| Rice, healthy: beef first |
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74 |
| Rice, type 2: rice first |
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30 |
| Rice, type 2: beef first |
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82 |
| Potato, type 2: no protein |
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39 |
| Potato, type 2: protein first |
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87 |
Minutes for the stomach to empty half the meal (published study averages): Kuwata 2016, beef 15 minutes before rice, and Ma 2009, whey 30 minutes before potato
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These are published study averages, not medical advice. Everyone's body responds differently.
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🥔
Potato meal, no protein
735
Glucose rise score
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-50%
Smaller rise
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🍔
Protein first
364
Glucose rise score
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🥔
Potato meal, no protein
735
Glucose rise score
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-50% · Smaller rise
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🍔
Protein first
364
Glucose rise score
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The reason is your stomach, not your willpower. Starch only reaches your blood once it leaves the stomach and moves into the gut. Protein that arrives first slows that exit. In the Adelaide study, the stomach took 39 minutes to empty half the potato meal on its own, and 87 minutes when the protein went first. In other words, the fries still get digested... they just reach your blood in a slow line instead of a rush. And the protein does a second job. A team in Osaka served grilled beef 15 minutes before a bowl of rice. The gut released more GLP-1, the hormone the new weight-loss drugs copy, and that hormone holds food in the stomach longer while it tells the pancreas to get ready. Fries come with a brake of their own. The frying oil slows the stomach too, which is part of why fries score lower than a plain boiled potato. So a burger eaten before the fries puts a second brake in front of the first. My doctor told me to skip the fries. Nobody told me to eat them last.
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Your mission this week
Make the fries wait
Costs you a few warm fries
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Start with the protein
The burger patty, the chicken, the eggs at brunch. Whatever the protein on the plate is, it goes in before the first fry.
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Give it a head start
The studies gave protein a 15 to 30 minute lead. At a table, finishing the burger before you touch the fries is the closest version.
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Then eat every fry you ordered
No guilt, no half portion. The order is doing the work here, not the willpower.
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Your first win
One burger and fries this week where the fries come last.
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Where this comes from: The potato numbers are from Ma and colleagues, Diabetes Care, 2009: eight adults with diet-controlled type 2 diabetes ate a mashed potato meal (59 grams of carbohydrate, including 20 grams of added glucose). With 55 grams of whey protein in a beef soup 30 minutes before, the glucose rise over the meal (the area under the curve) was 364 against 735 mmol·min/L with no whey, and the stomach took 87 against 39 minutes to empty half the meal. Whey stirred into the potato itself scored 406, so protein with the meal helped too, just a little less. The rice numbers are from Kuwata and colleagues, Diabetologia, 2016: 12 adults with type 2 diabetes and 10 healthy adults ate grilled beef 15 minutes before 150 grams of rice, which slowed half-emptying from about 30 to 82 minutes and from 32 to 74, and raised GLP-1. The frying-oil point comes from Gentilcore and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2006: 30 ml of olive oil before mashed potato slowed emptying and delayed the glucose rise in six men with type 2 diabetes. The fries (63) and boiled potato (78) index averages are from the International Tables of Glycemic Index, 2008. Honest caveats: these are small studies, mostly in people with type 2 diabetes, using mashed potato and rice rather than fries, and 55 grams of whey is a large dose, so a burger will likely do less. I found no published glucose-monitor test of fries eaten after a burger, so there is no fries reading here. Eating protein first may reduce the rise rather than promise it. And if you manage your blood sugar with medication, talk any change through with your doctor. |
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The fries were never the enemy.
Going first was.
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I still eat every fry in the bag, and now they wait their turn behind the burger.
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This or that
The bag is on the table. What goes in first?
Tap one. I fought my own hands over this, so I will not judge your answer.
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Welcome to the revolution
Jackie
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