Consumer columnist and West Hartford resident Harlan Levy has more than 20 years of experience writing stories about everyday experiences that anyone could encounter.

By Harlan Levy

I love pasta, especially capellini and thin spaghetti – with olive oil and grated cheese. That’s what we had for dinner Sunday night, with a lot left over. It’s now in our fridge, which I learned from an unsolicited article sent to me last week is healthier than eating it when we first cooked it.

According to rd.com (Reader’s Digest) pasta is much healthier when it’s eaten as leftovers, because of what happens to the starch molecules that make up the pasta during both the cooking and cooling processes.

“When pasta cooks, its starch granules absorb water, and [they] swell,” said registered dietitian Jordan Langhough. “This process makes it easier for your body to break down the starch quickly and turn it into glucose.”

But then, the article said, as your hot pasta cools, those starch molecules go through a process called retrogradation: They reorganize into a tighter, more crystalline structure that your digestive enzymes can’t break down as easily. The new structure is called resistant starch, the key to all the potential health benefits you can get from leftover pasta.

Resistant starch acts more like fiber than a carb in the body. When you eat simple carbs, like white bread or cookies, your body immediately breaks them down, sending glucose (aka sugar) straight into your bloodstream, and that can cause a host of problems. Fiber, on the other hand, travels through your digestive system without being broken down, which leads to a variety of possible perks, including the following:

Healthier gut microbiome

During digestion, resistant starch isn’t broken down in the stomach like simpler carbs. It travels to the large intestine, where it acts as a prebiotic, or a food that nourishes the beneficial bacteria that live there. This allows the healthy bacteria in your gut to thrive. Studies have shown that people with a healthier, more diverse microbiome have lower cholesterol levels, higher fitness levels, and greater longevity, the article said. (Sounds good to me!) That’s because these bacteria influence everything from digestion to disease prevention.

But if your microbiome is overrun by bad bugs, you can experience digestive difficulties, an increased risk of inflammatory bowel diseases, fatigue, mood changes, and more, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

More controlled blood sugar levels: Resistant starch reduces the glycemic impact of the meal, or how quickly the food causes your blood sugar to rise. While hot pasta contains simple starches that are broken down quickly, causing a rapid rise, the resistant starch in leftover pasta is not broken down at all, slowing the spike that your meal creates.

This is significant for people with diabetes who try to avoid blood-sugar spikes. According to one study in the Journal of Diabetes Investigation, resistant starch seems to lower post-meal blood-sugar levels, making it a promising part of medical nutrition therapy for type 2 diabetes.

Also, frequent extreme spikes and dips in those levels can contribute to increased inflammation, low energy, poor sleep, irritability, and possibly even an increased risk of cancer, according to a 2025 review. You also tend to feel hungry again after a spike and drop in blood sugar, which can lead to snacking and subsequent weight gain. It’s best to keep your blood sugar as steady as possible.

Weight loss: Regularly eating resistant starch has been linked to a greater sense of fullness, because it travels through the GI tract without breaking down.

The article cites a study in the journal Nature Metabolism, which concluded that people who used resistant starch as a dietary supplement for eight weeks while eating a balanced diet lost an average of 6.2 pounds. In addition to the satiety boost, researchers suspect this is because resistant starch reduces inflammation and nourishes the gut microbiome, both of which contribute to a healthier body weight.

Lower cholesterol: According to a review in Nutrition Research, consuming resistant starch helps lower both total cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, which can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke. The resistant starch feeds your good gut bugs, which then produce compounds called short-chain fatty acids that help the body break down harmful fats instead of absorbing and storing them.

Time to transform: You get the most resistant-starch formation after chilling it overnight in the fridge. Wait around 30 minutes to let the steam escape and get a jump-start on cooling before putting it in a wide, shallow container in the fridge. If you put hot food in a deep container, the middle may remain in the “danger zone” for bacterial growth.

Cold or hot: Because retrogradation is partially irreversible, a meaningful amount of resistant starch remains even after reheating, Cooking, cooling, and reheating pasta may actually be the best approach for maximizing the perks. The article cites one study in the journal Foods, that found that reheated pasta produced a smaller blood-sugar spike after eating than both hot, freshly cooked pasta and cold pasta.

So now I know.

Dollar General ripoff

Any readers who shop at Dollar General read this:

The Federal Trade Commission, joined by Connecticut and 19 other states, last week sued Dollar General for engaging in long-running deceptive pricing practices by routinely charging customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves, price tags and advertisements, costing consumers millions of dollars.

The FTC alleges that Dollar General has for years repeatedly mislabeled prices, overcharged consumers, and failed to correct the issue despite extensive corporate knowledge of the problem. “Dollar General has betrayed the trust of millions of American consumers and imposed significant financial harm on communities and consumers who are already struggling to make their paychecks last,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Dollar General operates more than 21,000 stores nationwide and markets itself as a low-priced alternative to large discount and big-box retailers. The company sells thousands of household items at low prices, which are critical to its low- and fixed-income customers who rely on the accuracy of Dollar General’s pricing.

According to the complaint:

• Dollar General received tens of thousands of complaints from consumers across the country who say the company did not honor the advertised price.
• Despite being made aware of the problem, Dollar General has failed to implement policies and practices to adequately address the problem.

The FTC and states allege these practices violate the FTC Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and state laws.

So when shopping at Dollar General make sure the prices you pay are what’s stated on the tags and in the ads.

Now you know.

NOTE: If you have a consumer problem, contact me at [email protected] (“Consumer” in subject line), and, with the power of the press, maybe I can help.

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