Thanks to Fiona MacDonald and an article of hers on 14th October 2018 that prompted me to look again at this subject…we now can achieve a healthy White Rice Recipe! Like the Sri Lankan take on rice, and it minimizes the downside of a mode of eating that I grew up with in Malaysia. If only we can reduce the starch effect ..after all starch is effectively a sugar we would be so much the better! Tasty Rice Recipe PLUS Healthy ‘Resistant’ Starch!
Quick education: There are two main types of starches – 1) digestible starches, which our bodies quickly turn into glucose and store as fat and 2) resistant starches, which aren’t broken so readily into glucose in the stomach, so they have a lower calorie content.
There is no complication here… with brown rice where there is some husk fiber, but certainly not with white! The starch raises blood sugar, as does all starch foods, and contributes to insulin resistance, and ultimately if enough of it, Type 2 diabetes. Cooking starches and then cooling in a refrigerator will alter its chemistry through a process of retro-gradation. This allows much of the starch to turn into digestive resistant type starch. It is kind of a miracle of chemistry! It is the same with respect to potatoes…digestive resistant starch refers to the low-viscous dietary fibers that resist digestion in the small intestine and slowly ferment in the large! The refrigeration over say a day can increase this type of resistant starch by an excess of 50%. These resistant starches, acting as prebiotics, feed healthy bacteria and fat oxidation.
Under-ripe bananas are already in a state of being digestion resistant! Get used to the taste! They tend to ship them up green and that way for Costco! We have a previous blog called Green Banana Salad…Personally always grab one to have mid morning if I am keeping to standard 12 to 13 hour shorter intermittent fast, and not an intermittent longer fast for that day! They are full of fiber and one really important mineral being Potassium!
Back to Rice…researchers out of Sri Lanka have found a way to ameliorate one cup of cooked rice that represents some 250 calories with an additional twist..and that is to add coconut oil…once your pot of hot water is boiling…and see my article on just this method to avoid Arsenic that is in abundance from the Far East..before even adding the raw rice add some coconut oil..they say three percent of the weight of the rice…whatever that is! Just throw some in! Sundhair James was an undergraduate at the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka who lead the research with his supervisor and says the rice amounts to a teaspoon for half a cup…so two teaspoons full for a full cup one person and take it from there! Tasty Rice Recipe PLUS Healthy ‘Resistant’ Starch!
James presented the work at the National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in March 2015. I would personally guesstimate three times more more water to avoid the arsenic and throw that excess away, and then with the final less toxic result put into fridge overnight…aim for 12 hours or more! To eat it, you simply pop it in the microwave and, voila, says Fiona, you have a “fluffy white rice” that’s significantly better for you ! Researchers had previously noted that, strangely enough, fried rice and pilaf style rice both seem to have more resistant starch than the more commonly prepared steamed rice. So James and his supervisor investigated further:
They tested eight different ways of cooking rice on 38 different types of the grain found in Sri Lanka. They discovered that by adding a fat such as coconut oil before cooking, then immediately cooling the rice, changes the starch composition of the rice so it contained more resistant starch.
The oil works by interacting with the starch molecules and changing its architecture. “Cooling for 12 hours will lead to formation of hydrogen bonds between the amylose molecules outside the rice grains which also turns it into a resistant starch,” explained James in a press release.
He also noted that when rice prepared in this fashion is reheated, it maintains it’s resistant starch characteristics and that this same technique could be applied to other starchy favorites such as pasta and potatoes. The ramifications for prepackaged cooked food is enormous when you consider that some strains of rice could see drops of 50-60% of calories.
I agree with Fiona that this concept could lead to all kinds of possibilities. Indeed what about the breads we know are starch and we love so much! Personally tend to eat sourdough as it often, if prepared properly, takes the longer more healthy rising process… but what if using the refrigerator, or freezer has a similar beneficial starch resistant effect!? A Nobel prize for that research I say!!! and there is some seriousness to this jest, as the health of countless millions could be affected. Perhaps our bread shops could be vending far less calories per slice…and prepackaged sandwiches also less calories!
