Rice – The Confusion– Lets get it cleared !
By Prithu Nath
Eating the Right Kind of Rice that is cooked in the Right Way and which is High in Fiber, Zinc, Niacin, with a Low GI of 35 with healthy carbs that feed our Colonic Gut Bacteria and is heart Friendly, Diabetes friendly is one of the easiest things to do, so read on and be healthy !
Brown Rice or White Rice or Basmati Rice or No Rice ? These are the questions being discussed all the time! Even though it is not sweet, sticky white rice is another food that can deceptively bump blood sugar. … “Large amounts of even whole grains, including brown rice can still spike blood glucose levels” because the GI Ranges from 55 to 89.
Brown Rice is the worst or as bad as normal White Rice because of the highest amount of Arsenic content. The rice plant accumulates more arsenic than most other food crops. This becomes a problem where soil or water sources are contaminated with arsenic. High intake of arsenic is associated with an increased risk of cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Besides Brown Rice has a GI of 55, which is not too low anyways.
White Rice has a high GI ranging from 65-78. So it is as bad as having table sugar. White rice is commonly tied to obesity. Despite it may be a source of energy, eating white rice without exercise may gain weight. White rice consumption may lead to constipation because it contains less fiber. Carbohydrates contained in white rice can cause digestive disorders if consumed regularly. While most of the calories in white and brown rice come from carbohydrates, white rice has a higher glycemic index than brown rice. This means that a serving of white rice provides a quicker blood sugar spike, which, according to Harvard Medical School, “has almost the same effect as eating pure table sugar”.
SO WHICH RICE IS THE BEST AND HOW TO COOK RICE ?
First Cooking the Right Rice the Right Way not only reduces it’s already low GI but also changes it’s starch structure further ! Cooling rice after cooking may promote health by increasing the amount of resistant starch it contains. One study compared freshly cooked white rice to white rice that was cooked, refrigerated for 24 hours and then reheated. … They found that eating the cooked then cooled rice led to a smaller blood glucose response.
In fact, one cup of cooked rice contains around 240 starchy calories that can be quickly converted into fat if they’re not burnt off.
Rice is made up of digestible starch and a special type of carbohydrate called resistant starch, which recent research suggests may be key for weight control. Humans don’t have the enzymes to digest resistant starch, so it isn’t transformed into sugar and absorbed quickly in the bloodstream like digestible starch. Instead, it bypasses the small intestine and is metabolized in the colon, where it’s fermented into short-chain fatty acids that feed healthy colonies of gut bacteria. The more resistant starch a food has, the fewer calories from that starch our bodies will absorb. Resistant starch is plentiful in foods like legumes, beans, whole grains, uncooked potatoes and unripe bananas.
So researchers figured out if they could convert some of rice’s digestible starch into the non-digestible type, and thereby make it less caloric. They discovered a simple way of cooking the grain that dramatically cuts its calories by as much as 50 percent, and also offers some other important health benefits. And we’re never going to cook rice any other way again.
HOW TO COOK HEALTHY RICE
All you need to do is get a pot of water boiling, but before adding your raw Husk Steamed Basmati rice, you add coconut oil or Ghee – about 3 percent for coconut oil and about 1% for Ghee , of the weight of the rice you’re going to add. After cooking, stick it in the fridge for 12 hours.
Rice cooked this way had at least 10 times the resistant starch as normally prepared rice and 10-15% fewer calories. But researchers think that with certain kinds of rice, the method could cut calories by 50-60%.
Here’s how it works: the glucose units in hot cooked rice have a loose structure, but when it cools down, the molecules rearrange themselves into very tight bonds that are more resistant to digestion. Making rice starch more resistant has other perks besides cutting calories. It’ll also feed your good bacteria. “The resistant starch is a very good substrate, or energy source, for the bacteria inside the human gut.”
WHICH RICE IS THE BEST AND WHY ?
INTRODUCING IMMUNITY-BOOSTING-LOW GI RICE
HUSK PRESSURE STEAMED BIRYANI BASMATI RICE
The Healthy Choice with a low Glycemic Index of 38 !
Normal White rice has a GI of 58-89 & Brown Rice 55-60 & For a Comparison Table Sugar has a GI Of 68
Husk Pressure Steamed Extra Long Grain Basmati Rice has a GI of only 38
Husk Pressure Steamed rice has its fibers intact. They are not polished or refined. Its glycemic index is better than most wheat flours that are available in the market. In fact, its lower than even that of brown rice.
Husk Pressure Steamed rice is among the best foods that a person with diabetes can eat.
HUSK PRESSURE STEAMED rice, is a type of grain that is boiled in its husk before being dried again. It originates from brown rice that has been soaked and then subsequently pressure steamed.
If rice is put through a second step of processing to remove the bran, it becomes white rice. Unlike brown and white rice, the process for par boiled rice begins before the hull is removed. The complete grain of rice is soaked, steamed and dried, then the hull is removed to make parboiled rice. Parboiled means partially boiled and not polished. Brown Rice has the highest Arsenic Content therefore it is not a healthy choice. White rice is normal one where polishing is done in mill for more than one time.
When rice goes through the parboiling stage, it is basically under high levels of steam and heat. This forces the nutrients that are present in the bran to be absorbed into the germ and the endosperm.
During the drying stage, the bran falls off by itself. One of the nutrients present in parboiled rice is B Vitamins.
Niacin
It is rich in niacin also known as nicotinic acid that helps the body to convert food to glucose that is used to produce energy. The B vitamins also aid in making neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. Even more, it gets rid of homo cysteine, which is an amino acid and converts it to other useful substances.
The presence of too much homo-cysteine compromises the health of your heart and may put you at risk of heart diseases. By eating a cup of parboiled rice is equivalent to 23% of the daily-recommended intake.
Further, your body will also benefit by getting up to 19% of the daily Vitamin B6 intake. This is twice the amount you would normally get from eating a plate of normal white rice.
Carbs
If you consume a cup of cooked Husk Steamed Basmati rice, you will be getting 41 out of 130 grams of the daily-recommended carbohydrate intake. This is equivalent to a third of the required intake per day.
A cup of cooked Husk Steamed Basmati rice provides 1.4 grams of fiber, which technically equates twice the amount that you will find in your white rice. Now the best thing about this rice variant is that it has a low GI score of just 38. Remember, that diabetics need to stick to meals that have a GI score of 70 and even less.
This score means that the inclusion of carbs in this meal can’t make your blood glucose go higher than the recommended level.
Minerals
Now, we all know how minerals are important to the functional and operational activities of the body and its organs. 1 cup of parboiled rice will provide you with up to 3% of the recommended daily intake of minerals such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, and iron.
The zinc content is the highest as one serving potentially boosts your zinc intake by 0.58 Mgs. Diabetics are known to be naturally deficient in zinc and eating parboiled rice helps to supply this mineral.
Zinc helps in the formation of the structural profile of proteins that help to regulate DNA and it is also integral in the fighting of infections and bacteria.
Other Rice Types Allowed
Husk Teamed Basmati rice is not the only rice type that a diabetic can eat without having any serious implications on their health.
However, you need to keep in mind that it is one of the best due to the fact that the starch contained in the rice is highly gelatinized.
This allows your body to digest the rice at an easier and faster pace. While you can’t consume normal white rice that has a GI of 89, other types of rice that you can safely consume without spiking your blood sugar levels include: Jasmin, Black, Red Rice.
ENJOY YOUR MEALS WITH THE RIGHT RICE COOKED IN THE RIGHT WAY WITHOUT SPIKING YOUR BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS.
