It is easy to overindulge on rice, and too much of any carb isn’t good for you. Carbohydrates can spike your blood sugar levels, leading to energy crashes, weight gain, insulin resistance and a host of other issues. What if you could avoid those problems and make your rice a superfood?
- Decreasing the glycemic index (blood sugar spike)
- Increasing health benefits
Just add some coconut oil to your white rice while cooking. According to a group of researchers who presented at the American Chemical Society in spring 2015, coconut oil may be the way for better and healthier rice.
The Study
In the study they steamed the rice normally, making just two modest changes: added coconut oil before cooking the rice, and afterward, they cooled the rice down. Researchers already knew that cooked-and cooled rice were higher in gut-friendly resistant starch than freshly-steamed rice.
The results were profound. The calories in the rice decreased by 10-12 percent, and they’re optimistic that with more research, they can raise that number to 60 percent.
When you cook coconut oil and rice together, the oil binds to the digestible starch in the rice — that’s the starch that converts to glucose. Once bound with the oil, the digestible starch begins to crystallize, creating another form of starch: the resistant variety.
The researchers found that cooling the rice after cooking it promoted crystallization, leading to a shocking 10 to 15-fold increase in resistant starch compared to normally prepared white rice.
Our bodies convert digestible starch into glucose, which raises blood sugar levels. Resistant starch is different. Humans don’t digest resistant starch, so it doesn’t raise blood glucose. In fact, for some people, certain types of resistant starch can lower glucose and insulin levels after meals.
So, now you can enjoy your rice even more, knowing you turned it into a superfood.
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Last modified: June 24, 2021
