A few weeks ago, scientists from Sri Lanka reported that they had developed a simple way to cook rice that could cut the amount of calories by more than half!
By using a specific heating and cooking process (and also a certain rice!), the scientists concluded that if the best rice variety is processed, it might reduce the amount of calories by about 50-60 %; all of which are from the starch content of the rice. Therefore, this method might also decrease (or help us finding a similar way to decrease) the amount of calories from other foods that contain starch.

? So, what is starch

Starch is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. It is the most common carbohydrate in our diet and it is found in high amounts in potatoes, wheat, and rice.

? Why is starch important to this process

There are two kind of starch. One is digestible and the other is not. Resistant starch, the indigestible kind, is not broken down in the small intestine, where carbohydrates are normally metabolized into glucose and other simple sugars and absorbed into the bloodstream. Since rice contains both types of starch, the researchers hypothesized that if they could transform digestible starch into the indigestible form, they would decrease the amount of actual calories that are available to the body.

? What is this method

The researchers experimented with 38 kinds of rice from Sri Lanka and tried to find a way of cooking it that would increase the amount of indigestible starch.
This is the method that they used:

1) Add a teaspoon of coconut oil to boiling water
2) Add a half a cup of rice
3) Simmer for 40 minutes
4) Refrigerate for 12 hours
5) Eat (you can reheat it as much as you want)

This procedure increased the indigestible starch tenfold!

? Do you have to cool the rice

Yes! The cooling process is essential because it leads to the formation of hydrogen bonds between the amylose molecules (the soluble part of the starch) outside the rice grains. These bonds turn the starch into the indigestible form. Note that reheating the rice will not affect these.

The future

The next steps in this area would be to:

– Determine the best kind of rice for this cooking method
– Find out if other oils have the same effect
– Find out if this method can also be applied to other foods like pasta and potatoes
– Encourage companies to manufacture and sell the frozen reduced calories rice

 

BY Eli Mizelman

Eli Mizelman is an exercise physiologist and a sports scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

 

Reference: Sudhair A. James, et al (2015). Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Resistant Starch and Novel Processing Methods to Increase Resistant Starch Concentration.

 

Photo 1 By ozz13x is licensed under (CC BY 2.0)

Photo 2 By  photographybanzai is licensed under (CC BY 2.0)