What if there’s a way of dealing with this one flaw of rice? What if we told you that there’s a way of cooking rice that can make it much healthier for your system? We are not telling you all something that’s impossible because there’s actually a trick to cut down of the number of calories in rice. In this article, we will tell you about an effective way of cooking rice to reduce its calories. We will also explain you why this particular process works. So, let’s get started!
The Method
- Take water in a cooking container
- Bring the water to boil and add a bit of coconut oil
- The coconut oil should be about 3 percent of the amount of the rice to be cooked
- Now add raw rice to it
- Cook the rice properly and after it’s done, let it cool in the refrigerator for about 12 hours
That’s it. That’s all that you need to do to better the health benefits of rice. That was pretty easy, right? But are you feeling a bit lost regarding this method? Don’t worry; we will explain it to you why exactly this method of cooking works.
All starches are not the same for there are different kinds of starches. Digestible starches take little time to digest and are quickly turned into glucose and finally into glycogen. Excess of glycogen adds to the size of our guts if not burnt off. Resistant starches on the other hand, take a longer period of time to digest and do not get converted into glucose or glycogen. This happens because our body lacks the ability to digest them. Hence, these add up to fewer calories.
Research has however showed that it’s possible to change the types of starches in food by doing slight modifications in the cooking process. Let’s take the example of potatoes. They contain just the right amount of starch; however, when cooked or mashed, the starch turns into the less healthy kind.
According to a popular research, rice undergoes several chemical changes depending on the method of preparation. You would be amazed to know that fried rice or pulao have more amount of resistant starch than steamed rice which is the most commonly eaten type. Sounds strange, right? Thus, if we can reduce the digestible starch in rice, we can easily reduce the calories that come in steamed rice.
Thus, when a lipid like coconut oil is added to cooking process of rice, it drastically changes its starch type for the better. The oil reacts with the starch leading to a change in its type and refrigerating the rice helps in the process of conversion of starches. This means you have successfully made the starchy and sinful rice into a healthy one. Your rice is now not as heavy in calories as it was before; isn’t that amazing? Now you can have your regular portion of rice without worrying about its calorie content.