Rice Is Getting A Lot Healthier, Soon: Here's How

Rice is eaten in just about every culture across the globe.

Now, preliminary research at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) is looking at how to offer the same great taste of this staple in the United States, but with fewer calories.

"What we did is cook the rice as you normally do, but when the water is boiling, before adding the raw rice, we added coconut oil-about 3 percent of the weight of the rice you're going to cook," said researcher Sudhair James, who presented findings at the meeting this past Monday. He continued, adding that "After it was ready, we let it cool in the refrigerator for about 12 hours. That's it."

As it stands, there is about 204 calories in a cup of cooked rice. As rice is often a side to most dishes, the researchers hope to reduce the overall calorie-content to this add-on, which is composed primarily of heavy starches.

"If you can reduce the digestible starch in something like steamed rice, you can reduce the calories, added Dr. Pushparajah Thavarajah, who is supervising the research. "The impact could be huge."

During their research, they hoped to find a resistant starch (RS) in the rice as the small intestine oftentimes has difficulties breaking it down. As a result, starch is absorbed by the body, which translates to lower calorie intake.

Researchers looked at 38 kinds in the hopes of increasing the resistant starch. 

They tried out a new cooking style, by adding a teaspoon of coconut oil to boiling water for every half cup of rice. Then, they simmered it for 40 minutes--finding the technique successful for increasing the RS by 10 times when compared to traditionally cooked rice, by converting the digesting starch to RS.

"The result is a healthier serving, even when you heat it back up," added James.

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