Rice with half the calories--what's your opinion?

yayamom3
yayamom3 Posts: 939 Member
in Food and Nutrition
According to this study, cooking white rice in coconut oil then cooling and refrigerating it overnight reduces the calories by about half. I'm curious, what are your thoughts?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/acs-nlr021915.php
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Replies

  • notnikkisixx
    notnikkisixx Posts: 375 Member
    this sounds too good to be true....so there's probably more to the story than miraculously eliminating calories.
  • JohnBarth
    JohnBarth Posts: 672 Member
    My rice has half the calories when I eat 1/4 of a package instead of 1/2. This is accomplished by adding more peppers and onions to achieve a similar volume.
  • loralye211
    loralye211 Posts: 29 Member
    I read that article yesterday. It's something to do with the rice's chemical (?) reaction to being cooled right after it's cooked that zaps the calories in half. And it looks like it only works with whole grain takes-awhile-to-cook rice and not minute rice.

    I don't trust it either. Besides the fact that you're adding coconut oil which has a lot of calories, I don't know how food can "diet" itself just by sitting in the fridge overnight.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    yayamom3 wrote: »
    According to this study, cooking white rice in coconut oil then cooling and refrigerating it overnight reduces the calories by about half. I'm curious, what are your thoughts?

    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/acs-nlr021915.php

    That is interesting. Replacing flour with resistant starch is what allows Fiber Gourmet pasta to have 1/2 the calories of regular. So, if this process really does change enough of the digestible starch to resistant starch, then it could cut the calories in half.

    I will be on the lookout for more news after the conference they mention tomorrow.
  • jennifershoo
    jennifershoo Posts: 3,198 Member
    Dafuq?
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    That's just DIY Olestra.

    YUCK.

    And what a horrible waste of food - just make half as much instead.
  • ZhaoWei76
    ZhaoWei76 Posts: 37 Member
    I eat rice just about EVERY day (half-filipino)... I wouldn't bother with trying to cook it another way... I just control how much rice I eat... 1/2 cup - a little over 100 calories... Works for me! Back in the day, I'd probably put more than a cup of rice on my plate (and would watch my relatives do just the same)... But I've found that a 1/2 cup of rice works just fine for what I'm eating nowadays...

    Of course, I'm also cooking regular long grain white rice in a rice cooker (so I can't speak to pre-packaged or Uncle Ben-type rice)... But I'm good with regular rice...

    Just my opinion...
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    That's just DIY Olestra.

    YUCK.

    And what a horrible waste of food - just make half as much instead.

    Um, no. Olestra is a fat substitute. Resistant starch is naturally found in foods.
  • Soggynode
    Soggynode Posts: 1,179 Member
    Interesting article. Thank you for posting it. I am curious about the outcome of further testing.
  • Deena_Bean
    Deena_Bean Posts: 906 Member
    I have faith in science. And I hope they're right, cuz that would be fab.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    edited March 2015
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    That's just DIY Olestra.

    YUCK.

    And what a horrible waste of food - just make half as much instead.

    Um, no. Olestra is a fat substitute. Resistant starch is naturally found in foods.

    It's the same underlying mechanism - Olestra "works" by minimizing your body's ability to actually digest the food you're eating. This approach "works" by turning your stove top into a chemistry lab to achieve the same result.

    It's all horrible. :disappointed: Same principle as the old roman vomitoriums, just moving the exit point a couple of feet "south", all done to enable people to eat for the sake of eating.

  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    That's just DIY Olestra.

    YUCK.

    And what a horrible waste of food - just make half as much instead.

    Um, no. Olestra is a fat substitute. Resistant starch is naturally found in foods.

    It's the same underlying mechanism - Olestra "works" by minimizing your body's ability to actually digest the food you're eating.

    It's all horrible. :disappointed:

    No. One is a fat substitute, one is a fiber. Very different. You do not get anal leakage from resistant starch.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    edited March 2015
    Forest, trees.

    Both are using chemistry to enable gluttony.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    Forest, trees.

    Both are using chemistry to enable gluttony.

    I don't understand. Calories play no part in gluttony? Just volume?
  • d65k5g
    d65k5g Posts: 4
    edited March 2015
    I know a similar phenomenon occurs when you cook, cool and reheat pasta which reduces the blood sugar spike following a pasta dish - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29629761 which is apparently because the starch gelatonises. That is a similar process to the one Jeffrey Steingarten / Heston Blumenthal use to make the "best" mash potato where by they cook the potatoes first at 70degrees C before cooling under cold running water to below 20 before simmering until soft and then mashing as usual (just leave out the 33% butter!!! which Heston suggests is required ;) ).

    I am wondering if in the rice case the starch is also being gelatonised and it is the same principle working in the pasta and the potatoes, so the effects of a reduction in usable calories is also happening in the pasta and the mash. It is interesting as I always use the cook/cool/cook method when I do mash. It would be interesting to see the results.

    One issue worth mentioning here is that rice is particularly prone to food bug spores that survive the cooking process and then grow and produce toxins so reheating rice is generally not recommended.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    Enabling people to stuff their faces without having to pay the caloric penalties is enabling gluttony, yes.

    That these tricks are intentionally wasting nutritional content in a world where so many are hungry is, frankly, despicable as far as I'm concerned.

    Just take a smaller portion, for heavens sake....
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    d65k5g wrote: »
    I know a similar phenomenon occurs when you cook, cool and reheat pasta which reduces the blood sugar spike following a pasta dish - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29629761 which is apparently because the starch gelatonises. This is a similar process to the one Jeffrey Steingarten / Heston Blumenthal use to make the best mash potato by cooking the potatoes first at 70degree C and then cooling to below 20 before simmering until soft (just leave out the 33% butter!!! which Heston suggests is required).

    I am wondering if the starch being gelatonised is the same principle behind the rice and therefore whether you can read across from this study to the pasta and the potatoes. It is interesting as I always use the cook/cool/cook method when I do mash. It would be interesting to see the results.

    The only issue of course here is that rice is particularly prone to food bugs that survive the cooking process so reheating rice is not always a safe idea.

    So, then the coconut oil likely has little to do with it. I've always cooked and cooled rice before making fried rice because it makes the rice not so starchy.
  • d65k5g
    d65k5g Posts: 4
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    So, then the coconut oil likely has little to do with it. I've always cooked and cooled rice before making fried rice because it makes the rice not so starchy.

    I've no idea on the coconut oil thing, I would be interested to see the study to see the effects without the oil. That said logically it would only be a small amount of oil clinging to the rice grains that would actually be eaten, most of the oil would be poured away down the sink when you drained the rice.
  • sympha01
    sympha01 Posts: 942 Member
    edited March 2015
    Meh, not a fan of labelling wanting to eat an extra 100 calories as "gluttony," nor more generally the thinking that suggests that enjoying yourself means you don't "deserve" fitness, health, or leanness.

    F the virtue brigade. We all deserve to enjoy our meals. I rarely eat rice because I prioritize other calories over low-nutrition ones like rice. If rice becomes less calorically dense given its existing nutritional profile, I could eat rice more often. That doesn't make me a glutton, or less virtuous, or less deserving of health and fitness. And F anyone who says so.
  • HumboldtFred
    HumboldtFred Posts: 159 Member
    sympha01 wrote: »
    Meh, not a fan of labelling wanting to eat an extra 100 calories as "gluttony," nor more generally the thinking that suggests that enjoying yourself means you don't "deserve" fitness, health, or leanness.

    F the virtue brigade. We all deserve to enjoy our meals. I rarely eat rice because I prioritize other calories over low-nutrition ones like rice. If rice becomes less calorically dense given its existing nutritional profile, I could eat rice more often. That doesn't make me a glutton, or less virtuous, or less deserving of health and fitness. And F anyone who says so.

    BOOM!........what she said. I credit 30 pounds of my weight loss to reduced calorie bread, fat free cheese, and sugar free Jell-O. Don't get me started on Stevia, monk fruit, and the dreaded Splenda which I use every frickin day.

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