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Rice and How to Cook it

by jughandle

Wikipedia says

“Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima. As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world’s human population, especially in East and South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies. It is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production, after maize (corn).

We are more interested in how we can prepare it and what nutritional value it has for us.  The most common type of rice in the US is white long-grain.

100g or 3.5 oz of raw rice has

Calories – 365

Carbohydrates – 80 g

Sugars – .12 g

Fiber – 1.3 g

Fat – .66 g

Protein – 7.13

 

GI of boiled long grain white rice – 64 where 0-55 is low, 56-69 is med and over 70 is high

Serving size is 1 cup = 36 g of carbs

GL per serving is 23 where 0-10 is low, 11-19 is med and over 20 is high maxing out around 60

How To Cook Rice

Most rice can be cooked by boiling 1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water for around 20 minutes.   The way I prefer is to use a rice cooker.  The following is a video of Jamie Oliver showing you how to cook rice.

 

The Glycemic Index and Load

 

We on the Fat Farm are interested in eating well but eating things that will keep our blood sugar in the 60-80 mg/dl range. That is the concentration of milligrams of glucose  in deciliters of our blood.  Rice is all over the Glycemic Index depending on which type you choice.  Before I get into the index values of the various rice types, I want to confuse you some more.

The GI compares foods at the same carbohydrate level, rating their ability to raise your blood sugar, with glucose being 100. This is the Quality of the food.  Since different foods contain various amounts of carbohydrates we need an index that shows the blood sugar effect by volume.  That is the Glycemic Load indicator. The GL measures the Quantity of carbohydrate in a food.  The GL is a much more accurate measurement of the effect of the food on our blood sugar.  The glycemic load of a food is calculated by multiplying the glycemic index by the amount of carbohydrate in grams provided by a food and dividing the total by 100.

Neither the GI nor the GL are easy concepts to grasp, but for the health of our pancreas it is important that we try.

Notice in the list below that Jasmine Rice has a higher GI rating than Glucose itself.  That means that Jasmine Rice will spike your blood sugar very quickly.

 

 Types of Rice and Their Loads

There are literally hundreds of different kinds of rice and most even very by country.  Here are a couple to contemplate.

[one_fifth] Type
white Rice
Brown Rice
Basmati Rice
Jasmine Rice
[/one_fifth] [one_fifth]
GI
64
55
58
109[/one_fifth] [one_fifth]
Serving Size
1 cup
1 cup
1 cup
1 cup[/one_fifth] [one_fifth]
Carbs/serving
36
33
38 [/one_fifth] [one_fifth_last]
GL/Serving
23
18
22
46[/one_fifth_last]

To sum it up – Brown rice good, white long grain rice OK, Jasmine rice Bad.

Farm On You Fat Farmers.  Let me know if you have any questions – Jughandle

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4 comments

Mittie Wooden August 13, 2011 - 10:27 am

I am curious about the statement you made that you want to to keep your blood sugar in the 60-80mg/dl range. I was thinking that a normal range was more like 80-120mg/dl. I was just wondering where you got your information.

jughandle August 14, 2011 - 10:56 am

I was referring to an early post that I made referring to an article on the Mayo Clinic site,on how your body reacts to increases or decreases in sucrose in our system. When our blood sugar is below 60 our metabolism slows, even temporarily, to save energy. When the blood sugar is over 80 the body uses the available energy in the blood to fuel the system. Over 120 the body secretes insulin to convert the sucrose to fat for storage. So, in the 60-80 range, the body is converting stored energy (fat) to burn. That makes the 60-80 range the ideal range to eliminate stress on the pancreas and to burn fat or lose weight. This assume of course we could know what our blood sugar was at any particular time. Thanks for the question – jug

Debbie Galladora August 15, 2011 - 4:25 pm

Enjoyed this article! Of course I love jasmine rice, but I’m quite fond of brown, too!

What’s Next? | Jughandle’s Fat Farm November 8, 2011 - 8:49 am

[…] We learned how to de-bone a whole chicken, how to can things, how to blanch and how to cook rice. […]

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