Being a desi, rice is one of the things we find the hardest to cut out of our diets. It tastes delicious but the truth is – it is a calorie heavy food. If we told you, that there was a way that you could cut the calories of rice in half, would you try it? OF COURSE YOU WOULD.
Scientists are developing a way to cut the calorie content by half. Here’s How:
A normal cup of rice contains around 240 calories but by adding a teaspoon of coconut oil to the water before cooking it and then refrigerating the food for 12 hours after cooking, you can cut those calories into half. Starch can be digestible or indigestible, also known as resistant starch. The researchers reasoned that if they could transform digestible starch into resistant starch, then that could lower the number of usable calories of the rice. As the oil enters the starch granules during cooking, changing its architecture so that it becomes resistant to the action of digestive enzymes. This means that fewer calories ultimately get absorbed into the body.
Unlike digestible types of starch, resistant starch is not broken down in the small intestine, where carbohydrates normally are metabolised into glucose and other simple sugars and absorbed into the bloodstream.
Will you be using this hack tonight or is it just too much of a trouble to cook and freeze the rice for 12 hours before you eat them? Hey, anything to stave off those pesky calories!