How to cook rice helps you lose weight

Add coconut oil with 3% of the rice before pouring water, then cook the rice in the refrigerator compartment and reheat it in the microwave before eating.

According to SA, a cup of rice containing about 240 calories can quickly turn into body fat if they are not burned. Sudhair James and Pushparajah Thavarajah from Sri Lanka's College of Chemical Science have studied how to cook simple rice that can reduce 50% of its calories , bringing many health benefits.

Sudhair James presented at the recent National Conference and Exhibition of the American Chemical Society, in fact not all starches were created equal. There are two main types: The first is that digestible starch is stored as fat when the body is consumed up, the second is resistant starch - not broken down into glucose in the stomach, so they have a lower calorie intake. Instead, resistant starch passes through the large intestine and acts like a fiber, providing many intestinal benefits.

Foods high in starch like rice will contain a lot of resistant starch depending on how we cook.(Photo: WH).

The team tested 8 ways to cook rice on 38 types of rice grains. As a result, they found that if adding a fat like coconut oil before cooking, then immediately cooling the rice, they could change the composition of the starch, helping the rice contain more resistant starch.

The scientists gave an amount of coconut oil equal to about 3% of the cooked rice before pouring it in, equivalent to about a teaspoon for half a can of rice. After cooking, they brought the rice in the refrigerator compartment for about 12 hours. Before eating, reheat with a microwave oven.

In this method, coconut oil works by interacting with starch molecules and altering its structure. When cooled for 12 hours, hydrogen between the outer particles of rice is linked together and turns it into resistant starch. Warming the rice afterwards will not change the amount of resistant starch that has been formed.

Many starchy foods like potatoes and rice contain a lot of resistant starch depending on how we cook. Previous researchers have suggested that fried rice and rice are pilaf-style (cooked rice in meat broth) with more resistant starch than regular steamed rice.

James and Thavarajah are beginning to test the process of natural rice varieties called Suduru Samba . They believe that this rice will reduce 50 to 60% of calories loaded into the body when rice is cooked into rice by any means.