Who doesn’t love rice? Rice in any form tastes yummy. In India, rice is the staple grain and is prepared daily in some households. But nowadays people are more health conscious than ever and are avoiding rice because we all know that rice can contribute to high amounts of fat and lead to obesity, if consumed in excess. But a new study shows that one can cut the calorie content in rice with a simple trick or hack as we may call it. Menopause Could be Caused by Eating Rice.

A normal cup of rice contains around 240 calories. And scientists are developing a way to cut the calorie content by half. How? Just by adding a teaspoon of coconut oil to the water and then refrigerating the food for 12 hours after cooking, you can cut that. The research was presented in 2015 at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society involved looking at 38 different rice from Sri Lanka, as reported by Metro. Starch can be digestible or indigestible, also known as resistant starch. The researchers reasoned that if they could transform digestible starch into resistant starch, the that could lower the number of usable calories of the rice. Weight Loss Tips: 12 Harmless Habits That Are Making You Fat!

By adding the oil to the water, before adding half a cup of rice, simmering for 40 minutes and then refrigerating for 12 hours, they found there was 10 times more resistant starch, compared to normal 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.

Team leader Sudhair A James, College of Chemical Sciences, Sri Lanka, says, “Because obesity is a growing health problem, especially in many developing countries, we wanted to find food-based solutions. We discovered that increasing rice resistant starch (RS) concentrations was a novel way to approach the problem.” He further explains, “After your body converts carbohydrates into glucose, any leftover fuel gets converted into a polysaccharide carbohydrate called glycogen. Your liver and muscles store glycogen for energy and quickly turn it back into glucose as needed.”

But he explains that the problem is the excess glucose that doesn’t get converted to glycogen ends up turning into fat, which can lead to excessive weight or obesity. As the oil enters the starch granules during cooking, changing its architecture so that it becomes resistant to the action of digestive enzymes. James says, “The cooling is essential because amylose, the soluble part of the starch, leaves the granules during gelatinization. Cooling for 12 hours will lead to formation of hydrogen bonds between the amylose molecules outside the rice grains which also turns it into a resistant starch.” This means that fewer calories ultimately get absorbed into the body.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 22, 2018 11:06 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).