Not Savoury Rice Again!

Rice has been around for a long time, but was not always the white grain we know and (mostly) like. In fact back when tigers smoked, rice was a grass with a few straggly dark grains atop the stalks. It took time for it to be farmed and improved into the plant until it resembled the varieties we know today.

White vs brown rice is divisive. There’s actually not a great deal between them, brown rice has an extra paper-thin layer around it. Also, because of the less processing, brown rice takes longer to cook and has a different taste that some people find difficult.

It’s the same as how white bread and wholemeal bread taste different and some people avoid wholemeal. As far as health links, there have been links made between white rice and Type 2 diabetes but not exactly proven. Brown rice has a lower glycaemic index (GI) than white rice. But there’s such a huge range of GIs even between white rice varieties, that you could probably say the differences aren’t large enough to warrant brown rice if you don’t like it for some reason.

There is an energy difference in them. It’s said that the Japanese in the First Sino-Japanese War may have won because their diet included brown rice whereas the Chinese consumed white rice, and that may have been true. But modern white rice is processed slightly better and the biggest difference would be in slower energy release and better digestion.

I’ve always considered basmati rice to be low GI, but there are multiple varieties of basmati and some are extremely long grain while others are more short-grain, so can they all have the exact same characteristics? Methinks probably not. And jasmine rice is also lower GI than many other varieties. Sorry – to accurately know the GI each load of rice would have to be tested, and we only have only average values that overlap anyway.

Now here’s a thing I found out – you can lower the GI of rice (and, as I’ve figured out without taking measurements since I don’t have access to that kind of equipment) some pasta just by doing a few things when preparing it.

With rice, I found a paper that suggested that using a fat (oil or similar) when cooking the rice. That was apparently important. But more importantly, you then need to let it cool down for some time and then re-heat it. Apparently this changes some of the fibre content to insoluble fibre that lowers the GI. And it seems to. My spouse couldn’t tolerate rice and has type 2. But when I cooked rice, she was able to tolerate it and her blood sugar seemed not so spike as much. We still use mostly basmati and cook it this way for that reason.

Now for my own discovery – I love pasta but for years it hadn’t loved me, I’d get bloated and get reflux when I had a pasta meal. Then I decided to try the same technique on pasta by cooking it a little less than al dente, cooling it under water and then reheating it to the right doneness. And yes, the pasta didn’t mess my insides up.

Take that with a grain of salt but do give it a try. I splash a spoonful of oil (olive or vegetable oil) in the water when cooking, let it cool all the way down (or even store the rice in the fridge overnight) then reheat it.

So if you’ve been avoiding white rice, maybe try cooking it this way and see if you like it better. And maybe try to spend the time to cook brown rice and try it out. I don’t mind the wholemeal taste and chewiness of it, but because so few people like it I tend not to make it. And to tell the truth I don’t miss it all that much.

PS: That title is a paraphrase of a TV ad for prepacked ready to serve Rosella brand savoury rice and I have honestly tried to find the droll TV commercial but apparently it’s gone forever, If you have a lead, please leave a comment.

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