We've got a pro tip for all you rice lovers out there!
By simply adding coconut oil to rice during the cooking process and allowing it to refrigerate for 12 hours after, you can cut the calories of rice down by half! Need more convincing? Here's a little bit of the food science behind this theory.
Rice is made up of digestible starch and a special type of carbohydrate called resistant starch (time.com). Humans don't have enzymes to digest resistant starch to be transformed into sugar, so instead, resistant starch bypasses the small intestines and heads straight to the large intestines where it is fermented into short-chain fatty acids that feed healthy colonies of gut bacteria.
In short, the more resistant starch a food has, the fewer calories from that starch our bodies will absorb.
Great, but how does that apply to rice? Stick with us.
Scientists had the idea of reducing the amount of digestible starch in rice by converting them into resistant starch. By adding a healthy fat, like say, Medella's Coconut Cooking Oil during the cooking process, the oil enters the rice granules and changes the structure of the rice so they become resistant to digestive enzymes (washingtonpost.com)
But wait, that's only half the magic. By refrigerating the rice for 12 hours, the extended cooling process as the rice starts to 'gel', the amylose (read: starch) starts to leave the rice granules. The 12-hour cooling period also leads to the formation of hydrogen bonds between the the amylose and molecules outside the rice grains. This converts it into the starch the body is unable to digest. (cbsnews.com).
Don't take our word for it, grab a bottle of Medella's Coconut Cooking Oil and try it yourself at home!
