Is it Healthier to Eat Cold Rice?
A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Waistline
For a long time, the health debate around rice was brown vs white. Recently headlines talked about eating cold rice or at least cooling rice before eating it. Clients and friends messaged me asking if this was just hype or something to consider. Indeed, cooling your rice after cooking it, before eating, does uplevel the health quotient of your rice!
How is this possible? I often discuss fiber and one key aspect is that it’s a prebiotic, the food for healthy gut bugs. One type of fiber that’s a powerful prebiotic is called resistant starch. Resistant starch is created when rice cools (after being cooked with heat). As the temperature of the rice drops, the chemistry of the starch in the rice changes. Basically the heat in cooking causes the starches to lose their original molecular structure; when cooled, a new structure is formed.
Typically, starches break down into glucose and then are absorbed into the body, which increases blood sugar after eating. Resistant starch, on the other hand, is similar to insoluble fiber — it does not digest. It passes through the stomach and small intestine without being broken down by bacteria. Then, in the large intestine, it ferments creating fuel for the bacteria in the large intestine. Don’t worry, you don’t have to eat the rice cold! It turns out, when…
