Rice is a very popular staple especially in Asia. However, it can be dangerous for the health of Europeans who like to eat fatty meats: rice contains a lot of calories, so it can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases. A cup of rice contains about 200 calories.
Fortunately, experts in Sri Lanka realized how to cook rice so it won’t contain so many calories. Pushparajah Thavaravja and his student Sudhair James experimented until they developed a method that halves the calorie content of rice, so it becomes much healthier.
What to do
Boil up some water and add coconut oil in the amount of 3% of the rice to be cooked before adding the rice in the water. When the rice is cooked, allow it to cool for about 12 hours.
The secret lies in reducing the starch content of the rice. If you cook it in the traditional way, the starch will remain digestible and rice will contain a lot of calories. On the other hand, if you cook rice in the way described above, most of the starch will turn indigestible, so the calorie content of the rice will be reduced.
Coconut oil has a great role in making this difference, as it changes the composition of the starch. Also, when rice is left to cool, more remaining starch will turn into indigestible starch.