The Best Calorie-Cutting Trick

Rice-lovers rejoice!?We’ve been hearing rumblings of a simple trick that will reduce the calories in rice by half.

Most of us adore rice, but we’ve never been particularly enamoured with what it does to our waistline. And as for the brown variety, it takes too long to cook and just isn’t as nice. From paella to pudding, any dish that involves rice is undeniably delicious, but its tastiness can come at a cost, clocking up about 200 calories per portion, and that’s before you add the curry or cream. However, here’s some food for thought.

According to Dr Pushparajah Thavarajah, a professor at the University of Sri Lanka, and undergraduate student Sudhair James, you can reduce the amount of calories your body absorbs from rice by up to 60 per cent using one very simple ingredient. How do you do it? Just cook your rice with a small amount of coconut oil and then stick it in the fridge for 12 hours. For a normal 75g portion of uncooked rice, you need just half a teaspoon of coconut oil added to the water. The coconut oil helps to convert digestible starch into resistant starch so it cannot be absorbed and converted into sugar. Refrigeration helps to speed up the process. Your rice will then have ten times more resistant starch than regular rice meaning less calorie digestion and *bonus point* you can heat it up again without reversing the process.

Calories aside, it’ll also feed your body’s good bacteria. ?The resistant starch is a very good substrate, or energy source, for the bacteria inside the human gut,? says Thavarajah.

The only side-effect is that your rice might taste slightly coconutty. But when has that ever been something to complain about? Thai green curry it is for dinner tomorrow night so.

Consider yourselves informed.

Lauren Heskin

Time