Do you know? Rice can actually be worse than sugar?

Salam..

Saya baru jer terbaca 1 artikel & forum .. tentang nasi. Memang dah lama saya tahu.. kalau nak diet kena kurangkan makan nasi atau sebaiknya jgn makan nasi. Tapi tak tahu pulak nasi boleh disamakan seperti gula.

Saya tak sempat nak huraikan artikel tu di sini. Jadi izinkan saya untuk letakkan artikel tu di sini. Nanti kita bincangkan lagi tentang diet ni.

RICE and other grains like wheat and corn can actually be worse than sugar.
In fact, if you go by the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) studies, white rice is almost equal to white sugar.

Indeed, white rice has an index of 92 versus 100 for sugar. The glycemic load is 30 — in excess of the 20 that it he upper limit per "good carbohydrate" serving.

However, there are several reasons why rice is worse than sugar:

* Rice becomes sugar

This is a fact that no nutritionist can deny: rice is chemically no different from sugar. Remember the experiment in school where you chewed on some cooked rice for a while. After a while, it turned sweet!

Actually, one bowl of cooked rice is the caloric equal of 10 teaspoons of sugar. It does not matter whether it is white, brown or herbal rice.

A bowl of brown rice is richer in fibre, some B vitamins and mineral but it is still the caloric equal of 10 teaspoons of sugar.

To get the same 10 teaspoons of sugar, you need to consume to lots of kangkong — 10 bowls of it.

* Rice cannot be digested before it is thoroughly cooked. However, when thoroughly cooked, it becomes sugar and spikes circulating blood sugar, within half an hour — almost as quickly as it would if your took a sugar candy.

* Rice is also lacking in the "rainbow of anti-oxidants". This complete anti-oxidant rainbow is necessary for the effective and safe utilisation of sugar.

Fruits come with a sugar called fructose. However, they are not empty calories as the fruit is packed with a whole host of other nutrients that help its proper assimilation and digestion.

* Rice has no fibre

The fibre of the kangkong fills you long before your blood sugar spikes. This is because the fibre bulks and fills your stomach. Since white rice has no fibre, you will end up eating lots of this "calorie dense" food.

Brown rice has more fibre but still the same amount of sugar.

* Rice is tasteless while sugar is sweet. There is only so much you can eat at one sitting. How many teaspoons of sugar can you eat before you feel like throwing up?

How many bowls of rice would you eat at lunch in a banana leaf restaurant today?

Another point worth noting is that rice is always the main part of the meal. While sugar may fill your dessert or sweeten your coffee, it will never be the main part of any meal. You could eat maybe 2-3 teaspoons of sugar at one meal.

However, you could easily eat the equivalent of two to three bowls, which translates to 20-30 teaspoons of sugar, in one meal.

I am always amused when I see someone eat sometimes five bowls of rice (50 teaspoons of sugar) at a banana leaf restaurant and then ask for teh tarik that is kurang manis!

There is no real "built in" mechanism for us to prevent overeating rice. How much kangkong can you eat? How much fried chicken can you eat? How much steamed fish can you eat?

Think about that. In terms of just quantity, where will you eat more — at a banana leaf restaurant where rice it the bulk or a western restaurant serving grilled fish and broccoli?

You eat more salt

As rice is tasteless, you tend to consume more salt — another villain when it comes to high blood pressure.

You tend to take more curry which has salt to help flavour the tasteless rice. We also tend to consume more ketchup and soy sauce which are also rich is salt.

* Eating rice causes you to drink less water. The more rice you eat, the less water you will drink as there is no mechanism to prevent the overeating of rice.

* Rice, wheat and corn come hidden in our daily food. As rice is tasteless, it tends to end up in other substitute foods like rice flour, noodles and bread.

* Rice, even when cooked, is difficult to digest. It is "heavy stuff".

If you have problems with digestion, try skipping rice for a few days. You will be amazed at how the problem will just go away.