Digestion: Why should we avoid buying quick cooking rice?

What is the difference between rice that will cook for 20 minutes, 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes? Except, of course, the cooking time… In a video on the subject produced by Le Parisien, in which Raphaël Haumont, physico-chemist from the University of Paris-Saclay intervenes, there would be another: with an impact on our digestion. Explanations.

Originally, rice is a food that takes a long time to cook: when you buy rice that cooks for 20 minutes, it has not been modified. To make it cook faster, there is a refining method, as explained in the video of the Parisian. It is passed through an “autoclave”, which allows it to have micro cracks inside the grain (we say that it “implodes”). It is thanks to this that water enters the rice grain more easily and it cooks faster.

Raphaël Haumont explains that as the rice is “cracked”, the water penetrates it and cooks it faster, but this changes everything about its assimilation by the human body… From a digestive point of view, it then deteriorates very easily in the body.

Sugar spike and glycemic drop

The consequence of this? ” We are going to absorb sugar, since it is starch, but which is already pre-processed,” he explains. This will result in a spike in sugar (hyperglycemia) and after a “fall too fast”, he observes. That would be why we would have a craving, or even hypoglycemia after consuming this type of food. He concludes that it is “very bad for your health”.

The slower the rice is to cook, the less damaged it is on the surface, and the better. It has not been processed, and will allow the body to digest it normally, transforming starch into sugar slowly, during a process lasting several hours, making this product much more interesting for your health.

Source: Le Parisien