Indian Chemist Claims This Cooking Method Will Remove Calories from Your Rice

Sudhir James, an Indian chemist and part of the research team at the University of Sri Lanka, shares a traditional rice cooking method that significantly reduces calorie absorption. 

Rice is a starch that our body finds hard to digest, largely due to its sugar content that enters the bloodstream and is stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen. What the body can't convert into glycogen quickly turns into fat. 

"All you need to do is mix a tablespoon of coconut oil into boiling water until it's completely dissolved, then add the rice to this water and cook it until soft. Place the rice in the refrigerator for 14 hours, and eat it either cold or hot. The cold coconut oil, combined with the rice's hard-to-digest starch, renders it a substance the body can't digest."

Minimizes Calorie Absorption in the Body

James's method, also featured on CBSNews, claims that adding healthy fats to rice during cooking can cut its calories by about half. "A cup of cooked rice typically contains 240 calories, comprising two types of starch that the human body lacks the enzyme to break down immediately."

The theory from researchers at the University of Sri Lanka suggests that coconut oil, after being heated and then cooled, increases the presence of resistant starches and minimizes calorie absorption in the body. "During the long cooling process, when the rice begins to gel, the amylose - the starchy part of the rice - binds with other molecules outside the rice grain, converting them into a starch that the body finds hard to digest. After undergoing this process, the rice can of course be reheated, and does not need to be eaten cold."

These findings were presented at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, and further studies on the method's effectiveness found it also boosts the body's good bacteria and improves bowel function. Meanwhile, more studies are underway to determine if the method is effective with other plant-based oils as well.