Everyday Systems

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... -calories/

This is how they did it. Sounds pretty simple.

"What we did is cook the rice as you normally do, but when the water is boiling, before adding the raw rice, we added coconut oil—about 3 percent of the weight of the rice you're going to cook," said Sudhair James, who presented his preliminary research at National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) on Monday. "After it was ready, we let it cool in the refrigerator for about 12 hours. That's it."

A professor supervising the research said...

"Obesity has been a problem in the United States for some time," said Thavarajah. "But it's becoming a problem in Asia, too. People are eating larger and larger portions of rice, which isn't good."

No, it isn't good, but will lower calorie rice make people stop eating more and more? Probably not, probably just the opposite.

A world where commercially sold rice comes pre-cooked and with much fewer calories might not be that far off...And there's good reason to believe the chemistry could be applied to many other popular but less-than-healthy foods.

"It's about more than rice," said Thavarajah. "I mean, can we do the same thing for bread? That's the real question here."

More diet food at the grocery store

If adding oil makes the rice less caloric, doesn't the oil still have calories that it by being added adds?

I saw this one on Dr. Oz and immediately thought oil has about 120 calories per tbsp. So if I reduce the rice calories by ??? say 50 calories and add the 120 calories from the oil I am left with a dish that has a net 70 additional calories???

Am I missing something?

I think this is another problem with micro-managing a macro-problem.

We all do it, but I think ultimately this kind of stuff is less important than the overt issues of visibly overeating.

The micro-problem might be important to actresses and ballerinas, but not us.

I think this is another problem with micro-managing a macro-problem.

Exactly. I once saw an article about the size of bananas and how large bananas can throw your calorie counting.

And I'm thinking if banana size is your problem, you are doing better than most of us.

Blithe Morning wrote:

I think this is another problem with micro-managing a macro-problem.

Exactly. I once saw an article about the size of bananas and how large bananas can throw your calorie counting.

And I'm thinking if banana size is your problem, you are doing better than most of us.

When I was calorie counting, I bought a food scale and measured my food to the gram to calculate caloric intake. So yeah, the differences in apple sizes (up to 70 grams) was quite a difference in caloric intake when I was maxing out at 1500 calories.

Sure, sure, I lost weight and even did so quickly. But it was damn near a full time job and even less fun than it sounds like.

This just sounds ridiculous! I don't think I can quite wrap my mind around adding oil to starch to reduce calories (but then, if quantity of rice was only my problem...)

NoelFigart wrote:

Blithe Morning wrote:

I think this is another problem with micro-managing a macro-problem.

Exactly. I once saw an article about the size of bananas and how large bananas can throw your calorie counting.

And I'm thinking if banana size is your problem, you are doing better than most of us.

When I was calorie counting, I bought a food scale and measured my food to the gram to calculate caloric intake. So yeah, the differences in apple sizes (up to 70 grams) was quite a difference in caloric intake when I was maxing out at 1500 calories.

Sure, sure, I lost weight and even did so quickly. But it was damn near a full time job and even less fun than it sounds like.

Yeah, I still have my scale. When you're limited to 1445 calories per day, believe me, the size of banana can upset the whole apple cart! To mix my fruits, LOL!

Not fun, possible to lose weight, but you can't ever stop tracking (in the end I was worse off--and I also stalled after a few months--all the work for no more payoff except the balloon effect when you stop...)