DailyDirt: Healthier Rice... From Science

Billions of people around the world eat rice. So if rice can be made to be more healthy, the benefits could be globally significant. Sure, there are plenty of folks trying to genetically engineer better rice (eg. Golden Rice), but if you don't like GMOs for whatever reason, you're not out of luck. There are a few things that might help improve rice without messing around with rice DNA.

• Cooking low calorie rice can be accomplished by adding coconut oil to the water used to cook rice. The coconut oil prevents some of the resistant starches in rice from becoming digestible starches, thereby reducing the calories available to whoever eats it. [url]
• Arsenic content in rice can be reduced by relatively simple rinsing and cooking techniques. A coffee-pot percolation method for cooking rice could eliminate more than half of the arsenic in contaminated rice. [url]
• Studying the microbiome of rice could help reduce the arsenic levels in the grain and plant. Bacteria in the soil has been found to lessen the uptake of arsenic significantly -- potentially increasing food production productivity and improving food safety and chronic health conditions for the people who eat this staple daily. [url]

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