Student casts doubt on calorie counting claim
CALORIE counters who were told that cooking rice in coconut oil could reduce the calorie content by 60% could be re-thinking their method.
A Glasgow student has apparently proved there might not be a grain of truth in the claim.
Two years ago a team of scientists from Sri Lanka claimed that cooking the rice with coconut oil, and then cooling it for 12 hours in the fridge more than halved the number of calories in the rice when it was eaten.
The researchers said preparing the rice this way increased the amount of resistant starch inside it, which is indigestible to the human body and therefore is not turned into energy or fat.
The study, by The College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka, received world-wide media coverage.
A similar study, carried out by the BBC’s Trust Me I’m a Doctor found that cooling and reheating pasta led to fewer calories being absorbed.
However research by a Glasgow postgraduate student with rice concluded there was no difference in the resistant starch content whether it was cooked with coconut oil or without.
Heleret Marilin Reisner, who is studying at Glasgow Caledonian University, doubled the amount of time the rice was cooled to 24 hours as the theory is, that the longer the rice is left, the more the resistant starch is supposed to build up.
Heleret, who is from Estonia, has been awarded the postgraduate prize at the IFST Young Scientist Competition for her research.
She said: “In science you can’t always replicate an experiment.
“I wasn’t trying to disprove their research, I was actually trying to prove the same thing but I couldn’t find any difference.
“I remember reading about the experiment and my degree is in nutrition so it was of interest to me, I’m interested in healthy eating and lots of people were cooking rice this way after that research came out.
“I tried to keep the methods of my project as close to home-cooking methods as possible, to see if this would really work for those of us trying to cook healthier at home. I bought my ingredients from local shops and boiled basmati rice according to the instructions on the packaging.
“That’s 10 minutes of boiling on low heat, followed by allowing the rice to sit for three minutes, and then fluffing with a fork.
“The only difference was adding extra-virgin coconut oil (3% of the dry rice weight) to the boiling water, right before pouring the rice in.
“After cooking, I refrigerated the rice for 24 hours and reheated it in a microwave.
“Analysis of the resistant starch content, however, showed no increase compared to rice with no coconut oil added to it.
“You shouldn’t cool it for any longer than 24 hours and you can only reheat rice once or it’s not really safe to eat.”