How to Cook Healthier Rice at CookingSlim.org

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How to Cook Healthier Rice

Use the finger method to make your rice healthier, faster, and less gummy.

Get a pot or saucepan that has a matching cover. You won't be measuring by cups, so just consider how much rice you want to make by the size of the pot. What you're going for is a bit under a "pot full" of rice when it's finished.

Put one finger into the pot, and pour in rice until it is at the level of the first crease of your finger. It should be at that level across the bottom of the pot. So if it has piled higher in some points, just level it off, put your finger back in, and pour in some more.

Wash the rice by filling the pot with water, swiching it around with your hand, and then pouring off the water 3 or 4 times. You can use the water in your garden so as not to waste it.

After the last rinse, fill the pot with water again, and then set it in a warm place overnight, or for at least 7 hours. On top of the refrigerator is an ideal place for this. If it's summer and you're worried about flies or dust, you can partially cover the pot.

Once your rice has finished soaking and mildly fermenting, it will be about 2 or 3 times puffier than it was when it was dry. Pour off the water that the rice was soaking in. You may need to use a strainer.

At this point, you have choices. You can use the same water that the rice was soaking in or rinse the rice again. Either way, you will put your finger back into the rice, and add water up to the level of the full length of your finger.

Now, some would add a few dashes of salt, but if you're trying to limit your salt intake, you should use something else that tastes naturally salty or umami. A couple of teaspoons of wine vinegar, replacing some of the water volume with home made tomato sauce or yogurt may do this for you. Experiment with flavors until you find something that you like. Add a teaspoon or more, depending on the size of your pot, of butter, palm oil, lard, or coconut oil. You just need a little fat to "lubricate" it a bit, but not too much.

Cover the pot loosely so that steam can escape from it, and set it on medium-low heat. It should take 20 minutes to half an hour to cook. Test a few grains at 20 minutes to see if they are soft enough for you. You can add more water if it is needed, but no more than a half a cup of very hot or boiling water at a time.

When it is done, turn off the heat and cover the pot completely for 10 minutes or so and then gently fluff it before serving.

Why cook rice this way?

Extreme low carbers and "paleo" dieters recommend avoiding rice altogether. On this site and in my family's lifestyle, we want to get away from the idea of "evil foods" and more into natural and properly prepared foods. We're not into a one-size-fits-all mentality. You should do what your people did to live longer, healthier lives, and if they ate rice or similar grains to do this, you should probably eat it too. Rather than omitting rice, you should watch your portion size, and pay mind to how rice is properly prepared to get the most nutrition with the least negative impact on your body.

Some of us, when we go natural, sincerely do not feel hungry more than once or twice a day. It is not good to force yourself to eat more than you can comfortably unless you are actually ill. So when it's time to eat, we need a very well balanced meal that has at least a third of all we need for the day in the proper proportions.

For people from backgrounds that can tolerate and thrive with high amounts of fiber from grains, brown rice is the best to use. Some do even better with wild rice or other whole grains with the hulls on like quinoa, or mildly milled like barley. Do what your great grandparents did.

Some though, have gastric disturbances (to put it mildly) from the kind of fiber and bran that comes from grain hulls. They should get their fiber from fibrous or green leafy vegetables like collard greens, seaweed, celery and the like. For them, parboiled rice is best because it's slightly boiled in the hull before milling, and therefore gives you the nutrition from the hull without the bran. It's expensive though.

White rice will do, but the type of rice and how you treat it makes the difference between dumping a load of sugar onto your liver, and giving it something it can work with to make more than a fast burst of energy.

The shorter and wider and more opaque the grain of rice you use, the higher glycemic index it has. Basmati has the lowest, and short grain rice that is normally used for sushi or paella has the highest. Long grain or Persian is somewhere in between, and Thai jasmine rice is supposedly a bit lower than that.

No matter what kind of rice you use, it should be soaked for at least 7 hours in a mildly warm place. Some people soak their rice for 24 hours. This will ferment it slightly, and create organic acids that balance with the starches in the rice.

When you try it, you'll notice right away that it tastes and feels better, and is much easier to digest than unfermented cooked rice. I was very pleasantly surprised the first time, at what a difference it made. Instead of feeling like sleeping after dinner, I felt like going for a nice walk.

I was told by an Arab man whose mother always soaked rice overnight, that this is how one is supposed to feel after a meal of rice. He notices the difference between how he would feel after his mom's method, and how he feels after his wife cooks rice without fermenting it.

So all you ladies out there with Asian husbands, he knows. Start fermenting your rice.

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