‘In mix with other ingredients rice is not fattening’

Eating rice may do more good and less harm if you watch your portions, suggests a new campaign that aims to promote guilt-free rice consumption.

Best Foods Limited, which owns the label ‘Best Rice’, seeks to reinstate rice as staple diet as part of its ‘I Love Rice’ campaign. The company engaged market research firm TNS India to discern new-age myths surrounding rice consumption.

The findings showed that Hyderabadi s love rice dishes, but a majority (73 per cent respondents), fear the cereal is fattening.

City-based nutritionist B. Janaki, who sought to bust myths on Friday, said rice’s high glycemic index, which has earned it the reputation of being a fattening food, is actually lowered by its combination with other components of an Indian meal. Glycemic index is the effect of a food on blood glucose level.

“Rice is seldom taken by itself. Though it has a high index, when mixed with dal, vegetable or meat, it does not dramatically influence blood glucose levels. Most importantly, unlike wheat, rice does not contain any gluten. So it does not cause stomach bloating. If consumed in moderate quantities as required by the body, it becomes the main source of nutrients,” Dr. Janaki said.

Other myths that discourage people from eating rice, the research revealed, included rice having low-fibre content and being bad for diabetics. Dr. Janaki said eating brown rice and less polished rice could make available higher fibre content and also stressed that diabetics could consume rice if they adhere to regular eating hours and restricted portions.

Rice lovers

The research found that people from the city regularly cooked an average of 12 rice dishes, higher than other metros where the research was conducted.

Best Foods CEO Ayushman Gupta said rice was the only food that could change form easily even after cooking.

The respondents were married women aged 25 to 45, and hailed from higher income families. Two hundred and fifteen of them were from Hyderabad.