Which rice is sugar free?
No rice variety is totally sugar-free, but the amount of glycemic load a rice dish comes with is dependent on how much processing the rice grain has been subjected to post-harvest.
The kind of processing that is nowadays done on the rice found commonly in markets around us is quite substantial.
The modern processing methods carefully remove all the bran and the germ of the rice grain, and then polish the endosperm portion of the rice grain, till it is sparkling white in colour and pure starch by composition. This is what we know as white rice.
Obviously, this kind of rice has a very high glycemic index. So the rice with a lower glycemic index means rice that has been subjected to the least amount of processing after harvest.
Red rice, black rice, and wild rice are some such varieties.
While wild rice varieties have been measured to have a glycemic index ranging from 40-54, white white rice varieties have been found to have a glycemic index anywhere from 55 to 95. And this difference can often be vital for someone coping with Type 1 Diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes or Gestational diabetes.
The higher glycaemic index of white rice is basically due to the current processing methods. Were they not employed, the original rice grain is not that bad.
According to Dr. Jason Fung, the author of The Obesity Code: “It is no coincidence that virtually all plant foods, in their natural, unrefined state, contain fiber. Mother Nature has pre-packaged the ‘antidote’ with the ‘poison.’ Thus, traditional societies may follow diets high in carbohydrates without evidence of obesity or type 2 diabetes. The one critical difference is that the carbohydrates consumed by traditional societies are unrefined and unprocessed, resulting in very high fiber intake.”
On the other hand, too many people today consumed highly refined and processed rice, and that’s why we should not be surprised why there is explosion of Type 2 Diabetes around the world, why the obesity rates are soaring.
In one study the researchers found that people who ate a lot of white rice—three to four servings a day—were 1.5 times more likely to have diabetes than people who ate the least amount of rice. In addition, for every additional large bowl of white rice a person ate each day, the risk rose 10 percent.
Here’s the bottom line: the only diet that has been scientifically proven to reverse heart disease, to slow, stop, or reverse early-stage prostate cancer, and to reverse aging by lengthening telomeres (among other benefits) is a whole-foods plant-based diet low in both fat and refined carbohydrates. No one has ever done a randomized trial proving that a high-fat, low-carb diet can reverse heart disease. It actually makes it worse.
― Dean Ornish