The illusion of rice and health

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I don't think that this notion exists as much as it used to but I think that the marketing departments at various shops are trying to still push the notion that somehow rice is good for you or if not that, at least that it is a good alternative to bread.

We all need to have energy from food and unless you are seriously trying to cut out all carbohydrates - which works but can be dangerous - you are going to need to encounter them at some point. The thing is that a meal with rice instead of bread isn't really better for you. In fact, you really aren't changing anything at all.


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Whenever I have something like a curry or some Asian food I will normally have it with rice and I think that a reasonable amount of rice for someone the size of me is around 1 cup or around 180 grams. This would be too much for a 120 lb woman but for someone my size, sometimes I don't even feel like this is enough.

Now before I started diving into what the nutritional information of rice actually was I probably assumed that this was "healthy" but then again, our idea about what that word means has changed a lot over the years. I recall eating entire packs of Zesta saltines and having massive amounts of plain white rice when i was in college. Also the rice cakes were presented as healthy alternatives to potato chips. Were they better for you? I have no idea but I do know that they tasted terrible.

The thing is that I think there are a lot of people out there that still have this idea that rice is good for you and the real answer to that is yes it is because you need to have some calories or fuel in the tank and no it isn't good for you because it is absolutely loaded with carbohydrates. It suppose it kind of depends on what your objective is. If it is weight loss, you need to be very careful with rice and certainly don't be using it as some sort of health food because it isn't.

In a cup of white rice you can expect to find 250 calories and 53g of carbs. Is that a little more than you expected? Well when I first found that out it was to me.

Bread, evil bread! Seems to be where the diet craze went about a decade ago and I think it is calming down but everyone tends to avoid bread when they take on a weight loss regimen.


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There's obviously a lot of different kinds of bread and they have different nutritional values but as a general rule of thumb if you are having a sandwich amount of bread you are looking at putting less calories and carbs into your body than if you ate a cup of rice. For whole wheat bread per slice you will get around 80 calories and 14g of carbs.

So if you were on the fence about whether or not to have a bowl of rice with steamed noodles or a sandwich involved in your diet and your objective is weight loss, it might surprise you to find out that the sandwich is the better option of the two. Of course you can easily screw that all up depending on which condiments you put on it so for me I would say to try to focus on lean meats and lots of veggies if possible.

The best thing to do is to involve technology into the mix if you can. I like MyFitnessPal and it is free and a great way to use your phone for something that isn't social media.


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Especially if you are USA this app has almost any product you can imagine already stocked into the database and you can even scan the barcode of the item right there in the store. It's been a real eye opener to me and helped me to plan my meals immensely. Maybe it will for you as well.



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4 comments
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If you eat enough rice you could have a body like this!

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Rice is still a starch and there is no difference to potatoes or bread. Yes you are changing up your menu, but not your diet. Maybe people feel as though it is healthier for some weird reason.

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I think a lot of it comes from perception of the people in countries who use rice as a staple. They tend to be smaller but there are many more factors at play here than just the rice, of course.

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