Rice: healthy eating

“He who serves rice, gives life”.
Clearly Buddha was well aware of the nutritional properties of rice, in the same way as the Ancient Greeks.
Hippocrates, in particular, suggested that athletes taking part in the Olympic Games ate before, during and after physical activity (a highly scientific concept, ahead of its time in consideration of the nutritional knowledge then available) a kind of soup from husked cereals, called ptsanè, enriched with a combination of water and honey.
Today, nutritional science recognises that rice plays a key role in healthy diets. Indeed, rice is rich in those carbohydrates that are known to correct the bad food habits of the modern society.
In-depth studies have demonstrated that rice is, nutritionally, the best source of carbohydrates due to the comparatively short time it takes to digest (requiring 1 to 2 hours gastric activity, in the same way as fish, compared with 2 to 3 hours for cheese and 3 to 4 hours for pasta), due to the quantity of starch it contains (over 70%) and above all because it is a highly-prized type of starch, which is easily assimilated and (like all complex sugars) gives long-lasting and immediately available energy.

High biological value

However, rice does not only contain starch. Modern dietary science has proved the biological importance of the key proteins or essential amino acids contained in rice grains. Of all cereals it is in fact the richest, with 4.1g per 100g of raw product (wheat flour only contains 3g.).
This explains why, although having a lower protein content (l.8% as compared to 12%) rice is considered to have a higher biological-nutritional value than pasta.
Another nutritional plus for rice derives from its vitamins and mineral salts.
Parboiled rice especially - a type of rice that retains its firmness in cooking - is obtained through a natural process that consists in exposing rice to steam and rapid drying. This process prevents overcooking and, above all, allows the penetration inside the grain, via osmosis, of those vitamins, mineral salts, proteins and fibre which accumulate in the external part of the grain and which are otherwise removed during traditional processing.
Parboiled rice contains a good quantity of vegetable fibre and is an excellent source of B vitamins (2 to 3 times higher than traditional white rice) - important for regulating the metabolism- as well as Nicotinic Acid (6 times more than white rice), vitamin E, which fights free radicals, and inositol, which increases cellular activity.

In addition, good quantities of important minerals such as calcium, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, silicon and zinc are found in rice grains.

It is not by chance that doctors and dieticians recommend rice to athletes before and after competitions.