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Diabetes: No evidence that reheating rice after cooking it with coconut oil will ‘reduce’ the amount of sugar, experts say
Multiple Facebook posts claim that reheating refrigerated rice that has been cooked with coconut oil will reduce the sugar level in the rice by 70%. The posts credit the recipe to a Sri Lankan researcher and claim that the finding was published in a medical journal. The claim is misleading; health officials and nutrition experts say there is insufficient scientific evidence the purported recipe can reduce the sugar level by 70%.
The post’s Thai-language caption translates to English in part: “‘This rice recipe can reduce sugar by 70%.’ One of the secret recipes that you can do without taking any medication (including Paracetamol), one of them is to cook rice that will make the sugar level decrease by 70%.
“The recipe has been tested in scientific experiments and the result is acknowledged, and most importantly it was published in a medical journal. The researcher is called Sudhiar A James.
“The rice recipe that makes the sugar decrease by 70% is super easy. Just use cold extracted coconut oil for 2 teaspoons mixing with rice, cook the rice as usual. But you cannot eat it yet because you need to put the rice into the fridge for 12 hours (one night) before reheating it. This way, the rice will reduce sugar by 70%.”
Multiple posts with a similar claim have been shared.
The claim, however, is misleading, experts say.
Wasuntharee Saereesuchart, a specialised nutritionist at the Thai Ministry of Public Health, said there was no conclusive scientific evidence to support the claim in the misleading posts.
“This claim is overrated and the research has only been tested in test tubes. A chemical reaction when you put the cooked rice into the fridge will make the rice texture become harder to digest, making it lower in calories. However, this doesn’t apply when you heat the rice,” Saereesuchart told AFP during a phone conversation on August 4, 2020.
“There is no sufficient evidence that cooking rice this way will reduce the sugar level by 70%,” said Kanitha Tananuwong, an associate professor in food technology at Chulalongkorn University.
“If we reheat the rice, our body will digest rice as usual – no sugar reduction,” she told AFP during a phone conversation on August 3, 2020.
Sure and Share, the fact-checking arm of the Thai News Agency, also debunked the claim in a video here, saying the term “reduce sugar level” is misleading.
At the 40-second mark, the expert Dr. Wanthanee Kriangsinyos, a professor at the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, said: “Rice doesn’t contain sugar but our body needs to digest food into the smallest molecules which can be used in our body, such as sugar. If we can’t digest much, the body will take less sugar.”
Sudhair James, then student at the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka, and his mentor presented their research, that cooking rice with coconut oil and refrigerating it can slash calories by half, at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in 2015.
factcheck.afp.com
Multiple Facebook posts claim that reheating refrigerated rice that has been cooked with coconut oil will reduce the sugar level in the rice by 70%. The posts credit the recipe to a Sri Lankan researcher and claim that the finding was published in a medical journal. The claim is misleading; health officials and nutrition experts say there is insufficient scientific evidence the purported recipe can reduce the sugar level by 70%.
The post’s Thai-language caption translates to English in part: “‘This rice recipe can reduce sugar by 70%.’ One of the secret recipes that you can do without taking any medication (including Paracetamol), one of them is to cook rice that will make the sugar level decrease by 70%.
“The recipe has been tested in scientific experiments and the result is acknowledged, and most importantly it was published in a medical journal. The researcher is called Sudhiar A James.
“The rice recipe that makes the sugar decrease by 70% is super easy. Just use cold extracted coconut oil for 2 teaspoons mixing with rice, cook the rice as usual. But you cannot eat it yet because you need to put the rice into the fridge for 12 hours (one night) before reheating it. This way, the rice will reduce sugar by 70%.”
Multiple posts with a similar claim have been shared.
The claim, however, is misleading, experts say.
Wasuntharee Saereesuchart, a specialised nutritionist at the Thai Ministry of Public Health, said there was no conclusive scientific evidence to support the claim in the misleading posts.
“This claim is overrated and the research has only been tested in test tubes. A chemical reaction when you put the cooked rice into the fridge will make the rice texture become harder to digest, making it lower in calories. However, this doesn’t apply when you heat the rice,” Saereesuchart told AFP during a phone conversation on August 4, 2020.
“There is no sufficient evidence that cooking rice this way will reduce the sugar level by 70%,” said Kanitha Tananuwong, an associate professor in food technology at Chulalongkorn University.
“If we reheat the rice, our body will digest rice as usual – no sugar reduction,” she told AFP during a phone conversation on August 3, 2020.
Sure and Share, the fact-checking arm of the Thai News Agency, also debunked the claim in a video here, saying the term “reduce sugar level” is misleading.
At the 40-second mark, the expert Dr. Wanthanee Kriangsinyos, a professor at the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, said: “Rice doesn’t contain sugar but our body needs to digest food into the smallest molecules which can be used in our body, such as sugar. If we can’t digest much, the body will take less sugar.”
Sudhair James, then student at the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka, and his mentor presented their research, that cooking rice with coconut oil and refrigerating it can slash calories by half, at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in 2015.
No evidence that reheating rice after cooking it with coconut oil will ‘reduce’ the amount of sugar, experts say
Multiple Facebook posts claim that reheating refrigerated rice that has been cooked with coconut oil will reduce the sugar level in the rice by 70%. The posts credit the recipe to a Sri Lankan researcher and claim that the finding was published in a medical journal. The claim is misleading...
factcheck.afp.com
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