Rice is Nice

I recently read the book "The Starch Solution" by Dr. John McDougall. His premise is that our digestive tract is designed to handle starches as a significant portion of our diet, and that by eating what our bodies expect we will lose weight and be naturally healthy. This perspective correlates with my own on diet; that eating foods that help our bodies feel safe leads to natural health. I also saw that I lost weight while living in Thailand and I attribute a portion of that to the fact that, while there, I ate a lot of rice.

So I started eating copious quantities of gluten-free steel-cut oats for breakfast and rice for lunch and dinner. My digestion stopped up for the first couple of days, probably because my digestion hadn't seen such foods in a long time and was trying to not squander the opportunity. But after consistently feeding it these particular grains my body is now quite happy with them and even craves them.

When selecting rice I wanted to make sure I got rice which has a low glycemic index. While at Costco, the kind with the lowest GI was basmati rice, so I picked that up.

As a rice, basmati works well, but I find white rice to be rather boring. In addition, Pineapple is allergic to white rice; it starts to foam in her stomach and unless she drowns it in something (e.g. a protein drink) she ends up vomiting. 😢

In many cultures consuming white rice is a sign of wealth. However, white rice is actually very poor in nutrients. To get it to be white the rice is polished until all the outer layers are removed leaving the white core of the rice. The outer layers have a lot of flavor and thus nutrients which I would rather consume. Unfortunately, brown rice is not much better; It's also polished, just not for as long as white rice. 

So I keep my eyes open for non-white, non-brown rice. At my local specialty supermarket I found some awesome options:

• Lundberg Black Japonica Rice
• Lundberg Wild Rice Blend (If you can find it at your local Walmart, get it!)
• Thai Red Rice
• Thai Rice Berry 

You'll get better prices for each of these kinds if you find them in your local stores. But you should also just keep your eyes open for other options which pique your interest.

We use a standard rice cooker to prepare our rice. The inside of the bowl lists out the water level for the number of "cups" of rice poured in. I say "cups" because these are not standard empirical measuring cups; 1 "cup" for the rice cooker is actually 3/4 cups measured. So, here is how I prepare the rice:

Water Level	White Rice (Cups)	Colored Rice: (Cups)
1	¾	2/3
2	1 ½	1 ¼
3	2 ¼	1.875
4	3	2 ½

 Cooking Instructions

1. Add the desired amount of rice to the cooker bowl
2. Fill the bowl to about the correct water level
3. Swish for a few seconds and drain out most (if not all) of that water
4. Fill the bowl again to the correct water level (a little above is fine) 
5. Set the cooker to "cook"
6. When done, serve and enjoy!

You might choose to salt the rice after you've served it. I also like to add a little oil such as coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, or palm fruit oil.

Notes

The Lundberg bags of rice contain roughly 2.5 cups of rice so you can just 1) pour the whole bag into the cooker, 2) rinse, 3) bring the water level up to a 4, and 5) go. The "Wild Blend" also pairs very nicely with salmon and seafood.

I originally used the "white rice" instructions for all of the colored rice, but doing so left the rice "crunchy" and tough to eat. So I experimented with putting the water at a 4 for the 2.5 cups of Japonica Rice and found that the texture was much more pleasant.

As for the validity of "The Starch Solution" since I began eating so much starch I haven't seen any changes in my weight. I guess that means that doing so is not harmful.

I also "went vegan" for a couple months; after a few weeks I started passing kidney stones (at least 4 of them). What seems to have happened is that my alkaline vegan diet caused the stones in my kidneys to shrink. After a while the stones dislodged from my kidneys. As far as size goes, these were smaller less-impactful stones than what I've had in the past (I've had some horrible ones).

After that batch of stones I haven't passed any others so I think I can declare myself "clean" 😂