Stay Away from the White Rice

Diabetes SymptomsThe good news is, that my wife switched us to brown and black rice over a year ago. The bad news is, will I ever eat in a restaurant again? According to a battery of researchers at Harvard, white rice and adult-onset diabetes stick together like refined white rice kernels. Brown rice will do, but there are less harmful alternatives.

Brown rice, however, did not appear to be the most effective whole grain for fending off diabetes. The researchers found that substituting about 50 grams other whole grains (such as whole wheat or barley) for that much of (uncooked) white rice each day could reduce diabetes risk by as much as 36 percent.

Now, who will tell all the restaurant owners in Busan to stop pushing the white rice? As someone reminded me today, the reason South Koreans haven’t displayed the same soaring rates of type 2 diabetes as Americans is, that prosperity has yet to overflow into opulence, and healthy plumpness into obesity. How long do South Koreans have before diabetes becomes a reality?

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Filed under: Academia, East Asia, News, Science Tagged: adult-onset, brown rice, diabetes type 2, diet, white rice