Who am I? I am bagged, boxed, heat pressured into snack cakes, the center of many meals and even used as flavoring in beer products… Give up? … I’m rice. Whether you use the instant microwave kind, throw it into a rice cooker, or a good old fashion pot, odds are, you have had several servings of it in the past week alone. Or if you are anything like I use to be it, you eat it several times a day.
Ask anyone that ever lived with me in college and they’d tell you there were three simple rules to co-existing with me: 1) Do not talk to me if I haven’t eaten. It would be like talking to a BRICK wall…sometimes that wall was grumpy, but usually it was totally dazed and confused; 2) Do not talk to me if I am tired, see rule #1 and; 3) if you can’t avoid one and/or two, then above all else, do not turn off my rice cooker for fear of death…either mine, or theirs.
I had three majors (four if you counted Journalism), ran track, and had up to three jobs at once, besides doing theater shows and having a regular life… I was insane to say the least. The only way I managed to cook for myself in the 10-15 minutes between rushing off to another class, track meet, job, etc was having the majority of my meals precooked.
The routine was set: Wake up, put a cup of rice on to cook before jumping into the shower, get dressed, make breakfast (egg, veggies, and rice), and then make lunch (veggies, whatever meat was available with rice, fruit, nuts), and run to class. If there was enough time in between classes to run home to have dinner, then there was more rice with whatever else was laying around, and another pot of rice put on to cook before heading off to track practice. In the average day I’d probably consumed at least two to three cups of white rice. As a runner I was encouraged to carb load, especially before track meets. I was told that this lovely little grain was my best friend. I never once thought twice about the amount I was consuming… I never thought I might be abusing my friend. I mean it’s better than burgers and fries every day right? Wrong. My blood sugar levels were off, which made my doctor fear I had hypoglycemia or was becoming Pre-Diabetic. I didn’t know what the first one meant but, I knew all about the Sugar Ds.
Diabetes? Come on! Don’t you have to be a sugar addict or over weight? (Yes, I was uninformed). I didn’t eat cake, brownies, sugar rolls, chocolate or most junk food I associated with a sweet tooth that could give me the sugar Ds. I was “healthy”. I ate fruits, nuts, lean meats and veggies, drank juice instead of soda, I worked out, danced 4xs a week, played a sport. How could I possibly be at risk for Diabetes? It wasn’t until my first doctor put me on the dreaded “A” diet that I realized how wrong I was.
Two weeks of NO carbs, no juice, no to most fruits, no oodles of noodles…no salt and vinegar chips…no beloved popcorn, no, no and no to so very many things, to the point where I was basically eating meat and cheese for two weeks (and even then there were limitations). I thought I was gonna die… or at least turn into a side of beef, or have a heart attack from the amount of grease that I was consuming. In those moments I realized just how much my life depended on this tiny little grain… among other things. My initial thought was, “Oh no I have to give this all up…FOREVER.” However, during my introductory meeting with my first nutritionist, let’s call her Laura, my fears were eased. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have rice, she said, it was that I needed to switch some things around…improve my relationship with rice. Her rules were simple…kinda of like my rules to my roommates.
#1 I MUST switch from White to Brown Rice
#2 I wasn’t allowed to have more then a quarter cup at each meal.
#3 There needed to be 3xs as many veggies on my plate than meat or carbs.
#4 Consider finding alternatives to my starchy staple for most meals… ouch!
#5 I must eat 6 times a day… (that’s a whole different blog)
Being forced to recognize just how many items I consumed were high on the Glycemic Index, allowed me to turn my view of food around. I discovered Bulgur, Quinoa, low carb alternative pastas, vegetarian dishes, carb optional meals, but most importantly, I realized the power house that is Brown Rice.
Brown Rice, cup-for-cup, whips White Rice’s butt. It makes you full faster and curbs hunger longer since it has a lot of insoluble fiber, which my doctor couldn’t seem to stop talking about. It’s a great source of protein, manganese, selenium, magnesium, phosphorous, some potassium, and a good source of tryptophan, B6, B2, B3, and B1, which are also great mood boosters. If you’ve looked at a newspaper lately, you’ll find that nutritionists can’t seem to stop talking about how Brown Rice lowers your chance of Diabetes by helping to maintain blood sugar levels, helps with high blood pressure and maintaining your cholesterol, potentially aid in prevention of some forms of cancer. That’s a good friend to have I think. And an easy switch to make.
(Check out HYPERLINK “http://whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=128” http://whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=128 to learn even more about the benefits of Brown Rice)
Learning to cook with my new friend took a little practice, I’m not gonna lie. I also had to find which ones I liked best…because just like with white rice, Basmati is different then short grain, which is different then sushi rice, and so on. But, in general it meant simply using a little more water then usual. And hey those bags of rice actually come with instructions . . . I guess I should use them.
You can still find Brown Rice in my fridge and rice cooker… especially Brown Basmati (fluffy rice every time). But instead of the 2-3 cups a day, it’s more like 1-2 cups a week, if that. I love it in soups. It’s a great pick me up with Salmon after a rough day at work or in the winter when I have the blues. But now we have a much better relationship, rice and I. Gone are the days where I abuse my good friend. We are now a very healthy and happy pair. Plus, now I have room in my life, and stomach, for more friends.
