Brown rice for weight loss: how to cook and how much to eat

Brown rice is a special kind of rice, which has recently become very popular in cooking, especially when preparing low-calorie dishes. The unique properties of brown rice, among which the main is low caloric content, allow using it as a dietary product. How to use brown rice for weight loss?

How to get brown rice?

Brown( brown) rice is produced in the following way: from rice grain, which has three shells - a hard yellow, brown otrubevuyu and actually white, - remove only the first, hard. Above it there is a porous husk, giving the rice a brown color and slightly nutty taste. In other words, brown rice is an under-treated white rice. Brown rice is much more expensive than white, but it is justified by its higher useful properties, which are increased by the preservation of husk( bran).

Composition of product

The composition of brown rice includes a huge amount of vitamins: B1( thiamine), B2( riboflavin), B3( niacin), B6 ​​(pyridoxine), B9( folic acid), vitamin E. Other useful compounds contained in brown rice, - magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, selenium. Important information about the composition of brown rice: it almost does not contain gluten( vegetable protein), which can cause an allergic reaction.

Useful properties

Brown rice is very useful for the human body, because this croup:

• lowers the level of "bad" cholesterol in the blood;
• is necessary for the proper functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
• prevents constipation;
• cleanses the body of toxins;
• protects the digestive tract from various diseases( eg, gastritis);
• normalizes the body's water balance;
• improves blood circulation and kidney function;
• reduces high blood pressure;
• improves the condition and color of the skin, hair;
• normalizes the activity of the nervous system

Help with losing weight and playing sports

Brown rice is often recommended to eat for those who are dieting. Why? The fact is that the glycemic index of brown rice is only 50, while in white rice it is 70 in unsteiled form, and steamed white rice is even greater - 85. Thus, it is brown rice that is in this sense the most useful of the rice species.

Nutritionists recommend eating brown rice with vegetables, meat and other protein foods, complex carbohydrates with vegetable protein content.

One of the most common vegetarian dishes is chickpeas or lentils with brown rice. This dish is prepared as follows: take 1/3 chickpeas, mush or lentils and 2/3 of brown rice. Of these ingredients, porridge is boiled. Such a porridge contains a maximum of amino acids, so it can replace a portion of the full proteins.

Among other things, brown rice is rich in fiber, and it is known to reduce hunger and lead to rapid saturation.

Athletes eat brown rice before training to maintain a high level of energy during exercise. This is especially important for strength exercises. The norm of brown rice before training is 4-6 tablespoons in boiled form for a couple of hours before training.

Rice diet

Many women who want to lose weight, sit on a rice diet, during which you can eat only white rice. And if you replace it with brown? Nutritionists believe that the diet on brown rice can be even more effective than on white.

Such a diet should last a specific period - 3, 7 or 9 days. The basic rules that should be followed for such a diet:

1) One serving of rice should be equal to 60 grams;

2) During this diet, you must drink a lot( drinking water, squeezed fruit juices, herbal decoctions).

How correctly to cook brown rice for such a diet? Here are the tips of experts.

1) Method one: pour 60 grams of rice into 120 grams of boiling water and mix gently so that rice does not stick. Reduce heat and cover the pan with a lid. So rice should reach. Keep it on the stove for 25 minutes. Finished rice lightly rinse and put back into the pan, and from above to wrap a blanket. The rice will be completely ready in 10 minutes.

2) Method two: rinse grain under cold water. In parallel, put water on the fire for rice. Pour rice into boiling water and cook over a low heat for 30 minutes. Rinse rice with warm water and leave for another 10 minutes in a saucepan wrapped in a towel.

3) Method three: soak rice in cold water for a whole night. When the grains swell, boil them in water for 10 minutes.

As a side dish to brown rice it is recommended to add fresh or stewed vegetables or fresh fruit. In fact, a rice diet is eating only brown rice instead of bad carbohydrates, along with any non-calorie vegetables( cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables that contain a lot of water and few calories).

The harm of nutrition

And yet, nutritionists are unanimous in that it is not worth constantly sitting on a rice diet. Unloading day on brown rice is quite acceptable, but long mono-diets are very undesirable, because the necessary amount of protein the human body brown rice without other ingredients still can not provide, but the dropped kilograms will be a very small amount plus flabbiness of the skin.

Rice is contraindicated in those who suffer from gastric ulcer and severe constipation. All the same, any rice, even brown, is a known fixing agent( remember the properties of rice decoction).