Friday, June 05, 2009

wheat vs. rice

An ongoing question I have had about low-carb diets is why the traditional-eating Chinese don't seem to get fat off rice.

Whole Health Source has a post from a year ago that points to a study I hadn't heard about, and he draws some fascinating conclusions from it.

It's one of these epidemiological studies where they try to divide subjects into different categories of eating patterns and see how health problems associate with each one. They identified four patterns: the 'macho' diet high in meat and alcohol; the 'traditional' diet high in rice and vegetables; the 'sweet tooth' pattern high in cake, dairy and various drinks; and the 'vegetable rich' diet high in wheat, vegetables, fruit and tofu. The only pattern that associated with obesity was the vegetable-rich diet. The 25% of people eating closest to the vegetable-rich pattern were more than twice as likely to be obese as the 25% adhering the least.

[...]In other words, wheat flour had replaced rice as their single largest source of calories.

[...]Wheat seems to destroy the metabolism of cultures wherever it goes. [...] Only in a culture transitioning to a more Western diet can you find a robust association like this.


Go there for more details.

*Sigh.* There's no getting around it. I'm gonna have to start baking my own bread. I don't know what the hell I'm going to bread my fried chicken with, though.

4 comments:

Shirley said...

Bread crumbs from your own bread. Let it dry out then pulverize as desired. I haven't done it yet, but I intend to. For long-term storage, I'm thinking either refrig or freezer.

Holly said...

Yeah, I was drawing that conclusion in my own mind. I guess I will also finally get to experiment with spelt and millet. Luckily I have access to plenty of sources for Bob's Red Mill grains and other bulk goods.

Freyalyn said...

I bake my own stuff, having learned that bought bread makes me horribly bloated. There's always an odd crust to be blitzed and frozen - only trouble is that small bags of breadcrumbs *always* end up at the bottom of the freezer.

How about using rice flour as a dusting/breadcrumb mix?

Holly said...

I have that same problem with bloating! Also it seems to do very bad things to my skin. Tuesday night I make chicken tenders dipped in a milk, egg and flour batter, and on Wednesday I had two new zits and a whole lot of irritation.

I shall clearly have to read more about wheat-free cooking. Which means pretty much rewriting the whole of western cookery...

And welcome, Freyalyn. I'd noticed you'd been dropping by occasionally.