Effects of heat variables on the starch content of cooked white rice: Searching for diabetes-friendly food

Abstract

Cooked white rice (CWR) is one of the most common components of the human diet for a variety of reasons. Diabetes mellitus, a metabolic disorder, is exacerbated by CWR consumption, and this can depress the patient's psychology. The goal of this study is to find a simple, easy, safe, at-home diabetes-friendly CWR by varying the refrigeration period (6–168 hours), microwave-eat preparing power (480, 640, and 800 W), and time (30, 60, 90, 120, and 180 seconds) of CWR. To achieve this aim, 150 samples in addition to the native one were prepared, and the following parameters were calculated for each: amylose%, fast-catabolic starch (FCS), slow-catabolic starch (SCS), uncatabolic starch (UCS), and UCS/FCS%. The results showed that these three variables of the freezing-microwave heating cycle effectively increased the amylose%, UCS/FCS%, and amount of UCS, as well as decreased FCS, but to varying degrees. The best output is when the CWR is refrigerated for 72 hours, then microwaved at 640 W for 120 seconds. At these conditions and in comparison with native CWR, the amylose% increased from 31.405% to 43.895% and the amount of UCS from 1.269 mg to 1.383 mg, while the FCS decreased from 2.386 mg to 2.277 mg when the used sample was 200 mg of CWR. From these findings, the author concluded that the employed heat variables can decrease the digestibility of the CWR starch, converting it into a diabetes-friendly food.