I’m trying cut back on white rice (as well as potatoes and white flour).
BUT I really don’t want to cut back on sushi (which I probably eat once every two weeks.) I’d like to tell myself that, yeah there’s white rice in sushi, but not all THAT much. Am I kidding myself?
Why don’t you just eat sashimi? Avoid the rice that way.
There is a heaping tablespoon of cooked and vinegared short grain white rice with each piece sushi nigiri that you eat. Makes probably contain about 3-4 tablespoons and a te make (handroll) most likely has about 3 tablespoons in it. If you are a fan of chirashi, beware, you’re getting almost a cup of cooked rice in each bowl.
Since sushi is seasoned rice, asking how much rice is in it is like asking how much potatos are in mashed potatos. But if you only have it twice a month then you should be okay so long as you watch your rice/potato/flour intake the rest of the month. As with everything in life, moderation is the key.
Sushi is not rice. Sushi is any fish on rice.
Why don’t you just not eat the rice?
handy, sushi isn’t “fish on rice”, sushi is the seasoned rice. Raw fish fillets by themselves are called sashimi as described above. Sushi can have more or less any topping and be sushi, you can have sushi with omlette topping/filling, or with various vegetarian options etc.
“Sushi” does indeed just refer to the vinagered rice, regardless of what’s placed on top of it. A few shops have occasionally taken this to the extreme by topping the rice with grilled hamburger, fried chicken fillets, or other such items.
How much white rice is there in sushi?
How much can you see?
All of the rice in sushi is white (polished) rice.
Only a barbarian would make sushi with genmai.
well, as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
And I also thought that sushi meant “raw fish with some other stuff added.” In fact, it means “seasoned rice with some other stuff (usually, but not always, raw fish) added.”
BTW I just found out that my favorite sushi place (Wokcano in LA) will make sushi using brown rice (aka “genmai.”) Call me a barbarian (actually join the club of people who already call me a barbarian) but I’m going to try that next time.
Why oh why oh why did these stupid scientists have to decide that white rice, white flour (main ingredient of pasta) and potatoes (main ingredient of potatoes) were all bad for you?
I don’t think there are many scientists who would say that a small amount of white rice along with an otherwise healthy meal every two weeks or so is anything but good for you.
That said, brown rice is not bad at all with some of the less delicate types of sushi.
It’s not that white rice is bad for you, it’s just got a higher glycemic index than brown rice meaning it will have more effect on your insulin production and for most people that goes hand in hand with fat cell production.
I would definitely recommend the sashimi or brown rice sushi. Those are both excellent choices.
It’s not that white rice is bad for you, it’s just got a higher glycemic index than brown rice meaning it will have more effect on your insulin production and for most people that goes hand in hand with fat cell production.
I would definitely recommend the sashimi or brown rice sushi. Those are both excellent choices.
Rice is a staple food in many parts of the world. I can’t see how it could be bad for you. I would hazard a guess that millions, maybe a billion, people eat rice frequently if not daily.
They must be listening to a different set of specialists.
Seriously, I don’t think a few pieces of sushi every week or two would hurt anything. I’d be more worried about the raw fish, and not too worried about that.
I hear you. I was skeptical too. But according to the book Eat, Drink & Be HealthyEat Drink and be Healthy by Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard Medical School, recent research establishes that white rice should be eaten sparringly. Of course you are right that billions of people eat white rice every day, and indeed their diet is based on it. BUT, says Willett, most of those people do much more physical labor than the average westerner. He also notes that as more people in China take on sedentary knowledge worker type jobs, China is starting to see significant increases in obesity.
So, I’ve decided to try to switch to brown rice, even though I much prefer white rice.
BTW yes yes I know that moderation is key. Of course you can get fat on anything if you eat too much of it. With all due respect that wasn’t the point of my original question. Nobody is saying that white rice is like cyanide and that one grain will kill you. The point is that recent research says you should do what you can to limit how much white rice you eat.
Reading this again, I see it comes across as snippy and I apologize if anyone else read it that way.
I don’t think you sounded snippy at all. It’s just in these days of radical stuff like the Atkins diet being so mainstream, I actually do rolleyes when I hear some of the dietary restrictions some of these diets include. Not saying you are on a fad diet, but a couple of the girls in the office are “dieters”, and some of the looney stuff they go through. And they haven’t lost an ounce in months.
I think a balanced diet combined with exercise will still work wonders for most people. I notice you said the Chinese had no trouble with obesity until faced with a sedentary lifestyle. It’s not the rice that’s bad for them, it’s the lack of excercise.
Just saying. I’m certainly not trying to pass judgement on you or your diet, I could stand to lose a pound or two.
I say eat the sushi rolls, and then jog a little to burn those carbs.
I know what a Mad Scientist would say!
A new food pyramid is proposed (see the Scientific American, January 2003, or Cite
They give the rationale for all the proposed changes. Here’s a quote:
"Or consider potatoes. Eating a boiled potato raises blood sugar levels higher than eating the same amount of calories from table sugar. Because potatoes are mostly starch, they can be rapidly metabolized to glucose. In contrast, table sugar (sucrose) is a disaccharide consisting of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose. Fructose takes longer to convert to glucose, hence the slower rise in blood glucose levels.
"A rapid increase in blood sugar stimulates a large release of insulin, the hormone that directs glucose to the muscles and liver. As a result, blood sugar plummets, sometimes even going below the baseline. High levels of glucose and insulin can have negative effects on cardiovascular health, raising triglycerides and lowering HDL (the good cholesterol). The precipitous decline in glucose can also lead to more hunger after a carbohydrate-rich meal and thus contribute to overeating and obesity. "
The article impressed me with the level of the science behind it (a review and synthesis of research from the last decades). It doesn’t feel like faddishness at all to me, and I would recommend reading it, if only to be more informed to argue with it. They do address the high-rice-component cultures.
Well, that’s a very impressive article. I guess I’ll be having crow with my rice.
Sorry for any mis-information I might have spread, but I’ll still be eating mashed taters and rice (not at the same time). I have seen the diets of my family, most of them have lived to pretty good ages. They didn’t know about the food pyramids, they just knew what made up a meal. I guess I was thinking if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
No one in my immediate family ( back to grandparents on either side) has had diabetes or coronary disease, and of that I’m greatful. I have no way of knowing how much effect diet had on this as opposed to heredity. So while their diets did indeed include good portions of complex carbs with every meal, this could very well not be a proper diet for a person with different inherited traits.
This is a question not addressed in the cited article, but I assume they had a wide enough base to reach their conclusions regardless of genetic influences.
IANAS and this is going to be IMHO, hopefully someone else more equipped will come along. i am assuming the OP is not cutting back on medical reasons.
here are two scapegoats - which is more likely? white rice or macdonalds? the problems with studies is that the survey size tend to be relatively small and some things get sidelined in favour of focusing on the objective, which in this case is refuting the USDA food guide pyramid.
how much white rice or potatoes equals a can of coke? (IANAD, i hope the comparison is right) i suspect you’ll have to eat a whole lot of white rice before the same effect is achieve finishing a can of coke, regardless of the difference in assimilation rates.
i’m just thinking, if you’ll be rating white rice as bad for you there’ll be a lot of stuff you can’t eat. compare a meal of sushi and a steak dinner. you’re going to be more worried about the white rice than the red meat? or the raw sushi instead of the rice?
i don’t see any misinformation with Duke of Rat’s posts and i agree moderation is the key. in my case, that would mean trying out different stuff regularly 
and exercising regularly.