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brown basmati rice & long grain wild rice

lionheart

Member
Messages
6
Hi folks.
Bought these two types of rice at the supermarket last night. I know it's an individual thing but i just wondered if you knew where these fall on the GI index and GI load and which types of rice are generally considered best for diabetics.
 
Basmati rice is one of the lower ones on the GI index (50s)(though some quickcook brands are quite high)
Oddly I can't find a brown basmati on the database;
Wild rice is also in the 50s.
All rice becomes much higher in gi when cooked until very soft.
Personally I use a mixture of basmati, brown and wild cooked until its only just lost the 'bite'. Whatever the gi the gl is relatively high since all rice has a high proportion of carbohydrates. portion size is crucial. :(

(technical points
The gi of rice seems to depend on the amount of amylose (a type of starch) content. Some rice vaieties are reported to be really high amylose and have low gis, there's one from Bangladesh with a GI of 27 but unfortunately these aren't easily available. Basmati is a sort of medium amylose rice. Brown rice isn't necessarily much lower on the index but is far better nutritionally than white rice. Some of the sticky rices like jasmine are very low in amylose and are faster than glucose with gis over 100.
According to the gi database, Uncle Bens converted parboiled rice mixtures...at least those sold in the US and Canada seem to have relatively low gis.. I think it's something to do with the manufacturing process producing resistant starch)
edited to correct
 
We buy the Tilda Pure Basmati rice, it only has 23.1g carbs, very low compared to others which are in the 70-80s.
 
We buy the Tilda Pure Basmati rice, it only has 23.1g carbs, very low compared to others which are in the 70-80s
I think that you are looking at the carbs in the cooked rice and comparing it with uncooked.

100g of Tilda basmati has 77.6g carb but they also give the carbs for a 60g cooked portion as 13.9g, this works out at 23.1g/100 .
 
I have always eaten basmati rice being a curry fan, the packet I have at present was supermarket bought and is 'Kohinoor Extra Long' and it oddly states it has 26% carbs per 78g ! which works out at 33.3% carbs per 100g if Im not mistaken.

However I was told by a dietitian that basmati rice is a particularly complex carbohydrate that the human body has great difficulty braking down and is the only rice that is not 100% broken down into glucose, so there was a fact I never knew, proving the worth of a dietitian course for diabetics.

But apart from all that basmati rice tastes good too :D
 
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