IBS

Why and How to make “Gaba Rice”

Why and How to make “Gaba Rice”

The risk to have an IBS has increased these last decades in the general population.

The people who eat organic foods present a lower incidence of IBS.

Until recently people soaked rice, grains, and beans to help them to germinate, before cooking.

The process helps to start the digestion, prevents bloating. One of the benefits is to eliminate phytic acid.

What is Gaba rice?

Sprouted brown rice, known as hatsuga genmai in  Japanese, is brown rice soaked to germinate before cooking.

When Science explains the health benefits of an old tradition, we must listen.

Rice can germinate only if it is organic whole rice.

Sprouted brown rice must get your attention when you read about the increase of Arsenic contamination in our foods.

The process of germination enhances the bio-availability of nutrients by neutralizing phytic acid, the enzyme inhibitor in all grains, seeds, and beans, that bind nutrients within the grain until the conditions are right for the grain to sprout.

Consumption of un-sprouted grains can lead to poor absorption of the nutrients in the grain and in the worst case ending with deficiency.

The incompletely digested proteins can irritate the intestines, leading to inflammation and allergic reactions.

Neutralizing the phytic acid, releases the protein, vitamins, and enzymes, allowing these important nutrients to be absorbed during digestion.

Traditionally, grains have almost always been soaked, sprouted or fermented before to be eaten.

In Europe, bread was carefully cultured and fermented over a long period of time before being baked.

In Africa, the staple grain millet has traditionally been soaked and fermented before being cooked into a porridge.

In Scotland and Ireland, whole oats were always soaked overnight before cooking into a breakfast porridge, although we have lost that tradition in modern times with our instant oatmeal.

In Asia, brown rice and millet traditionally were rinsed, then soaked overnight before cooking. Even today, the typical Japanese housewife knows to soak her rice before cooking.

In Japan, there has recently been renewed interest in sprouted rice thanks to a number of recent scientific studies done on gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a naturally occurring amino acid created during the germination process. The consumption of GABA is credited with important health benefits that range from lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, boosting the immune system, improving sleep, and inhibition of cancer cells.

So it makes good sense to soak and sprout your rice.

Both from the perspective of tradition and science.

And it is easy to do. Any kind of brown rice will work (white rice won’t work because the part of the rice that germinates has been removed). In the picture above, I have sprouted basmati brown rice (you can see the tiny sprouts in the picture).

Here is the process:

1. Rinse 1 1/2 cups (or more if desired) brown rice several times until the water is clear.

2. Place the rice in a bowl and cover well with filtered

3. Let stand 12 hours or

4. Pour rice into a strainer and rinse

5. Set the strainer over a bowl to drain out of direct sunlight. Cover with a clean dishtowel.

6. Every 12 hours, rinse the rice

8. After 24 to 48 hours, small sprouts will appear. Use or refrigerate the rice until ready to
9. Cook as you would cook un-sprouted brown rice, using slightly less water (for the 1 1/2 cups of rice in this recipe, use 2 cups water). The cooking time will also be shorter.

How to lower the intake of arsenic when choosing the rice and the other grains is well presented in this video:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm

https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm319870.htm

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Swati Bhauso Patil and  Md. Khalid Khan J Food Sci Technol. 2011 Dec; 48(6): 661–667.

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Cho DH¹, Lim ST². Food Chem. 2016 Apr 1;196:259-71.

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Keneswary Ravichanthiran 1,†, Zheng Feei Ma 2,3,*,† ID , Hongxia Zhang 4,†, Yang Cao 5, Chee Woon Wang 6, Shahzad Muhammad 7 ID , Elom K. Aglago 8, Yihe Zhang 9, Yifan Jin 2 and Binyu Pan

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