What happens when you eat

Does white rice raise blood sugar? What happens when you eat it

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20268 sources

A cup of cooked white rice has about 44 grams of carbs you digest, more than the 38 grams of sugar in a can of cola. Rice also scores higher on the GI scale, 73 against 59. Put those together and a single cup makes a bigger hill than the can, and a takeout portion of one and a half to two cups makes a much bigger one. That doesn’t make rice bad food, but a cup of it is a lot of glucose, already lined up in chains.

Why rice surprises people

White rice doesn’t taste sweet, so it doesn’t feel like sugar. But starch is glucose linked into long chains, and cooked white rice is mostly starch with very little fiber (0.6 g in a cup). Once your gut cuts the chains, it’s glucose in your blood like any other.

That’s why the old Gyroscope glucose guide put a bowl of white rice next to a can of cola, and why people with a sensor are often shocked by their sushi or their burrito bowl more than their dessert.

The trip, stop by stop

Rice gets the same treatment as any starch. Saliva starts on it, the stomach mixes it and lets it out, and in the small intestine the pancreas’s enzymes break the starch into simple sugars that pass through the wall into your blood. The blood goes to the liver first, which keeps 30 to 40% of an oral glucose load, and the rest spreads through your body until insulin moves it into muscle.

The type of rice and how it’s cooked move the number. Boiled white rice scores 73, brown rice 68 and rice porridge, cooked until the grains fall apart, 78. Sticky rice goes higher still, 87 in a Chinese test.

What the hill looks like

A cup and a half of white rice carries about 67 g of digestible carbs and a glycemic load of about 49, more than two cans of cola. Basmati (57 in an Australian test) brings it to about 38. Rice cooked, refrigerated for 16 to 20 hours and reheated scored 54 in a test in India, which brings the same portion to about 36.

The rice type moves the hill by about a quarter. The portion moves it by as much as you like: one cup of white rice is about 32, two cups about 65.

What makes it smaller

• Less rice, more of everything else. It’s the biggest change you can make. A cup next to protein and vegetables is a medium hill.
• Eat it last. In 15 adults with prediabetes, eating the protein and vegetables first and the carbs 10 minutes later lowered the peak by more than 40%. See rice first or protein first?
• Pick slower rice. Basmati tested between 50 and 66 in different studies. Jasmine tested between 68 and 88, so it’s no help.
• Use the leftovers. Chilled and reheated rice tested lower in one study. It’s a small effect next to the portion.
• Walk after. Ten-minute walks after meals made the rise 12% smaller than one daily walk, and 22% smaller after dinner.

The surprising part

Some of the biggest hills in the 100 meals that raise blood sugar most come from rice dishes that don’t taste sweet at all: fried rice (an instant version tested at 80 in China), bibimbap, curry over jasmine rice. General Tso’s chicken with fried rice is third of 248 meals, ahead of almost every dessert.