interesting thread and quite a surprise, I always considered rice as a healthy option to eating other stuff but this thread has certaintly changed my mind on that one, saying that - I don't eat rice very very often maybe 2-3 times per week

I am however going to eat brown rice from now on after reading here, any suggestions on what to look for when shopping for BR

Probably more to do with what you ate your rice with.

Wrong.

Bingo. White rice isnt particularly fattening. Sure if you consume it in large amounts it can be detrimental but you can say that about many foods. Like you said Asians have been consuming white rice for thousands of years and they for the most part remain in good health. They also are responsible for some of the healthiest populations in the world.

Asians' traditional health can be explained by calorie restriction, veggies, physical work (+ walking, bicycling), and fish.

OP, this vid explains your weight loss when you stopped eating rice. Incredibly, I've managed to persuade two overweight Thais to stop eating rice and they've also lost.

interesting vid

My missus will not believe anything 'bad' about rice.

Has anyone seen a Thai language video that covers the aspects mentioned above ?

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. Most Thais I know eat a lot of fat with their rice.

When I am in Thailand I lose weight and I eat a lot of rice. Khao tom for breakfast everyday-- I love it. My Thai wife claims she gets hungry faster if she does not have rice with her meal. No one in her family is fat, from the kids to grandmom. When I am back in the states I keep on the rice diet for some time but the rice here does not taste as good (almost tasteless as with just about everything else grown here now) and I sink back into my US diet which isn't bad by text book standards. I eat more grains, oat meal for breakfast most mornings, soup for lunch, dinner mostly built around chicken, or fish and noodles---I gain 10 lbs and keep it until I return to Thailand. Of course this is all anecdotal . There are sure to be many factors. But I don't believe rice is as bad as many here are making it sound.

> My Thai wife claims she gets

> hungry faster if she does not have rice with her meal.

Probably she doesn't replace the rice w/ veggies, protein, or esp. fat. Hence she feels a deficit.

Rice (or bread etc) typically replaces the good carbs. This is one of its worst aspects.

A body takes time to overcome the addiction to bad carbs. Seems usually to be about two weeks.

> No one in her

> family is fat, from the kids to grandmom.

Maybe they eat less overall, but in any case genetic components come into play. There's Angus cows and then there's Jersey cows.

Reminds of George Burns living to 100 although smoking up to 10 cigars a day and drinking 2-3 martinis.

> When I am back in the

> states I keep on the rice diet for some time but the rice here does

> not taste as good (almost tasteless as with just about everything

> else grown here now) and I sink back into my US diet which isn't bad

> by text book standards. I eat more grains, oat meal for breakfast

> most mornings, soup for lunch, dinner mostly built around chicken,

> or fish and noodles---I gain 10 lbs and keep it until I return to

> Thailand. Of course this is all anecdotal . There are sure to be

> many factors.

Yup. As you say, you're eating more grains. Probably more of whatever as well.

> But I don't believe rice is as bad as many here are making it sound.

Looking around at Thais, you'll notice that many are now overweight and they get more so as they age--as in the West, just not to the same extent. And the cause is fundamentally the same: bad carbs and sugars as explained in the video I cited above:

Rice doesn't kill you; it just doesn't help you unless you're starving, and if you're overweight while eating rice then it's surely a contributing factor. Since its only purpose is as "filler," it's better to use something more nutritious and less glycemic for that purpose. If you ate no rice (or bread, noodles, beans, potatoes, beans etc) when you visited Thailand, you'd surely lose more than the usual 10 lbs. If you continued while in the States, you'd not gain it back. Now, slimmer is just healthier in all kinds of ways.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-rice-unhealthy/

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462