Today, a diabetic asked Dr. Fu, does black rice have the effect of lowering blood sugar? Is it good to eat often? This is not the first time someone has asked a similar question. Let's talk about black rice today.

In the traditional health culture of China, black belongs to water and enters the kidney. Black food is considered to be able to tonify kidney water, and there is a folk saying that "it must be supplemented when it is black". Therefore, black rice has always been considered to have a very good health-preserving effect and can be used as both medicine and food. According to ancient medical books, black rice has the functions of nourishing yin and tonifying kidney, strengthening the body and warming the stomach, improving eyesight and promoting blood circulation, clearing liver and moistening intestines, promoting diuresis and replenishing essence, moistening lung and relaxing muscles and tendons. Long-term consumption can prolong life. Therefore, people call black rice "medicinal rice", "longevity rice" and "blood-enriching rice".

Black rice is a special kind of glutinous rice, not a new variety. It was planted as early as the Han Dynasty. The seed coat of black rice is black or deep purple. In order to keep this color, the seed coat of black rice will not be worn off during processing. So black rice belongs to brown rice. So, does black rice really have such a good health care effect? Can you lower your blood sugar? Function must be inseparable from ingredients. Let's look at the nutritional composition of black rice. To be more objective, let's compare brown rice with black rice.

Did you find it? Expensive black rice is said to have a very good health preserving effect, and its nutritional components are similar to those of cheap brown rice? Indeed, the nutritional value of black rice is similar to that of brown rice. Actually, it's easy to understand. Black rice is rice after all, and it is the same as brown rice. In any case, the nutritional components of black rice cannot be separated from the category of rice.

In fact, some effects of black rice exist more in legends. For example, ancient Chinese medicine believed that black rice can enrich blood and be used for deficiency of qi and blood and postpartum weakness. However, the protein content of black rice is average, which belongs to incomplete protein, and its quality is average. The iron content is not much, the iron absorption rate of plants is also very low, and the effect of iron supplementation is very bad. Using black rice to correct anemia and physical weakness is not as effective as lean meat and pig liver.

Some people may say that black rice is rich in anthocyanin, which is a very powerful antioxidant, which can reduce blood lipid, blood pressure, blood sugar and anti-aging and so on. It's true. Black rice is black because the seed coat contains more pigments, including anthocyanins. Anthocyanin is indeed a very strong antioxidant. However, there is no evidence that antioxidants such as anthocyanins have clear health benefits to human body. My words don't conform to the mainstream health concept, but they do. Do not believe me, go to MedLine medical literature database to search. In fact, the health-preserving function of anthocyanins is found in cell culture and animal experiments, but it has not been found in human body.

So, black rice is useless? That's not true. Black rice is very suitable for diabetics. It's not that black rice can lower blood sugar. After all, black rice is rich in starch, which will raise blood sugar. It's just that black rice has tough seed coat, complex carbohydrate structure and slow digestion and absorption, so its ability to raise blood sugar is not high. The glycemic index of black rice is only 42, which is lower than that of brown rice (66) and far lower than that of white rice (above 80). Therefore, black rice is very suitable as a staple food for diabetics.

The best way for diabetics to eat black rice is to cook it. Of course, black rice is rough. If the gastrointestinal tract is not suitable for pure black rice, it can be mixed with white rice in a certain proportion and cooked together. Black rice porridge is ok, but the blood sugar index will rise after cooking black rice porridge. The worse the cooking, the higher the glycemic index will be. So diabetics should not cook black rice into too bad porridge.