Investigating the glucose content of various rice cooking methods

• Main Author: Kwek, Vanessa Mei Jia
• Other Authors: Lim Tuti Mariana
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Environmental engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/149542
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Diabetes is becoming more common all over the world, particularly in Asia. Singapore has thesecond-highest diabetes cases among the developed countries. Rice is a staple food in Singapore. Based on studies, there is a correlation between white rice consumption and diabetes. In the olden days, diabetics were unusual in Singapore and one of the reasons may be due to more physically active people due to the lack of motorized transportation at that time. Cooking rice was also very different in the past, instead of using an electrical based rice cooking, they used another method known as steaming. The gruel leftover after the steaming is believed to have high glucose content and is therefore used to mixed with milk and fed to babies. As technology advances, traditional steaming has been replaced by modern rice cooking where there is no draining option to remove the gruel which is retained in the cooked rice. In the current age, traditional steaming is a knowledge that is uncommon and not well known by anyone. This aim of this study was to understand the effects of different cooking methods namely modern electronic electrical based rice cooking and traditional steaming on glucose content and minerals. Rice grains of 2 varieties, FairPrice jasmine fragrant rice and naturel organic brown rice were used for this study. Analysis of glucose content of different cooking methods was carried out using Megazyme total starch assay kit. The results show that the traditional steaming method has a lower starch content as compared to the electrical driven rice cooking. Starch content of electrical based white rice cooking, white rice steaming, brown rice cooking and brown rice steaming 76%, 72%, 60% and 56% respectively. Analysis of mineral content, Sodium (Na), Magnesium (Mg), Silicon (Si), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Cadmium (Cd), and Lead (Pb) in the rice was conducted using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM-EDX JEOL JSM-7600F). Brown rice has higher minerals content than white rice. Based on the results, the number of rinses does not have a significant effect on the starch level whereas different cooking methods have. There is no significant effect on Na, Mg, Si, Ca except K composition of white rice cooking, white rice steaming, brown rice cooking and brown rice steaming is 0.08%, 0.02%, 0.29% and 0.15% respectively.