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Comment by tremendo | Hacker News Reader

They're basically turning it into resistant starch. Calorie reduction is probably the lesser benefit of it. Resistant starch feeds the comensal bacteria in the gut. This is "good" bacteria. Or think of these resitant starches as the pre-biotic to your pro-biotics (the food for your bacteria friends).

Rice is normally not the best for turning to resistant starch I believe, the process works a lot better for potatoes: cook, then chill, voilá. Even re-heating preserves some of the benefits. Not sure if, or how, the added coconut oil mentioned in the article would alter the process, or make it more effective.

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I've read though, that that same bacteria produces short chain fatty acids with some non-trivial amount of calories. Also, where is this coconut oil they are putting in going when they cool it? Wouldn't the fat from the coconut oil counterbalance the savings by utilizing this method?

That said, I'd rather have the short chain fatty acids than the excess carbs, so it seems a fair trade off to me.

I'm not sure if you get anything (nutritious) back from the bacteria but from coconut oil you go medium-chain way which as far as I remember means pure ketones.

Soluble fiber which is fermented by certain gut bacteria[0][1] and product short chain fatty acids (2.5-4 kcal per gram). Those SCFA has a slew of health benefits which the article kind of alludes to but doesn't name.

[0]- http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-resistant-starch

[1]-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16633129

Short chain fatty acids have a whole host of benefits. In particular, they have anti-inflammatory effects, they improve amino acid and mineral uptake, they improve insulin sensitivity and blood lipid regulation, the list goes on.

Sure, I'm not doubting that SCFA don't have health benefits (or that Coconut Oil doesn't), but just the claim that this rice has "half the calories" or even significantly less. Making even all of the starch present in rice "resistant" depending on the gut microbes present, it could be just as much calories (2.5-4.1 according to wikipedia) from the SCFA.

So healthier, but not "less calories" really, especially with the Coconut oil added (MCFA do have slightly less calories than LCFA, but not all of Coconut oil consists of MCFA).

I'm all about this though, and will probably give it a try myself (I like refried rice).

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