Researchers have warned that consumption improperly cooked rice leads to Fibroids and infertility.[Photo/bbcgoodfood.com]How well do you cook your rice?
Does its preparation count as a point of consideration before you pass it down your throat? If not, then you should be concerned as you could be headed for an irreversible health predicament.
Health practitioners and researchers have raised concern over the poor rice preparation skills which they say could culminate to reproductive health problems and cancer.
The President of Africa Fertility Society Prof Oladopo Ashiru said that rice is slowly introducing diseases to the human body albeit the fact that it is one of the world’s most important grains.
Prof Ashiru reveals that poorly cooked rice contains Arsenic metals which have been proved to interfere with the reproductive system besides also being a carcinogen.
He also attributed the high prevalence of Fibroid cases currently observed in the country to the consumption of improperly cooked rice.
The Arsenic metals Prof Ashiru said naturally occur in the soil adding that they are picked up by the rice while still growing.
When the grain is eaten, Prof Ashiru states that the toxins get absorbed by the human body which then lowers the levels of progesterone, increase oestrogen, impairs ovulation and lower functionality of the thyroid thus transiting to fibroids and infertility.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Fibroids is a non-cancerous tumor that grows in and around the uterus of childbearing age women.
Prof Andy Meharg of Queen’s University Belfast who has been conducting extensive studies on Arsenic says that to mitigate this challenge, rice should be soaked overnight before cooking in a 5:1 water-to-rice ratio.
This she said cuts down the level of the toxins by up to 80 per cent.
Prof Andy also advises against the normal ratio of cooking rice of one to two.
“This method makes all water to soak in the rice grain and this is dangerous. More water should be used,” says Prof Andy.
With Kenya having a annual demand of nearly 600,000 metric tons of rice, the Researchers implore the Kenyan population to adapt the safe methods of cooking rice before the old practice plunges us in an irredeemable health crisis.