Have you ever heard of soaking your rice?
No?
Well soaking your rice has amazing benefits to it, one being that it takes a load off your body from your digestive system working so hard. You see, nature is so smart. When rice grows it has an outer husk on it to protect it from the external environment. Therefore, when you take it out of the package and place it in the boiling water to cook it, it won't completely break down the outer husk. That means that all of the amazing nutrients from the rice will not be readily absorbed by your body and it takes so much more work for your body to break down the outer husk even more.
When I speak of rice, I am not talking about 'minute rice' or whatever that stuff is. I am talking about the whole food rice, such as brown basmati rice or wild rice, for example.
Side note, white rice has been processed and therefore I highly suggest going with a brown rice over white rice with more nutrition available, however it does take longer to cook so keep that in mind.
So, now hopefully you can think of soaking your rice before cooking it as an amazing way to help your body and to be able to gain more nutrition from the rice you eat.
How do you soak your rice?
Get a bowl out, measure out the amount of rice you want to cook (for example, 1 cup rice). Place the rice in the bowl and cover with filtered or tap water, just enough so all of the rice is sitting in the water. Note, there might be some floaty's on top so you can mix it so allow all the grains of rice to be underwater. Next, you want to add an acidic base such as lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. For the example of 1 cup of rice, add 1 tbsp. your choice of acidic base and stir to combine.
What do you do next?
Leave the soaking rice out on the counter for a minimum of 1 hour to the preferable mark of 7 hours. The 7 hours really does help break down the outer husk the most. When I know I want to make rice for dinner, I will prepare and let the rice soak out on the counter before I leave the house in the morning and that way it hits the 7 hour mark for when I get home and want to cook it for dinner. You could even leave it on the counter over night as well!
If you find that you started to soak your rice but you do not want to have it that day, pop the bowl with the soaking rice in the fridge and you can make it the next day.
Once the desired time has been met for soaking your rice, strain the water out and rise again. Now you can cook the rice according to the package and enjoy knowing that your body doesn't have to work so hard and you can get many more of the nutrients available in there!
Nutrients Available in Brown Rice
- Magnesium
- Calcium
- Manganese
- Selenium
- Phosphorus
- And many more!!
Sooooooo, with this information I hope that it inspires you to soak your rice the next time you are wanting to cook it. Leave a comment down below if you have soaked your rice before and/or if you are going to give it a shot!
Holistically Humble,
Katie
xoxo