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Come on. Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia?

by astazangasta 7y ago

failrate 7y ago
The Japanese Naval fleet was once almost completely ruined by beri-beri due to diets of polished white rice.
- astazangasta 7y ago
  I am not claiming rice is a nutritionally complete food, I'm saying it is a perfectly fine part of a healthy diet.
novia 7y ago
Fun fact. Asian people suffer the health effects from high body mass (such as diabetes) sooner than people of other ethnic groups, and because of this their obesity BMI cutoff is actually lower. So, while you may not see Asians that look huge compared to what you're used to seeing, they do in fact have trouble with obesity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/
Havoc 7y ago
>Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia? See that's a much better line of reasoning than the one I was objecting to. As for obesity in Asia. My main question there would be total calories intake. I mean you can stay thin on McDonalds if you calorie count it...
wyclif 7y ago
If you think there's no obesity problem in "Asia", visit the Philippines. Now, a lot of the current obesity epidemic there is caused by the introduction of Western-style junk food, but it's also caused by eating too many carbs (rice) and combining that with unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food, so I'm not saying it's all because of processed, high glycemic index white rice. But if they switched to brown rice it would help a lot. Easier said than done, because it's a cultural thing. Almost all of the good stuff in natural rice (the bran and chaff contain many vitamins and a lot of fibre) is stripped off in making commercial white rice.
- matwood 7y ago
  I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food'. To bring it back to HN, switching rice types is optimizing an already fast function to make it a bit faster while leaving the obvious bottleneck untouched. This is thought process is exactly what my earlier comments were addressing. Worrying about white rice when consuming cookies and soda all day. A person should worry about things like rice and fresh potatoes after getting rid of all the garbage from their diet.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food' But I didn't say that. In fact, I carefully qualified my statement, saying that the majority of the obesity problem is caused by junk food. And note, I never said brown rice is a "cure", I actually said it would help. The implication was clearly that by itself (without reducing a diet of processed foods and soft drinks), it's not going to be effective. I just can't fathom how you got "cure" out of my comment. You know, I'm getting a bit tired of commenting here on HN if this is the sort of conversation I'm going to have, where I'm cautious about making sweeping and unsupported statements, and where I take pains to qualify my comments so that people don't get the wrong idea. It's too bad that no matter how much I try to head such comments off at the pass, someone will reply reflexively without reading carefully.
    - matwood 7y ago
      You didn't say cure. I apologize for jumping way too far. > But if they switched to brown rice it would help a lot. I don't think changing rice colors is going to help at all if they are eating like crap. That was my point. White/brown rice is the least problematic part of their diet. If you were implying that cleaning up the rest of their diet and then switching rice would help, then yeah we are in agreement.

Come on. Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia?

failrate 7y ago

The Japanese Naval fleet was once almost completely ruined by beri-beri due to diets of polished white rice.

astazangasta 7y ago
I am not claiming rice is a nutritionally complete food, I'm saying it is a perfectly fine part of a healthy diet.

novia 7y ago

Fun fact. Asian people suffer the health effects from high body mass (such as diabetes) sooner than people of other ethnic groups, and because of this their obesity BMI cutoff is actually lower. So, while you may not see Asians that look huge compared to what you're used to seeing, they do in fact have trouble with obesity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/

Havoc 7y ago

>Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia? See that's a much better line of reasoning than the one I was objecting to. As for obesity in Asia. My main question there would be total calories intake. I mean you can stay thin on McDonalds if you calorie count it...

wyclif 7y ago

If you think there's no obesity problem in "Asia", visit the Philippines. Now, a lot of the current obesity epidemic there is caused by the introduction of Western-style junk food, but it's also caused by eating too many carbs (rice) and combining that with unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food, so I'm not saying it's all because of processed, high glycemic index white rice. But if they switched to brown rice it would help a lot. Easier said than done, because it's a cultural thing. Almost all of the good stuff in natural rice (the bran and chaff contain many vitamins and a lot of fibre) is stripped off in making commercial white rice.

matwood 7y ago
I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food'. To bring it back to HN, switching rice types is optimizing an already fast function to make it a bit faster while leaving the obvious bottleneck untouched. This is thought process is exactly what my earlier comments were addressing. Worrying about white rice when consuming cookies and soda all day. A person should worry about things like rice and fresh potatoes after getting rid of all the garbage from their diet.
- wyclif 7y ago
  I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food' But I didn't say that. In fact, I carefully qualified my statement, saying that the majority of the obesity problem is caused by junk food. And note, I never said brown rice is a "cure", I actually said it would help. The implication was clearly that by itself (without reducing a diet of processed foods and soft drinks), it's not going to be effective. I just can't fathom how you got "cure" out of my comment. You know, I'm getting a bit tired of commenting here on HN if this is the sort of conversation I'm going to have, where I'm cautious about making sweeping and unsupported statements, and where I take pains to qualify my comments so that people don't get the wrong idea. It's too bad that no matter how much I try to head such comments off at the pass, someone will reply reflexively without reading carefully.
  - matwood 7y ago
    You didn't say cure. I apologize for jumping way too far. > But if they switched to brown rice it would help a lot. I don't think changing rice colors is going to help at all if they are eating like crap. That was my point. White/brown rice is the least problematic part of their diet. If you were implying that cleaning up the rest of their diet and then switching rice would help, then yeah we are in agreement.