Is rice porridge easy to digest?

When we are not feeling well, we don’t want to eat greasy food. Instead, we prefer light porridge, rice porridge being one of them. Especially when patients are in the recovery stage, they will often drink rice porridge to nourish their stomachs. Rice porridge not only tastes very light, but also has very high nutritional value, and is very helpful for nourishing the body. So, is rice porridge easy to digest?

Rice porridge has the effect of nourishing the stomach. For many patients, doctors generally recommend rice porridge or rice soup as their first meal after surgery. This is because compared to solid staple foods such as white rice, rice porridge can reduce the burden of gastrointestinal digestion. It is especially suitable for patients with gastrointestinal diseases with poor digestive function, such as gastroenteritis, severe peptic ulcers, pancreatitis, severe hepatitis, etc., as well as some extremely weak patients. The first meal after surgery requires liquid food, and easily digestible rice porridge or rice soup can be the first choice.

Rice porridge is made by adding water and boiling it for a period of time. Generally, the heating time of rice porridge is relatively long and the water content is higher, so the starch is more fully gelatinized and more easily broken down into glucose by amylase in the small intestine and absorbed into the blood. Long-term heating and cooking also allows a small amount of protein or amino acids to dissolve, making it easier to digest.

However, the easy digestibility of rice porridge is only particularly beneficial to some patients. For healthy people or patients with normal gastrointestinal digestive function, rice porridge has no advantages at all. The fact that rice porridge is easy to digest and absorb is actually a "double-edged sword", that is, it can also have a harmful side. White rice porridge is easy to digest and absorb, and has a stronger effect in raising blood sugar after eating. This is not only detrimental to blood sugar control in diabetic patients, but also has adverse effects on postprandial blood sugar in healthy people. Therefore, patients with high blood sugar are best not to eat rice porridge.

Can rice porridge have such effects? Let’s learn about the effects of rice porridge.

1. Rice porridge has the effects of nourishing the spleen, harmonizing the stomach and clearing the lungs.

2. Rice is the main source of B vitamins, so eating rice or rice porridge can prevent beriberi and eliminate oral inflammation.

3. Drinking rice porridge regularly helps the production of body fluids and can relieve dry skin and other discomforts to a certain extent.

4. Rice soup has the functions of invigorating qi, nourishing yin, and moistening dryness. It is sweet and flat in nature, beneficial to the development and health of infants, can stimulate the secretion of gastric juice, help digestion, and promote the absorption of fat. It can also prompt the casein in milk powder to form loose and soft small clots, making it easy to digest and absorb. Therefore, it is ideal to use rice soup to make milk powder or give it to babies as a supplementary diet.

5. Rice has skin care effects. It uses rice extract as the main ingredient (which is rich in y-oryzanol, rice bran sterols, proanthocyanidins, etc.). It is mild and safe, has a strong whitening effect, and can replenish the skin's missing moisture, making the skin smooth, delicate and elastic, like the moisturizing effect in pregnant women's skin care products.

6. Rice has the effects of nourishing the middle and replenishing qi, strengthening the spleen and stomach, improving essence and strengthening will, harmonizing the five internal organs, unblocking blood vessels, improving hearing and eyesight, relieving restlessness, quenching thirst, and stopping diarrhea.