Cauliflower Rice Versus Real Rice

Cauliflower rice is a thing.

It’s such a thing that now you can buy it already ‘riced’, either in the  fresh produce section or frozen, as a time-saving trick to make it that much easier to incorporate it into your paleo or keto regime.

But what if you’re not into Paleo, or Keto, or trying to lose weight?

Is cauliflower rice still the better option?

After all if you were to compare a container of pre-riced cauliflower to a giant bag of dry rice, the former is always going to have a higher price point than the latter.

First things first:  from a cost standpoint, if you purchase a whole, organic cauliflower from your local farmer’s market, it’s going to cost far less than a container of riced cauliflower from the health food store (which, by the way, is most likely going to come packed in plastic… another reason to pass this up.)

Next up:  yes, cauliflower, being a veggie, is friendly to Paleo, Keto and weight – loss, but its benefits don’t stop there.

Being that all grains (yes, even rice) can cause an inflammatory response in the body due to their phytic acid content (an anti nutrient), which binds to minerals, rendering them unavailable to those who consume them.

In addition,  all whole grains and legumes contain not only lectins, but also saponins which adversely affect human gastrointestinal physiology as well as that in animal models.

This leads eventually to increased gut permeability, also known as leaky gut, which is the threshold upon which systemic inflammation occurs (1).

Being that we’re amidst a pandemic and getting, and keeping ourselves healthy should be at the top of our collective priority charts, the last thing we’d want to do now is create inflammation in the body, as it would inherently lower our immunity and resilience.

So.. bring on the cauliflower!

If steamed seems boring to you (as it does to me, check out some of my favorite ways to prep it:  whole and roasted in duck fat, or ‘riced’ using my signature chicken lemongrass bone broth!)

 

(1) https://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-q-a-11-25-09