"Dress up" your rice: the secret the Vietnamese family table has always known

"Naked" starch and "dressed" starch

What happens when you eat a bowl of plain white rice on an empty stomach?

Your stomach pushes the rice into your small intestine very quickly. Enzymes chop the starch into glucose, which goes straight into your blood. Blood sugar shoots up, then drops fairly fast too. Many people feel sleepy, then hungry again soon after.

Now picture that same bowl of rice "dressed up": with veggies, fish and a little sesame oil. Each layer slows down one step:

• Fiber from veggies forms a thick mesh in your stomach and gut, slowing the starch down.
• Protein from meat, fish, eggs and beans prompts your gut to release fullness hormones, which make your stomach empty more slowly.
• Fat also makes your stomach "take a longer break" before sending food on to the gut.

The result: sugar enters your blood more gradually, like opening a small tap instead of dumping a whole bucket.

Veggies first, rice after: the order matters too

A small 2015 study in the US tried something simple. The same meal of bread, orange juice, chicken breast and vegetables. Only the eating order changed.

• Round one: starch first, then protein and vegetables 15 minutes later.
• Round two: protein and vegetables first, then starch 15 minutes later.

When vegetables and protein came first, blood sugar after the meal was noticeably lower, down by about a third at the 30 and 60 minute marks compared with eating starch first.

This study had only 11 people, all of whom already had blood sugar issues. So we won't blow it out of proportion. But other studies, for example in Japan, have found a similar trend. And the mechanism fits what we already know about fiber and protein.

The best part: this trick costs nothing, and you don't have to give up any dish. Just pick up a few bites of veggies and fish before you start on the rice.

The Vietnamese family meal: a ready-made "dressed up" model

The Harvard School of Public Health has a model called the Healthy Eating Plate. They suggest dividing your plate like this:

Look at this table. Does it seem familiar? The traditional Vietnamese family meal is already pretty close: vegetable soup, boiled greens, a savory main, a bowl of rice. The only difference is that we tend to eat more than a quarter plate of rice.

So instead of learning a whole new way to eat, often all you need is to go back to the family table, and tweak the proportions a little.

Five ways to "dress up" your starch every day

1. Never let your rice go out alone. At every starchy meal, add at least one protein dish and one veggie dish.
2. Veggies first, rice after. Sip a few spoonfuls of vegetable soup and have a few bites of boiled greens before you dig into the rice.
3. A well-filled bánh mì. Choose one with egg or meat, plenty of cucumber and đồ chua (pickled carrot and daikon), instead of plain bread or just pork floss.
4. Noodle soups with lots of greens. Ask for extra fresh herbs and bean sprouts, and add an egg to your phở or bún.
5. Enough fat, not lots. A spoonful of sesame oil, a few slices of avocado or a handful of peanuts is plenty of "dressing". Deep frying adds more calories than benefits.

Bonus tip: a little sourness at the meal, like pickles, a vinegar-dressed salad or a squeeze of lime, may also make your blood sugar a bit gentler. The effect is small, but it suits Vietnamese taste perfectly.

Don't confuse "dressing up" with "eating more to make up for it"

There's a common misunderstanding: thinking that if you add veggies and meat, you can eat as much rice as you like.

Not quite. "Dressing up" makes starch enter your blood more slowly. It doesn't make it disappear. Three bowls of rice, dressed up, are still three bowls of rice.

So two things go together: a bowl of rice that fits your appetite, and that bowl wearing its "outfit". How much is the right amount is in our article on how much starch to eat per meal.

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