Is drinking porridge really harmful to health? Drinking porridge this way is good for nutrition!

Recently, Dr. Zhang Wenhong suggested that parents should not let their children drink porridge for breakfast, but should drink milk and eat eggs. He said that drinking porridge is too nutritious and useless for fighting diseases. This statement has caused a heated discussion among netizens across the country, and even raised it to the level of "Chinese food culture" and "Western food culture."

In fact, this statement has also caused internal discussion among nutritionists.

Is it good to drink porridge? This is not a topic that can be explained in one sentence. Because there are different ways to make porridge and different ingredients; there are different amounts and times to drink porridge; people who drink porridge have different physical conditions; and the food that goes with porridge is different. How can we generalize?

People who love to argue love this kind of topic the most, because the definitions are not accurate, so there is a lot of freedom to argue.

When Dr. Zhang Wenhong answered questions, it was impossible for him to spend half an hour explaining everything about drinking porridge. His words should be understood in a specific context.

I believe what Dr. Zhang Wenhong opposes is the kind of breakfast that consists of only a bowl of porridge made from white rice and some pickled vegetables, or a breakfast of steamed buns + white porridge + pickled vegetables. Similar breakfasts include soaked rice + pickled vegetables, sesame cakes + pickled vegetables, etc. However, this is indeed the traditional breakfast in many families and canteens.

What he emphasized was to strengthen protein nutrition, not to completely deny the dietary culture of drinking porridge. -- Infectious disease doctors are not nutritionists. Just understand his main point, don't blame him for everything, and don't take his words out of context.

To be honest, the nutritional problems of white porridge are as follows:

1. Low protein content and low calorie density

White porridge is made by boiling white rice with more than 5 times the amount of water. The so-called low calorie density, in simple terms, is that there is too little dry food, and drinking two large bowls is enough to make you feel full.

Rice is the one with the least protein among all kinds of food raw materials. Although its protein quality is slightly better than millet, corn and wheat, the protein content in porridge is still too low per unit weight, only about 1%. Drinking two bowls of porridge is about 400 ml, and you can only get about 5 grams of protein.

For an adult, the daily protein requirement is 55 grams for women and 65 grams for men. Therefore, the best amount of protein in a meal is more than 20 grams. Drinking two bowls of porridge with some side dishes is obviously not enough, even if you add an egg (6 grams of protein), it is still not enough.

Dr. Zhang Wenhong recommends drinking milk instead of porridge for breakfast because half a pound of milk can provide 7.5 grams of high-quality protein, and milk + eggs + porridge add up to 18.5 grams of protein. However, if you drink two bowls of porridge and half a pound of milk, the total volume is too large to drink in the morning.

2. Low in vitamins and minerals

Among all staple food ingredients, refined white rice has almost the lowest content of vitamins and minerals.

Compared with millet, the iron content of rice is less than one-fifth of that of millet.

Compared to oats, rice contains only one-fifth of the vitamin B1.

Compared to quinoa, rice contains less than one-tenth of the folate.

In terms of B vitamins as a whole, rice porridge is not as good as milk. The calcium content is naturally even worse. Milk contains vitamin A and vitamin D, but rice porridge has none.

For children who need to grow and develop, as well as young people with more active lives, eating a bowl of porridge with some pickles is not enough in terms of nutrients, whether it is calories, protein, vitamins or minerals, and it is impossible to ensure good immunity and high levels of physical fitness.

Nutritional research in recent years has shown that improving the nutritional quality of breakfast is very important for preventing obesity and improving physical fitness.

3. High glycemic index

There are different data on the glycemic index of white rice porridge, which may be related to the difference in cooking methods and eating speed. However, according to most data, white rice porridge is a high glycemic index food, about 90, which is higher than white rice.

Some people are not convinced and say: But didn’t Lu You write in his poem “I learned the simple method of Wanqiu, which is to eat porridge to become a god”? Didn’t Zhang Lei say in his “Porridge Notes”: “Every morning when I get up, I eat a big bowl of porridge. My stomach is empty and the grain gas is produced. The porridge is not fine, but very soft and smooth, which is in harmony with the intestines and stomach. It is the best food”?

This brings up a lot of questions. Let's talk about them one by one.

- Question 1: What kind of porridge did the ancients drink? Did they mean that children and young people drank porridge with every meal?

What the ancients said was that middle-aged and elderly people drank porridge in the morning. Moreover, the porridge at that time was not the white rice porridge we have today.

Ancient people did not have electric rice mills. Except for the nobility, the staple food of the common people was very low-refined grains, closer to whole grains. In Lu You's time, most areas in the north drank millet porridge (which was coarser than the millet sold in supermarkets today), and the south drank rice porridge that was close to brown rice.

As people age, their digestive abilities gradually decline. Elderly people have some difficulty digesting whole grains. In the days before pressure cookers and electric stew pots, the only way to cook whole grains to make them easier to digest was to cook them for a long time.

At the same time, the elderly do less heavy physical labor, so they can drink porridge. The elderly remember that the strong laborers and young men in the family should eat dry rice as much as possible in order to have the strength to do physical work, and any grain should be saved for them.

When food was scarce, the elderly and women usually drank porridge to "fill up with water" in order to save food for the young and children. Fan Zhongyan's "dividing porridge and cutting vegetables" and Cao Xueqin's "eating porridge with the whole family" were both expressions of poor living conditions.

- Question 2: What else can be added to rice porridge besides rice and millet?

There are many things that can be added to porridge, such as meat, fish, eggs, milk, vegetables, potatoes, nuts, oilseeds, dried fruits, vegetables, etc.

Whether it is preserved egg and lean meat porridge or raw fish slice porridge, adding fish and eggs will increase the protein content. Although they are not suitable for patients with hypertension because of the addition of salt, for those who used to do physical activities, the southern coastal areas are already very hot and they have to sweat a lot when working, so adding some salt to the porridge will not cause a big health problem.

Legend has it that an Indian shepherdess cooked milk porridge and helped to keep Sakyamuni healthy. The "Meiling Porridge" made with soy milk has also been very popular. Therefore, milk and soy milk can be added to porridge to effectively increase the protein, vitamin and mineral content of the porridge.

Among the old Beijing snacks are red kidney bean porridge, purple rice porridge with added sesame and crushed peanuts, and eight-treasure porridge with various whole grains, beans, dates, longans, peanuts, etc.

Adding these ingredients can enhance the nutritional value of porridge.

However, I still have to remind you that even the "pickled egg and lean meat porridge" and raw fish slice porridge sold in porridge shops do not contain many pieces of pork or diced preserved eggs, and I am afraid that they do not even reach 15 grams. Drinking only such a bowl of porridge is still not enough for breakfast protein nutrition. You need to add more. For example,

If you add 50 grams of lean pork cut into shreds or minced meat, you can add about 8 grams of protein. If you beat a medium-sized egg into egg drop porridge, you can add 6 grams of protein.

At the same time, most of these "luxury porridges" in porridge shops are made from white porridge, with a small amount of other ingredients added to it. It is still a high-glycemic response food, and it is difficult to control the postprandial blood sugar response. It is not suitable for diabetic patients or people who are trying to lose weight.

- Question 3: Which type of porridge is best for people with poor digestion and the elderly?

That's not necessarily true. In general, porridge is suitable for elderly people who have low stomach acid and feel indigestion after eating dry rice. Some people with excessive stomach acid may feel uncomfortable drinking porridge and easily have acid reflux. Adding pumpkin, yam, sweet potato and other ingredients to porridge may make it more likely to have acid reflux. Therefore, it is up to your stomach and intestines to decide which porridge to drink.

Elderly people who do not have blood sugar problems but have weak teeth can eat porridge as their staple food. However, they cannot eat white rice porridge every meal, and it cannot be too watery. The porridge as the staple food must be thick. The nutritional quality of the porridge should be improved as much as possible, and sufficient protein and vegetables should be provided.

Therefore, you can use de-oiled broth and chicken broth to cook porridge, add sweet potato cubes, yam cubes, carrot cubes, boneless minced meat, minced fish, beaten egg, add chopped vegetables and cook until soft before serving, and add sesame powder after serving in a bowl...

Use various methods to make the porridge of the elderly contain more ingredients and promote food diversification. In this way, the porridge can really play a role in health preservation.

- Question 4: If I need to control my blood sugar, do I have to avoid drinking porridge?

uncertain.

The key is to see what ingredients are used to cook the porridge. As long as rice or millet porridge is cooked to a soft state, the glycemic index is quite high.

Whole oats and various starchy beans (such as red beans, mung beans, kidney beans of various colors, chickpeas, lupines, lentils, dry peas, etc.), even if cooked into porridge, are still ingredients with a lower glycemic response, which is incomparable to rice porridge.

If you use half of the beans as raw materials, add oats and black rice, and rarely put in white rice, the porridge you cook will be slow to digest. In fact, this kind of porridge is not difficult to cook. Make good use of the multi-grain porridge function of the electric pressure cooker, put the multi-grain beans and water in before going to bed, set the timer for 8 hours, and you can drink it when you wake up in the morning.

Remember not to add sugar when drinking multi-grain bean porridge! Treat it as a staple food, with some protein sources such as soy products, lean meat, and vegetables, so that the overall blood sugar response is much lower than drinking white porridge with side dishes.

If you want to keep it simple, you can eat oatmeal porridge with milk in the morning, along with eggs and vegetables, to achieve a good nutritional balance. For blood sugar control, whole oatmeal porridge is the best, followed by oatmeal that needs to be cooked. If you use the kind of crushed oatmeal that becomes soft as soon as it is brewed, the blood sugar response will be much higher.

One thing to remind you is that you should drink enough oatmeal porridge and whole grain porridge in the right concentration and quantity. It is not enough to drink a large bowl of oatmeal with one or two spoons.

In short, saying that white porridge has a low nutritional value does not mean that you cannot have porridge for three meals a day. The key is to improve the nutritional quality of porridge, enrich the types of porridge ingredients, increase the amount of dry matter, and achieve the goal of adequate and balanced nutrition through the combination of other foods.

Weibo/Official Account: Fan Zhihong_Original Nutrition Information

Toutiao contracted author

Post-scientist at Beijing Food Nutrition and Human Health Advanced Innovation Center

Director of Chinese Nutrition Society

Director of China Health Promotion and Health Education Association

China Association for Science and Technology appoints chief expert on nutrition science communication

PhD in Food Science, China Agricultural University