Post Date December, 03 2023
Since ancient times, there has been a saying of "south to north" in China. Usually, southerners will say "good rice, elegant, gentle and emotional"; The northerners will think that "the noodles are good, rough, bold and tasty". On the topic of "rice is good or noodles are good", many friends with chronic kidney disease left a message on the background of "Love Kidney Network" and asked questions. Today I will talk about this topic with you.
Facts prove - data speak
In life, wheat and rice are often eaten after "fine" processing, resulting in a large loss of nutrition. Therefore, flour and rice will be more representative. According to the Chinese Food Composition List:
Nutrient content per 100g of food
Both rice and flour are cereals, which are good sources of carbohydrates. As staple foods, they can provide sufficient energy for the body.
From the table, we can find that the nutritional composition of flour is generally higher than that of rice (except carbohydrates), and the overall content is not very different. The major differences are in protein, insoluble dietary fiber (preventing constipation) and minerals.
Let's give you a detailed explanation.
For chronic kidney disease, rice may be better than flour
Round【1】
Protein - rice wins
In terms of taste, pasta such as Mantou and noodles are usually more chewy than rice, which is the role of protein in flour. It has a nice name "gluten". The unique structure of gluten is that it is sticky and easy to form, and it will form a porous structure after fermentation. Therefore, Mantou feels fluffy, tastes chewy, and is easier to make Dim sum of various shapes.
Gluten comes from protein. The higher the protein content, the larger the gluten. But gluten is a non-high-quality protein, which is not good news for patients with chronic kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease usually requires a low protein diet, while ensuring the intake of high-quality protein. From the perspective of protein content, the content of rice is much lower than that of flour, so Rice noodles, rice noodles, Rice noodles and other rice products will be better than pasta.
Round【2】
Potassium and phosphorus - rice wins
As we all know, potassium has the effect of reducing blood pressure. In theory, it is better for healthy people to eat more pasta than rice. However, patients with chronic kidney disease often have electrolyte disorders due to renal dysfunction, such as parathyroidism, hyperphosphatemia, hyperkalemia, etc. It is necessary to control phosphorus and limit potassium. Rice is better because of its low potassium and phosphorus content.
Round【3】
Calcium supplement - draw
Some people also said that the calcium content of flour is three times that of rice. Is it better from the perspective of calcium supplement?
Calcium supplementation has always been a topic of concern for kidney disease. Although the suspension difference is more than twice, the total content of flour is very small, only 30 mg. In addition, phytic acid contained in cereals often forms insoluble salts with calcium and iron, which affects the absorption of calcium, and the absorption and utilization rate is very low. It is unrealistic to supplement calcium with pasta. The content of both is very low. It is a draw!
For chronic kidney disease, rice has a slight advantage, but the protein content is still high. From a long-term perspective, reducing the intake of non-high-quality protein (mainly protein in staple foods) is the key and difficult point of long-term adherence to a low-protein diet. Unfortunately, many people only care about "not eating meat" and live an ascetic life.
Vegetarianism is not necessarily healthy. It is a serious problem to eat only rice noodles and not meat!
Many friends of CKD stop all kinds of meat dishes such as fish, shrimp, meat, eggs, milk and so on at the first time when they control the total protein intake. They live a day of fasting and chanting Buddha every day, which is called "vegetarian health, more suitable for kidney disease". Is that true?
In fact, for chronic kidney disease, high-quality low-protein diet is recommended, and the intake of high-quality protein should be guaranteed on the basis of controlling the total intake of protein. We also mentioned above that although rice and noodles also contain a lot of protein, they are not high-quality protein. They will produce a lot of nitrogen-containing toxins. The more you eat, the more toxins you produce, and the heavier the burden on your kidneys. Therefore, this part of non-high-quality protein should be controlled.
In addition, in addition to providing high-quality protein, meat also contains many nutrients that cannot be provided by rice flour, such as:
1. Red meat such as lean pork, beef and blood products are rich in iron, which is a good source of iron;
2. Calcium supplement milk contains rich and easily absorbed calcium ions, which is the best choice for calcium supplement;
3. Fat-soluble vitamins Many fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, K) only exist in fat, so meat is the main source of fat-soluble vitamins;
4. Unsaturated fatty acids Some fish, shrimp and other aquatic products contain rich unsaturated fatty acids, which are very beneficial to heart, brain and blood vessels.
Therefore, people who want to achieve a low-protein diet by controlling not eating meat are "willing to sacrifice the cost to the end", which is not desirable. On the contrary, it is a wise choice to reduce the protein in staple foods and increase the proportion of high-quality meat protein.
