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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Does zhou (congee - rice porridge) have any health benefits?
Read this:
"The boiling time of the rice releases ricinitopan, a rarely seen enzyme that boosts energy, stimulates the growth of white blood cells, supports vitamin c absorption and elevates the sex drive to heretofore undreamed of levels"
Complete bogus or is zhou actually good for you?
It's made of rice...in water. So it has whatever health benefits rice has...and water. Anything else comes from what you put into it to flavor it.
Don't believe the hype. Although, it's easy to digest so I guess if you're coming off of a fast, or recovering from an bed-ridden illness, it is good for you and easy on the stomach, especially the water intake. Be careful what water you use though. I'd highly recommend reverse osmosis systems and/or distillation systems, for fear of trace amounts of heavy metals like lead and trace amount organic compounds like benzene (you ARE in China after all)
Considering that a Google search for "ricinitopan" delivers exactly ONE result (which is a word-by-word copy of what you posted) from the Beijinger forum, I'm pretty sure this is bogus.
This seems to be a general consensus, mostly from TCM-type sites... nothing medically scientific:
Healing Properties of Congee
Traditionally known as "hsi-fan" or rice water, congee is eaten throughout China as a breakfast food. It is thin porridge or gruel consisting of a handful of rice simmered in five to six times the amount of water. Although rice is the most common grain for congees, millet, spelt, or other grains are sometimes used. Cook the rice and water in a covered pot for 4-6 hours on warm, or use a crock pot. It
is better to use too much water than too little, and it is said the longer congee cooks, the more powerful it becomes.
The healing properties of this simple rice soup are that they can easily be digested and assimilated, tonifies the blood and the Qi energy, harmonizes the digestion, and is demulcent, cooling, and nourishing. Since the chronically ill person often has weak blood and low energy, and easily develops inflammations and other heat symptoms from deficiency of yin fluids, the cooling , demulcent and tonifying properties of congee are particularly welcome. it is useful for increasing a nursing mother's supply of milk. The liquid can be strained from the porridge to drink as a supplement for infants and for serious conditions.
Other therapeutic properties may be added to the congee by cooking appropriate vegetables, grains, herbs, or meats in with the rice water. Since the rice itself strengthens the spleen-pancreas digestive center, other foods added to a rice congee become more completely assimilated, and their properties are therefore enhanced. Listed below are some of the more common rice-based congees and their specific effects.
(source: http://www.eons.com/groups/topic/1262750-Food-As-Medicine-Rice-Grains-Congee )
PS... Ricin is a poison made from castor beans (not rice). IF there were such a substance named ricinitopan... with ricin seeming to be the root, I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, I would think it would be poisonous/toxic.. so perhaps that isn't the best way to explain health benefits of anything.
Well, since it's been a staple food for farmers' breakfasts for... centuries? Millenia?? And it got them out of the house, working hard all day, and then coming back home when it got dark...you can't say it doesn't provide energy. Protein, carbohydrate, and water... yay! (since you need carbs for energy, and protein for WBC (and most other things in the body), and you're sex-life sucks when you've got no energy... technically speaking, those claims have some small tenuous link to fact...