While Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte firmly said that he will let the seller of fake rice eat the product, a food scientist said “let them eat the fake rice.”
According to a University of the Philippines food scientist, the so called fake rice is not really bad for consumers.
Ma. Concepcion Lizada, a Ph.D and professor emeritus of Food Science in UP Dilimin, even said the fake rice might be better than ordinary rice because it has lower glucose content adding that the controversy about rice was giving “fabricated rice” a bad reputation.
“I would rather call it fabricated rice. It’s giving fabricated rice a very bad reputation,” Lizada spoke during an open forum at the two-day 37th Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) of the National Academy of Science and Technology at the Manila Hotel yesterday.
“We actually have a commercial product now that is available widely in the market. They call it corned rice. In fact, there was a media blitz about the corned rice. It’s good. I tasted it myself,” Lizada said.
Lizada said there was even claim that the fabricated rice was better than ordinary rice.
“They claim that it’s glycaemic index,” Lizada said.
She added that the fabricate rice was a product of food extrusion technology to fortify food staples.
“It’s available. It’s a good technology. The issue is just, why go through the backdoor rather than it being sold as grains rather than rice, grains made from different starch sources,” Lizada said.
National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) president William Padolina urged government to improve their regulatory laboratories amid the spread of fake or synthetic rice.
“They should be able to analyze many samples at the shortest possible time,” Padolina said.
H/T: Philstar.com