Which is more nutritious, rice soup or rice noodles?

Rice soup and rice noodles are common things for many people, especially for people living in the south, they are very common in daily life. Because whether it is rice soup or rice noodles, they are all made from this thing of yours. They are rich in nutritional value, especially some carbohydrates or amino acids. Rice soup and rice noodles are both made from rice, but the production processes are different, resulting in different degrees of nutritional loss. So which one has a higher nutritional value?

What is the difference between rice soup and rice noodles?

The difference between rice noodles and rice soup is that rice noodles contain a lot of other substances, such as calcium/iron/zinc/sodium, etc., which contain nutrients that are not found in rice soup. Therefore, it is recommended that rice noodles be the first complementary food for young babies.

It should also be mentioned here that rice flour also contains arsenic, but the maximum daily limit of arsenic content in rice flour for infants is 67g of rice flour, which is difficult for most babies to reach.

What nutrients does rice soup have?

Let’s first talk about what rice soup is? Rice soup is the thick soup filtered out from the top layer when making porridge or rice.

Rice soup contains very little protein. Its main component is starch. After heating, starch will be hydrolyzed into a paste, that is, carbohydrates. There is not much protein in carbohydrates, so the nutritional value is extremely low.

Rice soup can be divided into those made from refined rice and those made from brown rice. Refined rice has been repeatedly polished, which causes most of the nutritious endosperm to fall off. This endosperm is the essence of rice, so the protein content will be lower.

Brown rice soup does not mean it is more suitable for babies. Although the protein content of brown rice is slightly higher than that of polished rice, some data show that the arsenic content in brown rice exceeds the standard (10 times that of polished rice). Therefore, if a baby consumes 35ml of rice soup, the arsenic content will exceed the standard.

What is arsenic? To put it simply, arsenic trioxide is an arsenic compound. But there is no need to panic here, because arsenic alone is not toxic, only arsenic compounds are toxic. There are also national standards to control arsenic intake, which should not exceed 2 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day. This means that an adult's daily rice consumption should not exceed 800g, a value that is far from being achieved.

Why is rice soup not good for babies?

The stomach capacity of a young baby is very small, and they will have a strong sense of fullness after drinking rice soup, thereby reducing the intake of necessary nutrients such as milk and rice noodles. Long-term consumption of rice soup will cause malnutrition in babies, as rice soup is also a low-density nutritional food.

When babies start to eat complementary foods after 6 months, what they need most are foods with high nutritional density. The so-called high nutritional density refers to the ratio of nutrients and calories in food. Rice soup is a typical low-density food and is not suitable for young babies.