Rice-based healthy French fries?

An Agricultural Research Service scientist is working on a new kind of French fry: low fat and healthy. The fries are made from rice flour mixtures, rather than potatoes. According to Ranjit Kadan, a scientist at the Agricultural Research Services' Southern Regional Research Center​ in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rice is also hypoallergenic, nutritious and easily digested, and it stores well, notes Kadan, who is in the center's Food Processing and Sensory Quality Research Unit. He is part of a lab charged with exploring new ways of adding value to by products of rice, peanuts and other crops. In 1996, Kadan set his sights on making fries from broken and immature/thin rice kernels, which fetch a lower price than regular whole rice. Earlier efforts by other investigators in the 1970s were sidetracked because of technical difficulties. In 1999, Kadan overcame these difficulties with a method of processing rice flour mixtures into fries with texture, cooking and other properties that closely mimic potato fries. Details of Kadan's research leading up to the process will appear in upcoming issues of the Journal of Food Science. In tests, the rice fries generally absorbed 25-50 per cent less fat from oil during cooking than potato fries. Last August, the US Department of Agriculture​ filed for a patent on Kadan's process. Now, along with Rishellco, Inc., collaborators, he is consulting with U.S. rice processors on ways to commercialise the fries. He also envisions the rice fry as a "functional food," since it can be fortified with vitamins, minerals, protein and other nutrients. In related work, he is experimenting with whole-rice bread for individuals with celiac disease, an intolerance to the wheat protein gluten that affects one to two percent of the U.S. population.