‘Rice-zempic’ Weight Loss Hack a Big Payday for Louisiana Farms?

If you engage anyone from Louisiana in conversation we can almost guarantee that somewhere within the first five minutes the discussion will have shifted to food. Lafayette is a food town, New Orleans is a food town, Zwolle has the tamales and Natchitoches has the meat pies. You see, we don't eat to live in Louisiana, we live to eat.

And naturally, when you have an ongoing love affair with food you're probably going to have a hate-filled relationship with your bathroom scale. But is that same dirty water that gave us the crawfish for the etouffee going to be a part of our weight loss solution?

If you can believe what they are saying on social media, it just might be. Are you familiar with the drug Ozempic? The medication was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017 as a prescription treatment for type 2 diabetes in adults. The medication works by stimulating the body to create insulin. Insulin lowers blood sugar, slows down your digestion, and give you the feeling of being full.

Doctors who prescribed Ozempic for their patients also began to notice just how quickly those on the medication were able to shed pounds and inches. Suddenly, everyone wanted Ozempic not for diabetes but to lose weight. More than a few celebrities jumped on the bandwagon and now that bandwagon is a runaway train.

There have been reports that Ozempic has been in short supply for those who actually need it for diabetes because so many people are taking it for weight loss. You'd think that someone could come up with a substitute, a copycat, a generic equivalent that we can make at home.

Before you attempt to put any substance in your body please consult your doctor. We do not encourage anyone to act on the information we are about to present without professional medical advice. We are not doctors, but what we've discovered could be a topic you'd like to chat with a doctor about.

On social media sites they are calling it "Rice-zempic" and you can see why folks in Louisiana would be interested. As a major producer of rice, there could be a huge financial benefit for farmers if this hack is the "real deal".

Here's what they are saying on social media.

If you couldn't watch the video or just couldn't stand the way the lady talks, here's what she said she does. She takes a cup of White Rice and adds to that rice a cup of hot water. She lets the rice and water steep for five minutes. She then strains the water into a cup. She then adds the juice of half a lime.

The TikTok creator says she drinks the concoction first thing in the morning and the results have been mind-blowing. It certainly seems safe enough but what do the doctors, you know the people that went to medical school have to say?

The medical community's response has been lukewarm to the rice in hot water with lime suggestion. Many of the online reports that we checked out suggested there is nothing in the concoction that would hurt you, but the benefits described won't be the same as if you were prescribed Ozempic or another approved medication.

And just so you know, there is also a similar recipe on social media for Oat-zempic. It's the same process that you do with the rice but you use oats. Some nutritionists suggest the "oat-zempic" might actually make you feel full because of the unique properties of oats.

Now, let's just suppose that "rice-zempic" becomes a huge worldwide fad. Louisiana's status as one of the world's largest rice producers would certainly put our rice farmers in a favorable position, right?

Our state already produces 27.9 million hundredweight of the commodity every year and if all the fat folks on social media start drinking rice water with lime, someone is going to have to grow that rice. That looks like a job for us.

Although I will admit it would be strange to walk down the midway at the International Rice Festival in Crowley and see everyone looking slim and toned, it could happen, and if it makes us healthier that would be wonderful. I am also sure if that happened your health insurance provider would find a way to deny you any rice because their "policy won't approve that".

Again, don't try these hacks until you've talked to your doctor. And speaking of using things in ways they weren't meant to be used. You'll also need a lime for this too.