The Rice Diet Plan Menu

The Rice Diet, originally developed by Walter Kempner in the the 1930s, has come a long way from its roots, although the Rice Diet Program is still underway at Duke University. The menu today, rather than consisting of solely rice and fruit, features a wide variety of foods. All foods on the Rice Diet are extremely low in sodium and fat. Calories are spread equally throughout the day, with the total amount for breakfast, lunch and dinner adding up to 800 to 1,000 calories. Check with your physician before undertaking a very low calorie diet.

Breakfast

Breakfast on the Rice Diet is likely as simple as it is when you are not on the diet. A cup of cereal with milk and a piece of fruit is a typical breakfast. Other breakfast recommendations include granola with yogurt and grapes, a fat-free carrot muffin with a fruit smoothie or an egg white omelet with potatoes and melon on the side. The sample menus provided by Rice Program nutrition director Kitty Rosati do not include rice in any of the breakfasts, unless it is puffed rice cereal.

Lunch

Lunch might include rice, but it is just as likely to feature whole-wheat noodles, beans or polenta. Lunch can be a simple baked potato served with raw vegetables and a piece of fruit, or it may involve preparing sweet potato burgers, stir-fries or a nonfat soup. Lunch recipes include a barley and black-eyed pea salad, a carrot-ginger soup, baked beans and stuffed tomatoes. Lunches generally include two 1/2-cup servings of grains or starch along with an additional two servings of fruit and vegetables, although this may vary from day to day.

Dinner

Dinner has a similar nutritional profile to lunch, with similar serving sizes of grains, starches and vegetables. Dinner might consist of a cup of soup served alongside a cup of rice, a cup of roasted vegetables and a piece of fruit. Recipes for dinner options include hummus, black bean burgers, roasted red pepper bisque and baked eggplant. Rosati encourages dieters to consider the season of the year when selecting menu items, so as to obtain the freshest and most affordable fruits and vegetables.

Basic Rice Diet Days

Each week has one "basic rice day," which is an eating plan that more closely resembles Kempner's original Rice Diet. While any grain can be consumed in lieu of rice, the menu is limited to solely grains and fruit. For example, a dieter might eat a cup of oatmeal with a side of berries for breakfast, a cup of brown rice with two pieces of fruit for lunch and a fruit smoothie accompanied with rice for dinner. Keep in mind that diets that restrict food groups can result in nutritional deficiencies.