What rice are they eating in It's Okay to Not Be Okay?

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay is a 2020 K-drama series streaming on Netflix. The show follows an anti-social children’s book author, Ko Moon-Young (Seo Yea-Ji), who becomes entangled in the lives of two brothers, Moon Kang-Tae (Kim Soo-Hyun), a psych ward caretaker, and Moon Sang-Tae (Oh Jung-Se), an autistic adult.

The narratives center around the difficulties people face when suffering from personal trauma and mental illness. But every detail of the show is so well put together that you feel bewitched by dazzling eye-candy and tickled by the heartfelt emotion.

Glamorous outfits, abandoned mansions, cinematic photography, seaside vistas, and fairy tales that come to life fill every corner of the show. It’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

One aspect of the show that was particularly impressive was the soundtrack. Several captivating songs by the South Korean singer Janet Suhh accompanied the story. The sweetness of her voice, the deepness of the lyrics, and the melancholy of the melodies were in perfect harmony with the creative storytelling.

• Janet Suhh - Sketch Book
• Janet Suhh - In Silence
• Janet Suhh - I’m Your Psycho
• Janet Suhh - Lighting Up Your World

Throughout the show, however, the characters are seen eating food, lots of it, from fast food and instant noodles to home cooked and traditional Korean meals. But there was one scene in episode 8 where Kang-Tae and his brother are seen preparing a breakfast for Moon-Young that’s worth noting.

Kim Soo-Hyun cooking breakfast in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

In America, you either associate breakfast with light foods like cold cereal, oatmeal, and fruit, or you load up on fat, salt, and calories, like with bacon and eggs, hash browns, stacks of pancakes and French Toast soaked in butter and syrup, and so on.

But Kang-Tae is cooking a big pot of white rice. Imagine that! Rice for breakfast! Who’d have thunk it?

The rice we see is called short-grain white rice and it’s not unusual to have it at each meal in Korea.

Do Koreans always eat rice?

If you binge-watch watch k-dramas on platforms like Netflix or Viki, you might have noticed a lot of their meals include a heaping bowl of rice among the various dishes.

A traditional meal in Korea might include things like soup or stew, a variety of vegetables from pickled ones, to fermented ones, to wild greens. There will also be seaweed, jellyfish, pork, and other raw fish and meat dishes. However, all these dishes will centered around a big bowl of rice.

Short-grain white rice is one of the most popular rices eaten in Korea. Some people refer to it as “sticky” rice or Japanese rice because it sticks together like glue. It’s the rice used to make Gimbap, Sushi, and other rice treats.

White rice is often poo-pooed by health fanatics because it has the least nutritional value among all rices. So, white rice is often mixed with others, like short grain brown rices, wild short grain rice, and black rice, also known as “forbidden” rice.

White rice is often boiled in a pressure cooker

Boiled rice, called “bap”, is the Korean equivalent of bread or potatoes in the Western world and is seen as the basis for any or all of their home-cooked meals. Though trends are shifting in recent times, the bulk of a person’s calories would be derived from rice.

Rice is an essential part of a meal in other countries around the world too. It’s a food staple, ingrained into a people’s culture.

A food staple is a food that makes up the largest part of a population’s diet. Common food staples are corn, wheat, and rice, but can also include root vegetables like potatoes and yams, or even fruit, like bananas, jackfruit, and dates.

In certain populations in the United States, a food staple might also be instant noodles, potato chips, Mountain Dew, and cookies. “To each their own,” as they say. But these greasy, pimple-faced bodies are missing out because not only does rice taste great, it’s great for you.

Is rice good for you?

Rice is consumed by almost half the human population, making it the single most important food in the world. But is it good for you?

The short answer is, yes, rice is good for you and you should eat more of it. Rice is an excellent source of many nutrients such as manganese, selenium, magnesium, folate, and B-vitamins.

White rice, or “sticky” rice, can be eaten with a spoon or chopsticks

There is some concern over white rice, which has a higher glycemic index than brown rice. Meta analysis studies have suggested that eating white rice is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

But the problem with meta-analysis is that it doesn’t always identify causation. It’s like saying people who have cigarette ashtrays in their homes are at higher risk for lung cancer than those who don’t have ashtrays, suggesting we ought to get rid of ashtrays when cigarettes are to blame.

Other studies like “Diet and chronic degenerative diseases: perspectives from China” published in the American Journal of Clinic Nutrition in 1994 found this same rice was associated with a relatively low risk of diseases like diabetes in rural communities in China.

It was only in the past 20 years that China developed the same diabetes rates as the United States. What happened? Well, oil consumption went up 20%, pork consumption went up 40%, and rice consumption actually dropped by about 30%. Diabetes rates were sky rocketing while rice consumption was going down. Funny, huh?

So maybe it’s the animal products and junk food that are the real problem. But that’s only part of it.

Animal protein actually makes white rice worse. The consumption of meat exacerbates the insulin spike from high glycemic foods than when eating the rice just by itself. And the more meat you add to your meal the worse the spike gets.

Switching out white rice for brown rice is only a band-aid solution that doesn’t solve problem of diabetes.

The most sensible thing to do here is replace meat with tofu and more vegetables and diversify our plates with as many different types of rice as we can in order to broaden the nutritional content of the meal and to make it as healthy as possible.

Sushi Rice

Savor the classic Japanese-style short grain rice that has just the right amount of stickiness for sushi and gimbap or even eaten by itself!

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What can you eat with rice?

Rice is very versatile. You can eat it with basically anything. A simple web search for rice-inspired meals turns up a billion different ideas for rice dishes. It pairs well with beans, fried vegetables, curry, hot pepper flakes, soups and chili, kimchi, and pretty much everything else.

Rice is also great for making burritos, sushi, gimbap, kimchi, onigirazu (rice sandwich), nachos, casseroles, and a lot of other great tasting dishes.

Seo Yea-Ji eating rice in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

You can also eat rice by itself with a little seasoning such as:

• lemon and dried oregano
• coconut milk and coconut sugar
• salsa, cumin, and chipotle chili powder
• cilantro and lime
• turmeric, ground ginger, onion and garlic powder

Otherwise, rice can be eaten plain too, but you’ll probably want to add a pinch of salt. Some of the darker rices like Forbidden rice and wild rice have a nuttier flavor, which is perfectly fine too.

What’s the easiest way to cook rice?

Rice is awesome. There’s no denying that. But it can be a hassle to cook dry rice. A lot of people just go out and buy rice in the pre-cooked, microwavable packs from Uncle Ben’s, Tasty Bite, or Seeds of Change. But the price is so much higher than cooking rice yourself.

We’re left with a dilemma. Do we continue purchasing overpriced rice because the microwave is so convenient, or do we hunt for another option? Well, one great option is a pressure cooker.

With a pressure cooker, all you have to do is add a cup of rice, add two cups of water, and press a button. It is literally the easiest thing in the world to cook. Easier than even instant noodles!

Instant Pot

Pressure cookers can cook lots and lots of rice quickly and easily. Simply add your rice, add your water, and press a button!

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Final Thoughts

When you think about the billions of people in the world who rely on rice as a staple, it’s hard to find people who are overweight. Rice is the kind of thing that fills up your tummy but doesn’t pack the same dense calories as, you know, pizza and cheese burgers.

Rice is the perfect way to add more vegetables to your diet as well. Cook up a pot of rice, mix in some frozen vegetables, season it with Bragg’s Liquid Aminos and you’re good to go!