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ARTICLE
Brown Rice vs White Rice – Which One is Better?
By Sue Becker
I want to share some fascinating facts about brown rice vs white rice that I recently discovered. It seems that my brief comment about brown rice being better than white rice during my podcast interview with Alex Clark on Cultured Apothecary caused a bit of a stir.
Several have emailed me or left comments on her platform concerning this remark. A kind responder asked would I please address the topic to explain my remark. But, as usual with me, I am never completely satisfied with what I think I know, so I have spent the past few weeks researching brown rice vs white rice and I think, like me, you will be shocked with what I have learned. I will include some of these recent sources.
Let’s look first at the anatomy of a kernel of rice. This will help you to understand what is being done to rice and why.
When first harvested from the field, each grain of rice is enclosed in a tough outer, inedible hull. Once harvested, the rice is put through a sheller machine to remove this hull. The sheller machines remove only the hull, leaving the nutritious whole grain rice with the bran and germ layers completely intact. Rice, at this stage, is 100% whole grain and may be eaten and enjoyed as is. While brown rice is the most commonly known whole grain rice, other rice varieties may vary in color from brown to red or even black, depending on the color of the bran. For simplicity’s sake, in this article, I will refer to the whole grain rice as simply brown rice.
Like most other whole grains, the bran and germ layers of rice contain most of the fiber and vital nutrients and are high in vitamins, minerals, essential fats and oils and various phytonutrients that have many health benefits. However, unlike most other whole grains, where the Vitamin E and fats are confined to the germ portion of the grain, in rice, these fats and Vitamin E are found in the bran layer as well. So once the inedible, protective hull is removed, these oils in the bran layer are now susceptible to oxidation and spoilage. So, unlike other intact whole grains, brown rice does NOT have a long shelf life because of the exposed fats and oils in the bran layer being susceptible to oxidation.
Therefore, to prevent spoilage most rice is milled further, by mechanically rubbing the grains together under pressure to remove the nutritious bran and germ, leaving only the protein and starch endosperm, better known to you and I as white rice.
With this polishing process to remove the bran and germ layers, just as with the processing of wheat, many vitamins and mineral are lost, particularly the abundant B vitamin complex and the critical vitamin B1 or thiamine, a deficiency of which is known to cause beriberi. To replace SOME, key word here is some, of the nutrients lost in milling, most American processors have developed ways to enrich the rice, as in wheat flour with nutrients such as B1, B3 or niacin, iron and folic acid.
But here is where things got very interesting for me as I did some pretty extensive reading on this enrichment process of rice. I can totally understand how flour is enriched, as the nutrients can easily be combined with flour. But how do you enrich a kernel of grain such as rice?
I discovered there are 3 basic methods of enriching white rice.
One method is called dusting. This is where rice kernels are literally dusted with a micronutrient powder. The powder sticks to the surface of the grain simply by electrostatic force. White rice enriched with this technique, however, cannot be washed or cooked in excess water without the loss of these nutrients.
A second method is coating. This method involves the use of a mix of ingredients including the fortifying nutrients and a wax or gum that will adhere this micronutrient layer to the kernels of rice once it is sprayed on.
This process involves soaking the milled rice in an acid solution of the water-soluble B vitamins. Then it is steamed, dried and coated with separate layers of Vitamin E, calcium and iron and then with a protective coating and a natural food coloring to prevent the loss of nutrients through washing. These fortified kernels are often then blended with regular unenriched white rice, usually in a ratio of 1:200.
Perhaps the most interesting and eye-opening option that I discovered, is the third method for enriching, known as the hot or warm extrusion method. This one actually is quite concerning to me, but unfortunately is the method that is considered to have the most positive impact on replacing the nutritional deficiencies of white rice due to the bran and germ being polished off.
In this method, broken rice grains are milled into flour, then mixed with water and the required nutrients to produce a dough. This fortified dough is then passed through an extruder to produce new fortified “kernels” of rice. These manufactured “kernels of rice” are then mixed with regular unfortified kernels of white rice at a 0.5-2% ratio. Meaning that some of the kernels of rice in the bag of fortified or enriched white rice that you may be purchasing are these manufactured kernels and not simply kernels of polished rice.
And further concerning, is that other food grade additives may be included in the micronutrient premix formulation as long as they do not impart a different flavor or appearance that would detract from the end products marketability. The USDA guidelines for the addition of these additives to rice fortification states that “the fortified kernels shall not present any significant organoleptic (i.e., texture, taste, color, or appearance) differentiation that would be unappealing to the average consumer”.
For years, I have understood that the polishing of rice to remove the bran and germ layer to prevent spoilage was really no different than sifting away the bran and germ portions of wheat flour to prevent spoilage. In both cases, this processing causes a loss of most of the valuable nutrients provided by the whole grain. In all these years of studying, I never fully understood the processing white rice goes through to make it enriched. And once again, it’s not simply what is removed that is the problem but what is added.
Who knew???
Although I may now have convinced you of the nutritional deficiency of white rice, you are probably wondering about the arsenic levels purported to be higher in brown rice than white rice. And I would imagine that it is for this reason that some are believing that white rice is better than whole grain brown rice.
Arsenic naturally occurs in soil and groundwater and is also present there as a result of coal mining, past use of pesticides, and the industrial use of paint and wood preservatives, all of which contain arsenic. How much arsenic is in a rice field varies by the region.
Rice, being very porous, may absorb a lot of the arsenic, if present, from the flooded fields in which it is grown and is generally more susceptible than other food crops. White rice typically has lower amounts of arsenic than brown rice. But that’s because the bran, the outer layer of brown rice, which would absorb the most arsenic, is removed from white rice, therefor decreasing the amount of arsenic that might be concentrated in the rice.
Arsenic content in rice varies by the region where it is grown. And organic doesn’t necessarily ensure that there is no arsenic in the rice. Unless growers have their rice or fields tested specifically for arsenic, there is not much way of knowing.
So, what are our options?
For me, switching to white rice is not a very good nutritional option. Despite being lower in arsenic, white rice has very little nutritional value and all the concerns of the commercial enrichment protocols.
Choosing alternative grains such as barley, one of my favorites, or millet as a substitute for rice is a great option. Barley, like most other grains has a long shelf life, so is a great substitute for brown rice especially in food storage. But, if you are like me and really love the nutty flavor of brown rice and still want to use it, there are steps you can take to remove some of the arsenic that MAY be in your brown rice before eating it.
First, rinsing the raw rice well before cooking can remove as much as 10% of the arsenic if present.
Next, boil the rinsed rice like pasta for about 5 minutes, using 6 cups of water for each 1 cup of rice. This is called parboiling and can reduce the arsenic, if present, by 40-60%.
Once the rice is boiled, drain and rinse well. Then cook, as usual, covered, using 2 cups fresh water, for each 1 cup of rice used, seasoning as desired. Conventional cooking will take about 45 minutes while pressure cooking will take only about 18 minutes.
At Bread Beckers we sell several brown rice varieties, such as long grain, short grain, jasmine and basmati, in several different size options. We also carry a delicious whole grain brown rice pasta. Here is a link to our various rice products.
https://www.breadbeckers.com/store/pc/Rice-c52.htm
As one of the world’s most widely consumed foods, rice plays a significant dietary role in many cultures around the world. But unfortunately, white rice, like white flour, has prevailed worldwide. Like white flour, white rice is a poor source of micronutrients and is low in overall nutritional value.
In low-income countries, this can be very problematic as white rice often makes up as much as 70% of an individual’s calorie intake. I have seen this in both Haiti and Tanzania. Unfortunately, man’s answer seems to be fortification or enriching, instead of promoting a return to consuming brown rice and that white rice can be made more nutritious by simply adding back a few vitamins and iron to replenish the multitude of nutrients lost in the milling process.
So, is white rice better for you than brown rice? Of course not.
Brown rice is higher in fiber, magnesium, potassium, iron, and certain B vitamins including B1, B3, B6, and B9 or folate than white rice and no amount of enrichment can compare. Brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice and has been linked to reduced risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, as well as weight management. And recent studies have found a unique chain of amino acids in the bran layer of brown rice that possess cancer growth inhibitory properties of cancer cells, particularly of the colon, breast, lung and liver.
It saddens me that we are being told that a nutritionally inferior food is better than one God created to nourish our bodies. I hope you have been as enlightened as I have by this information. And that you will choose whole grain brown, red, or black rice over nutritionally inferior white rice.
Sources
https://www.usarice.com/thinkrice/detail-pages/blog/the-anatomy-of-rice
https://www.fao.org/4/t0567e/T0567E0l.htm
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0260877420301382
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