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I have a question about rice. Many of the studies I have read about positive health comparisions of the the Japanese always seem to credit the amount of rice in their diet as being beneificial regarding the particular health component being discussed, such as the lower prevalence of obesity among the Japanese. Having lived in Japan myself for five years of my life, interacting with many Japanese I was never been served, nor did I see in their homes the use of brown rice, it was always white rice. I grew to love the stuff. How detremental is it if I continue to eat white rice. I am aware of the glycemic index and the refined nature of white rice, lacking a lot of the nutrients brown rice would offer, but can the nutrient differences be made up via the amount of veggies and fruits and other starches in a plant based lifestyle.
Any feed back would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Barlow

I see you have had no responses. It is very easy to do a search for topics in this forum (click the "search" in the upper right corner of the screen in the orange bar), and find a lot of helpful information. Perhaps some of these threads can give you some insight, especially Jeff's comment on the last thread:



http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2008nl/jan/grains.htm

viewtopic.php?t=10519

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=13429&start=0

My wife is Asian. She has rice at least once a day, sometimes twice. She is puzzled by the reference to "brown rice".

Is "brown rice" just white rice with the skin left on. Or is it just another variety of rice, which may or may not be equally polished?

Some milling companies overpolish white rice. You can tell how much skin is left on by seeing how milky the water is after you rinse the rice. She buys unpolished white rice, but it is still white to look at. She won't rinse it more than once because that washes away more of the skin and with it the precious vitamins.

Recently we bought the brown variety of rice for a change. She had not eaten this color of rice for a long time. She was not impressed. The rinse-water was not milky at all. This rice had been overpolished. Yes, the grain was brown, but the skin was gone.

Is the brown variety of rice more nutritious irrespective of how much of the skin has been removed?

from: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... e&dbid=128

'Why Brown-But Not White-Rice is One of the World's Healthiest Foods

The difference between brown rice and white rice is not just color! A whole grain of rice has several layers. Only the outermost layer, the hull, is removed to produce what we call brown rice. This process is the least damaging to the nutritional value of the rice and avoids the unnecessary loss of nutrients that occurs with further processing. If brown rice is further milled to remove the bran and most of the germ layer, the result is a whiter rice, but also a rice that has lost many more nutrients. At this point, however, the rice is still unpolished, and it takes polishing to produce the white rice we are used to seeing. Polishing removes the aleurone layer of the grain-a layer filled with health-supportive, essential fats. Because these fats, once exposed to air by the refining process, are highly susceptible to oxidation, this layer is removed to extend the shelf life of the product. The resulting white rice is simply a refined starch that is largely bereft of its original nutrients.

Our food ranking system qualified brown rice as an excellent source of manganese, and a good source of the minerals selenium and magnesium. The complete milling and polishing that converts brown rice into white rice destroys 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1, 90% of the vitamin B6, half of the manganese, half of the phosphorus, 60% of the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids. By law in the United States, fully milled and polished white rice must be "enriched" with vitamins B1, B3, and iron. But the form of these nutrients when added back into the processed rice is not the same as in the original unprocessed version, and at least 11 lost nutrients are not replaced in any form even with rice "enrichment." '

I've hated brown rice from childhood. Everything about it. I don't mind it now in SOME foods (never Asian), but it has to be on its own or paired with something very strongly flavored. I'll have a look for the brown basmati - perhaps I'll like that instead of white rice for stirfries and similar. Thanks for the suggestion.

My granddaughter wanted to eat in a Chinese restaurant (which I never patronize) so I took her. I ordered steamed vegetables and hope they were just steamed with nothing else added. There was a bowl of white rice on the table and I had some (knowing whole Asian populations only eat white rice. I am diabetic and tested my blood sugar after dinner and every hour for six hours. It was over 200 for five hours. I eat tons of brown rice and beans or put brown rice in soup or have it with vegetables and after two or three hours my blood sugar is down to normal. What a difference! Never again. How do all those Asians remain so healthy?

Didi

Hi,
I'm just hazarding a guess here. Check the article posted right after your original post. It explains how brown rice has entire layers of the rice kernel remaining that get removed from white rice. Let's say the outer layer of brown rice is relatively hard and doesn't rinse away in water, and the next layer exposed in making un-polished white rice is softer and does rinse away in water. Finally, there's another hard kernel in the center, that is all that's left with polished white rice. If I'm correct about this, then that would explain how you'd see clear rinse water with both brown rice and over-polished white rice, even though brown rice has more of the seed intact than white rice. So the "skin" your wife is familiar with may actually be a softer interior layer of the kernel that gets exposed only after you remove the outer layer of the brown rice.

Yes, I think that you are correct. After a long discussion, my wife and I reached the same conclusion.

There is a good picture of the various layers of rice at:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/med ... rice-grain

The familiar starchy grain has a fatty "skin" called the aleurone cell layer, which I think is responsible for the milky colored fluid.

The bran actually consists of three layers. Modern brown rice appears to have been milled so precisely that we fancied that it was a different variety of rice. She remembered the coarse rice milled with a giant mortar and pestle on her father's farm that she used to eat as a child.

Cheers

Perax, thanks for sharing this excellent illustration via the link!