Why you should choose white rice over brown rice!

 

By Kim Marquardt, RN MSN

This blog post is from the Nurse Kim archives of myth busting. I want to share some "alternative" or maybe just lesser known health and wellness viewpoints for you to chew on.

*These posts are not intended as official medical advice.

They ARE meant to be fun, informative, and thought provoking, hopefully sparking an interest for you to do your own research (you can start with the links I provide!) and discover the marvels of the human body, and how it can function at its optimal performance level if we understand how it works and interacts with our environment and our diet.

I have a passion for health and wellness through lifestyle and nutrition and have done thousands of hours of research in addition to being a registered nurse for 23 years. I have done A LOT of self-experimentation in and around diet, lifestyle, body care, and supplementation and have spent a lot of time looking into the science behind it all (or lack thereof!). Check back weekly for the latest post!

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You all probably know by now I am the contrarian of the century so of course I am going to go against the grain (see what I did there?) and say that white rice is better than brown rice, but let’s talk science!

So, it has been touted in recent years that you are better off eating brown rice than white rice because brown rice is a “whole grain” and therefore inherently better due to the increased fiber content, etc. Never mind that cultures around the world who tout amazing longevity have been eating white rice for a thousand years. That must just be a coincidence 🙄 

I digress.

But let’s talk about what makes brown rice brown and why that may be a detriment to general health instead of a benefit.

"Whole Grain"

First of all, I want to take an aside and let you know that the term “whole grain” is in fact, a marketing term, not an indication of a health food.

Scientific American lets us know that “many foods legally marketed as whole grains could actually harm health.”

The term “whole grain” was created in 1999 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC), i.e., not health food gurus, and adopted by the USDA in 2006, and refers to any mixture of bran, endosperm and germ in the proportions one would expect to see in an intact grain.

EXCEPT!! These “whole” grains, like all other grains, are ground down to powdery pulp in the processing negating the (supposed) nutrient content and fiber benefits of the “whole grain.”

In addition, once a processed food is created, the nutrient benefits are so greatly reduced (if not obliterated completely as evidenced by it having to be “fortified”) that an individual would have to eat 10 bowls of Multi-grain Cheerios or 16 slices of whole-wheat bread to get the fiber recommended for an adult for ONE DAY. And I promise you, if you ate that much processed carbohydrate, you would be diabetic in about 3 weeks because grains/starches are simply long chains of glucose, i.e., sugar.

Now that we have the whole “whole grain” conversation out of the way 😏 how does that all relate to brown rice vs. white rice since these are indeed whole foods vs. processed foods as described above.

So glad you asked.

Husky 

What makes brown rice brown is the hull/husk on the outside of the grain itself. It is true that this hull contains some of the fiber, nutrient, and mineral content of the grain, and therefore if removed, excludes some of that. But let’s be clear… no one should be eating rice to begin with because they think it is a great source of nutrients, because it simply is not.

Rice… hull or no hull, is a negligible source of vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and protein. What it is a great source of is glucose fuel, easy to absorb for immediate energy in the body. This is why it is such a great pre and post workout carbohydrate. So, the argument for “more nutrient density” with brown rice is essentially moot. But let’s dig in deeper.

Anti-nutrients

As we said the hull indeed contains more vitamins, minerals, and nutrients than the rest of the grain, however it also contains phytates and lectins which bind to vitamins and minerals and prevent them from being absorbed. Well, that’s counterproductive! Here we are touting the nutrient benefits of brown rice due to the hull, and meanwhile the hull is preventing you from absorbing the nutrients 🤔

Remember my post about how plants, i.e., vegetables, have defense chemicals to deter animals and humans from eating them? Well, grains are plants as well and have the same thing. While we don’t think of grains as “vegetables” per say, they still have the same defense chemicals present to deter would be plant predators.

Leaky Gut

ALSO, the bran and germ that make up the hull are very hard (more like impossible) to digest and cause little tears in the gut lining leading to leaky gut, now thought to be responsible for everything from allergies to mood disorders from the chronic systemic inflammation that ensues.

So moral of the story? We are eating rice for the easily digestible and available glucose in the starch part of the grain, not for the nutrients, and certainly not for the “fiber” in the hull full of anti-nutrients and gut busting grain components.

So there…

You know you like yourself some sticky white rice better anyway, and while you’re enjoying it, do yourself a favor and pair it with some delicious fat like butter or olive oil to cut the glycemic load in half (i.e., slow the digestion of the carbohydrate for a more gradual increase in blood sugar rather than an abrupt spike!). YUMBO!

Until next week ya’ll!