Which should I eat, brown rice or white rice?

[ryank940]

I know brown rice contains more arsenic, so is white better?

Or is brown still better because of it's lower GI Index and other factors?



 

Edited yesterday at 08:21 AM by ryank940

[PsychedelicEagle]

Brown rice will have more fiber and therefore have lower GI.

But the key questions:

1. What are you trying to achieve?
2. What are you eating your rice with?

If the same meal has enough fiber that you eat either before or together with rice, than white vs brown has less of an effect.

 

Personally I tend to minimize the consumption of grains (rice, wheat, etc.) and favor legumes (beans, lentils, etc.) instead. More fiber, more protein, more lysine (which is usually the limiting AA in cereals), a bit less methionine, less carbs, lower GI.

If you're eating rice for the carbs, notice that all fruits will have a GI lower or, at worst, equal to white rice. So you could also incorporate more fruits in your diet.

[ryank940]

I eat my rice with either chicken, or beans, or lentils, or chickpeas - I alternate.  Mostly things in some kind of homemade sauce, or burrito bowls, that kind of thing.

The reason i'm eating rice is becuase I enjoy it and it goes with lots of my meals.

But yeah i'm not sure which is more of a health risk overall, white rice having a higher GI (plus any other 'non whole grain factors' that make white rice less healthy as brown rice ) or brown rice having having more heavy metals.

Edited 13 hours ago by ryank940

[Judy2]

@ryank940maybe if you wash your brown rice really well, soak it for an hour, then wash it again, this might help? brown rice takes a long time to cook, anyway, so the soaking would also reduce the cooking time. 

[TimStr]

Most varieties of white rice are husked, and lack the majority of nutrients that usually concentrate in the outer layer, making it so nutritionally deficient, that the nutrients need to be sprayed back on after the husking process. For instance, white rice that is sold in the US is required to be fortetied with thiamine, niacin, and iron in order to counteract nutrient loss. So if you wanna eat white rice go for the whole grain one. Read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice#Fortification

Besides the benefits of higher fiber, people allready mentioned, brown or dark red rice also provides you with extra antioxidants that are in the color. White rice does not have that.

Also: Look into other types of grains and pseudocerials. There are so many healthy and tasty alternatives to rice (like quinoa, millet, shorghum) that you can boil and serve just like rice but that have amazing nutritional content MINUS the issue of arsenic contamination. For instance, quinoa is the only plant that contains a complete protein.

Lastly, you can reduce the arsenic level in rice by boiling it with excess water and pouring the water off like pasta. However you will also loose those spayed on vitamins that I mentioned earlier.

Here is a risk analysis regarding the arsenic.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by TimStr