Is Brown Better?
I usually choose my topic for this column from a question someone in Kangaroo Valley has asked me. This month’s topic concerns rice: is brown rice really better than white rice.
Brown rice is considered as a wholegrain product because it has been minimally milled and retains its branny layer. White rice is ‘polished’ to remove the bran.
Brown rice has some nutritional advantages over white rice, but if you eat rice once a week or less often, it probably won’t make a big difference to your weekly nutrient intake. However, if you eat rice several times a week, and especially if you are vegetarian, the advantages of brown rice start to add up.
Brown rice has higher levels of dietary fibre, potassium, magnesium, zinc and several of the B complex vitamins. For most of these nutrients, brown rice has almost twice as much as white rice. However, some of the benefits need to be put into context. For example, if you want more fibre, a cup of cooked brown rice has about 3g whereas a cup of most high fibre breakfast cereals will have about 12g (more in some), so it would make more sense to change your breakfast cereal rather than your rice. For comparison, a cup of cooked white rice has about 1.5g dietary fibre.
Brown rice also has more protein than white rice, but its protein content pales into insignificance compared with more concentrated sources of protein in meat, fish, chicken, cheese, yoghurt, eggs, tofu, nuts, seeds or legumes.
I’ve found a few people dismayed to discover that brown rice has more fat than white. With fats, the important factors are the type and the quantity. Brown rice has healthy unsaturated fat so no problem there. The quantities are also insignificant with less than 2g of fat in a cup of cooked brown rice. Compare that with the fat in a burger (25-30g) or a croissant (about 18g before you add butter) or even the fat in a few crackers (about 10g) and the natural fat in brown rice is no problem. By the way, the fat in the other foods quoted is mostly the nasty saturated kind.
The glycaemic index (GI) of brown rice is lower than white rice. Those with – or at risk of – any form of diabetes, are advised to eat low GI foods. However, the GI is less important when foods are eaten with other items because foods that contain either protein or fat will slow down the rate of digestion.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of brown rice is that it takes longer to chew than white and eating slowly reduces the total amount most people consume.
So the conclusion is that brown rice is better than white, but if your diet is varied, it won’t make all that much difference. By the way, when white rice is cooked by the absorption method, it has a lower GI than if it’s cooked and drained – or even worse, rinsed. These processes also mean you pour some of the nutrients down the sink.
In countries where rice makes up a major part of the diet, white rice is the preferred choice. However, brown rice may be given to small children or those suffering some illnesses.
Brown rice takes a bit longer to cook than white rice, but it is meant to be a little nutty and chewy and some people mistakenly think it is not cooked when it is actually ready. When cooking rice – brown or white – by the absorption method, use 2.5 cups of water for each cup of rice. My method is to place the rice and water in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for about 3 minutes for white rice or 8 minutes for brown. Cover the saucepan with a close fitting lid, turn the heat very low and leave the rice for 10 minutes. Don’t take the lid off during this time. There is no need to add salt to rice while it is cooking and the flavour is considered better if no salt is added.
If you really prefer white rice, just make sure you include some other foods that count as wholegrains. Not everything has to be wholegrain
Our dietary recommendations state that at least some of grain choices should be wholegrain. Wholegrain products include
· Breakfast cereals such as rolled oats (including quick oats), wholewheat breakfast biscuits (Weetbix, Vita brits or the Home brand equivalents), muesli (preferably one without added sugar) or one of the mixed cereals that has ‘wholegrain’ listed on the packet.
· Wholegrain breads are those with obvious bits of grain or breads made from stoneground wholemeal flour. Multigrain breads are sometimes made from white flour with some wholegrains added and are halfway between while and wholegrain in nutritional value. Smooth wholemeal bread from the major bakeries is usually from white flour with added wheatgerm and bran. The additions restore some of the nutritional value, but breads made with this recombined flour has the same high GI as white bread.
· Popped corn – a treat type snack that counts as a whole grain. Make your own as the packet ones are usually high in undesirable fats. Making your own is also much cheaper.
· Couscous is available in wholegrain form and has a bit more flavour as well as higher levels of nutrients.
· Wholemeal pasta also counts as a wholegrain and is high in nutrients.
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