The rice difference - comparing brown and white rice - Answering Machine

Vegetarian Times, April, 1997 by Amy O'Connor, Lee Reilly

Whole Brown Rice is rice in its original form with the bran intact; white rice is brown rice that has gone through at least one of several processes, including polishing, parboiling and/or pre-cooking. However, trying to discern nutritional differences from various labels is difficult. Although most nutritionists favor whole foods over processed foods, on the nutritional information labels, brown rice and white rice come out looking pretty much the same.

How does that happen? The answer is in the processing. When the rice comes in from the field, the hull is removed and the result is whole brown rice. In this unprocessed state, whole brown rice offers a natural concentration of vitamins and minerals, including potassium, riboflavin, [B.sub.6], niacin and thiamin, and it still has its bran, which is a natural fiber.

To render brown rice white, manufacturers remove the bran by polishing the hulled rice. Ninety percent of white rice made in the United States is then enriched with powdered nutrients, which, according to the USA Rice Federation, replace everything that has been lost during polishing, except the fiber. (It's because of this enrichment process that manufacturers recommend against washing white rice before cooking it.) So with a little help from science, white rice ends up with the same nutrient content as brown.

Parboiled rice lives somewhere between the classic forms of brown and white rice. It goes through an intense steam-pressure process that forces the vitamins and minerals into the grain before the hull is removed. Sometimes the bran is left intact for brown parboiled rice, which is often used in restaurants because of its ability to produce fluffy, separate grain and improved nutritional content; when the bran is removed, you've got parboiled (or "converted") white rice, which is actually amber in color.

Quick-cooking or instant rice is the most processed form. Starting with brown, white or parboiled rice, the manufacturer cooks the rice completely, then dehydrates it. Like polished and parboiled white rice, it's typically enriched to replace lost nutrients.

What of the fiber lost to processing? "It doesn't amount to much," says Mary Jo Cheesman, spokesperson for the Houston, Texas-based rice federation. One-half cup of cooked brown rice contains 1.6 grams of dietary fiber; 1/2 cup of white, polished rice contains .03. "There is a slight difference between brown and white," she notes," but we'll never be able to put `high-fiber' on any of our packages. Rice just doesn't have that much bran." However, Gene Spillman, who holds a Ph.D. in nutrition and is the author of The Cancer Survivor's Nutrition and Health Guide (Prima, 1996), cautions against this line,t of thinking. "This isn't a loaf of whole wheat bread," he acknowledges, "but any source of fiber in the American diet is very important."

Whether or not the fiber issue is significant, many nutritionists believe that there are valuable nutrients lost to processing that manufacturers cannot adequately replace with powdered additives. Spillman, who runs the Health Research and Studies Center in Los Altos, Calif., suggests that natural phytochemicals, which usually reside at that outer edges of produce and grains, may be lost and not replaced. "We're a long way from replacing what nature put in," he says.