BROWN RICE

BROWN RICE

What is your staple food.Is it rice? If the answer is yes,what do you prefer, brown rice or white rice?There are a lot of things that you should know about rice if you consume it daily.How rice is made?,what is the procedure?,What nutrients are there in rice, what are the health benefits of eating rice, Are there toxic elements in it, Does eating rice bring you health problems are some of the confusing matters that you should know answers for. Eating rice knowing the answers to these queries is better than just eating it, as everyone does. 

 brown rice

WHAT IS BROWN RICE AND HOW IT IS MADE

Rice is a cereal grain. Cereal is a type of grass cultivated to reap its grain for food.Paddy plant or rice plant is such a cereal grass. The grain of that plant is called paddy.This paddy is threshed to make rice.When you look at a grain of paddy you can see a brown hard husk or outer covering. In the threshing process,  this husk is first removed. This removed husk is called chaff. This husk removed grain of paddy is called brown rice. In brown rice the next layer called the bran underneath the husk is not removed.The germ which is the reproductive part of the grain is also not removed.In white rice this bran and germ are both removed.Therefore brown rice contain two more nutritious parts than in white rice. It is the nutritional difference  between these two types.

NUTRITION IN BROWN RICE.

Normally, it is considered that brown rice is more nutritious than white rice. That idea is not incorrect because as I have said earlier, brown rice contains bran and germ which white rice doesn't.

Brown rice contains a lot of energy, carbohydrates, sugar,fiber,protein, vitamins,and minerals.Except carbohydrates, sugar and fiber,other nutrients contain mostly in bran and germ. As the bran and germ are not removed in making brown rice,they are preserved in it.But in white rice, as the bran and the germ are removed it lacks these nutrients. Therefore eating brown rice brings you a lot of nutrition and thereby a lot of health benefits.

But the nutritional value of brown rice is now challenged to a certain extent with the detection of arsenic in it. When rice is grown in large scale for commercial purposes pesticides are used. these pesticides contain arsenic. This arsenic is absorbed by the rice plant and tends to accumulate more in bran and germ. Therefore the amount of arsenic in brown rice,(though trivial) is higher than white rice.What should rice eaters keep in their minds is that brown rice contain more arsenic than white rice which might bring you health hazards. As I have learned it may take years or a decade for arsenic in brown rice to bring you health hazards.The decision on what is to be eaten is yours. Consult your nutritionist before decisions.