The debate of whether brown rice is healthier or white rice has been going on for a while. Nutritionist puts forth important points. Read on.
Brown Rice vs White Rice: The weight-loss related conversation never ends without the mentioning of brown rice and white rice. A lot of people have switched to brown rice for its nutritional benefits, yet, a few people are still skeptical about switching. The question remains the same, however. Is brown rice healthier than white rice? Here’s what the nutritionist says.
Taking it to Instagram, Bhuvan Rastogi, talks about the benefits of brown rice in a regular diet. He wrote in detail about the benefits of brown rice. He wrote that all white rice starts out as brown rice before it is polished. All unpolished rice is nowadays sold under the term brown rice.
“Brown rice is the whole grain food and white rice is processed. When the rice grain is polished, the parts called bran and germ are removed. Germ is the part of rice grain that is rich in minerals and Bran has most of the fibre. Without them white rice loses most of its Fibre, Vitamins and Minerals,” says Bhuvan.
Talking about glycemic index, Bhuvan said,” Glycemic index of cooked White rice is 70+ (high GI) and Brown rice is about 50 (Low to medium GI – very close to atta roti). This means brown rice does not raise blood glucose levels as much as white rice and is better for people with Diabetes.”
“Reduction in fibre is a major issue. If our staple diet is mostly rice, it becomes difficult to meet approximately 25 to 30g fibre/ day demand of the body. As a thumb rule, we should not make anything which are empty calories part of our regular diet (calories without nutrition). If you are worried about taste, just switch to unpolished variety of the rice you already use. Keep it as close to whatever you are comfortable for sustainable long term change,” suggests Bhuvan.
Bhuvan also shared a historical fact about the rice. He said,” Beri beri, an endemic in the early 1900s, was caused due to the push for white rice over brown, causing a deficiency in Vit B1, especially in people whose staple food was rice. So brown rice preference over white rice is not a health trend, it’s actually going back to the roots, to a less processed version of rice.”
