Can Brown Rice Lower Diabetes Risk?

Filed in archive Developments , Diet , News on February 12, 2008

I live in a rice-eating country. Rice is our staple food like potato it is to others. I've worked in rice research for 10 years. Thus I know rice a lot. I sort-of live, eat and breath it. So I also know the brown rice.

What so special about brown rice? Only the last step in the process of producing brown rice separates it from the more common white rice.




According to WHFoods:

The process that produces brown rice removes only the outermost layer, the hull, of the rice kernel and is the least damaging to its nutritional value. The complete milling and polishing that converts brown rice into white rice destroys 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1, 90% of the vitamin B6, half of the manganese, half of the phosphorus, 60% of the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids. Fully milled and polished white rice is required to be "enriched" with vitamins B1, B3 and iron.

Thus, making brown contain more nutrients than its white counterpart.

Today, I found the following from Times of India, stating some anti-diabetes effect of including brown rice in your diet:

A simple change in your diet can now lower your cholesterol level and protect you against cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and breast and colon cancer.

Doctors, nutritionists and dieticians are now increasingly recommending brown rice as an excellent source of all-round nutrition. Experts say the difference between brown rice and the more popular white rice is not just the colour.

White rice actually lacks the necessary quantities of over a dozen important nutrients, including vitamin E, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B1, B3, B6, folacin, potassium, magnesium and iron.

Add commercialism to the nutritional value, i bet that brown rice is more expensive in your local supermarket than the ordinary white ones. To think that brown rice is not even fortified. But then maybe removing only the outermost layer of a rice grain could be more labor-intensive. ;-)

If you want to look past that and just look at the nutritional value (in this case lowering the risk of developing diabetes), then grab that brown rice bag immediately the moment you make inside the supermarket.