Brown Rice vs White Rice
Bravo, brown rice!
So thankfully, my parents have not been seriously ill or suffered from any kind of adult diseases while most of their friends have been hospitalized or got operations at least once because of heart-related diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, paralysis, arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis, or cancer . I strongly thank brown rice for that.
My mom’s decision to mix brown rice with white rice is one of the best decisions that she’s made. My father took it hard and made some moderate complaints from time to time. He complained why we had to step back from the benefits of civilization. Well, his comments sound right because brown rice is significantly less processed than white rice.
My mom kept her way with belief and eventually got rid of white rice from our table. It took years for my father to get used to brown rice but finally he did. Knowing how healthy he is now, he praises my mom a lot these days.
I felt brown rice is a little coarse when I had it first time. I realized how soft and fluffy white rice is. But at that time I wasn’t a big fan of any kind of rice or Korean food in general (because that’s the only kind of food we had), I didn’t really care about it much. It didn’t take much time for me to get used to brown rice.
I’m very glad that my mom made me grow a habit of eating or liking brown rice instead of white rice. Now I know brown rice is the gem of my table, little rough ones.
Rice has a few layers that have their own nutrients except the most outer layer (the hull). Brown rice is the rice that only the hull is removed in processing, avoiding unnecessary nutrient loss or damages. White rice is produced after several layers including its bran get all removed.
The rice bran is a great source of dietary fiber. The rice layers contain vitamin B1, B3, B6, manganese, iron, magnesium, selenium and so on. All these precious nutrients get removed in processing. Even though white rice is enriched after processing, it won’t have all the lost nutrients back and they are not the same.
I can’t agree with it more that brown rice is an excellent choice!
Brown rice is also a very good solution for those who want to lose weight in a healthy way. Because It has a lot of fiber, it takes more time to digest, hence it keeps us feeling full for a longer time, hence we are more likely to put less food in our mouth. At least to me, this is true and I’ve heard that many people would agree on this. Whenever I had white rice, I felt hungry again in two hours or so, unless I had big fatty side dishes. Also, because brown rice is a little tougher, or less soft (people need to chew more), people tend to eat less of rice when they have brown rice.
It is said that brown rice, more specifically bran oil from brown rice, is good for lowering bad cholesterol (LDL) as good cholesterol from fish does a similar thing.
Brown rice has all nutrients as natural rice should, it has lots of fiber and it can be a very good weight loss food! How could my mom say no to this?
There were two special things about my mom’s brown rice cooking. I think those things made it easier for me to switch to brown rice. She used “sweet” brown rice. It’s rather funny that it’s called “sweet” brown rice, because it’s not sweet at all. I wouldn’t eat it as a main dish if it’s sweet! Maybe it got known to non-Asians to sweet because it was used to cook sweet desert stuff by some Asians? Um…
Anyway, sweet brown rice is more glutinous than regular brown rice. Because it’s stickier, it was easier to eat and tastier, well, at least for me and my family.
The second special thing is that she added lots of various beans and sometimes peanuts and almonds. I enjoyed the savory taste from nuts a lot. It definitely helped my family’s big switching to brown rice.
Thanks to her, I like brown rice much more than white rice and it’s even tastier to me. Well, maybe I should say I like both kinds of rice and they taste differently. (I still like the taste of white rice and enjoy it when I eat it in restaurants. ) But because I know brown rice is much healthier, I would have brown rice or mix with white rice with the ratio of 2:1 (brown: white).
How to cook? Story about my cute pressure rice cooker is coming soon!
Your article is so apropos! I’m trying to change our family from “black” rice to brown rice. Your how-to’s and other tips are practical & useful!
Good for you! I am printing this entry in your blog to give my nutrition students at Hanyang University along with a sample of brown rice (most have never seen it!)
Thanks very much! I hope this is helpful. I’ll keep updating my blog about Korean food.
Try cooking barley in with your brown rice (or with white rice, too) for a different taste. I like to cook rice with small amounts of black or red beans, or other grains mixed in. Gives it a much stronger, taste. White rice has almost no taste at all to me any more. I sometimes cook it to add to soup, but brown rice or barley is also good to add to soup - straight out of the rice cooker, of course.
I totally agree with you. More grains or beans add more taste, and also nutrients.
Koreans used to add barley to rice because barley was cheaper. We don’t usually do that any more, but barley bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables) has become a special dish!