White Rice Or Brown Rice? Take Your Pick!
In the above image, the news from Yahoo.com is that “White rice spikes blood sugar levels and 'has almost the same effect as eating pure table sugar,' according to Harvard Medical School[1].”
That’s terrible news to me, a Filipino who has been eating white rice in all my 79 years!
Still, Ms Shaena quotes Elizabeth Ryan, researcher at the Colorado State University, as saying, “Eating whole grains is always going to be important." She means brown rice. For one, she says her research shows that brown rice can protect against colorectal cancer.
Ms Elizabeth explains that white rice is less nutritious because brown rice has the most nutrient-dense parts of rice: the bran and germ. I like it that she says with brown rice, you get calcium (for teeth and bone health), unsaturated fat (for cardiovascular health), phosphorus (with calcium, you have stronger bones and teeth), vitamins B1 (thiamine) and B3 (niacin), good for your nervous system; protein (for building muscles), and magnesium (for proper neurological function). All those from brown rice!
And then Ms Shaena goes on to say that in a study conducted in India, “intermittently flooded rice farms can emit 45 times more nitrous oxide (than) the maximum from continuously flooded farms that predominantly emit methane.” Now, now, Ms Shaena, you’re telling me intermittently flooding the rice field to defeat the weeds is better than continuously flooding the same!
Ah, but altogether flooding the field to defeat the weeds is not an intelligent technology! The Indian farmers do the same thing as the Filipino: Who copied from whom?
What if I told you that you can defeat the weeds without flooding the rice field by simply practicing trash mulching? That is to say, don’t plow; instead, use the rotavator to cut the weeds and soil simultaneously in a shallow operation so that this cuts up and mixes the weeds and soil particles and lay out a mulch all over the field. That simple operation does 3 things:
(1) You defeat the weeds.
(2) You turn the weeds into organic mulch all over your rice field
(3) You do not need any irrigation at all because the organic mulch is wet enough for your rice to grow!
(1) You defeat the weeds.
(2) You turn the weeds into organic mulch all over your rice field
(3) You do not need any irrigation at all because the organic mulch is wet enough for your rice to grow!
(I can show in an actual techno demo if someone challenges me.)
When I first heard about brown rice at UP Los Baños sometime 2005, the scientist was explaining it as if it were a variety different from where you get your white rice, and so it was more expensive than white rice. He was selling brown rice, and he was not about to explain that you get your brown rice from the same variety you get your white rice! I did not know enough to ask.
Since then, we have cooked brown rice at home several times. You have to soak the grains for 30 minutes before cooking, for some reason I have forgotten.
The bran in brown rice is rich in phytochemicals that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Good for your health! Except for the taste.@517
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