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White rice

Milled rice that has had its husk, bran, and germ removed

White rice

Milled rice that has had its husk, bran, and germ removed

Cooked white rice

White rice is milled rice that has had the husk, bran, and germ removed. This alters the flavor, texture, and appearance of the seed; helps prevent spoilage (extends its storage life); and makes it easier to digest. After brown rice is milled (hulled), it is polished, resulting in rice with a bright, white, shiny appearance. The milling and polishing processes both remove nutrients.

An unbalanced diet based on unenriched white rice leaves many people vulnerable to the neurological disease beriberi, due to a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B1). White rice is often enriched with some of the nutrients stripped from it during its processing. Enrichment of white rice with B1, B3, and iron is required by law in the United States when distributed by government programs to schools, nonprofits, or foreign countries. As with all natural foods, the precise nutritional composition of rice varies slightly depending on the variety, soil conditions, environmental conditions, and types of fertilizers.

Adopted over brown rice in the second half of the 19th century because it was favored by traders, white rice has led to a beriberi epidemic in Asia. At various times, starting in the 19th century, brown rice and other grains such as wild rice have been advocated as healthier alternatives. The bran in brown rice contains significant dietary fiber and the germ contains many vitamins and minerals.

Milling rice

Before mechanical milling, rice was milled by a hand pounding technique with large mortar and pestle type devices. Some versions of this improved uniformity of the product, but with mechanical milling much larger quantities were able to be produced. In the late 19th century, different machines were produced like the Huller & Sheller Mills (1870) and the Engelberg Milling Machine (1890). By 1955, new machinery had been developed in Japan that had significantly improved the quality and output capacity.

Nutritional content

While brown rice and white rice have similar amounts of calories and carbohydrates, brown rice is a far richer source of all nutrients when compared to unenriched white rice. Brown rice is whole rice from which only the husk (the outermost layer) is removed. To produce white rice, the bran layer and the germ are removed, leaving mostly the starchy endosperm. This process causes the reduction or complete depletion of several vitamins and dietary minerals. Missing nutrients, such as vitamins B1 and B3, and iron, are sometimes added back into the white rice, a process called enrichment. Even with the reduction of nutrients, unenriched white rice is still a good source of manganese and contains moderate amounts of other nutrients such as pantothenic acid and selenium.

Typically, 100 grams of uncooked rice produces around 240 to 260 grams of cooked grains, the difference in weight being due to absorbed cooking water.

References

References

  1. (2000). "Beriberi, white rice, and vitamin B : a disease, a cause, and a cure". [[University of California Press]].
  2. "Christiaan Eijkman, Beriberi and Vitamin B1". [[Nobel Prize]].
  3. Perkins, Sharon. "How Is White Rice Healthy for Our Body?". LIVESTRONG.COM.
  4. "7 U.S. Code § 1431c – Enrichment and packaging of cornmeal, grits, rice, and white flour available for distribution". cornell.edu.
  5. (July 2010). "British India and the "beriberi problem", 1798–1942". Medical History.
  6. (2011-03-09). "Why Billions Eat Unhealthy Rice and Shouldn't". Institute for Policy Studies.
  7. Hendrick, Bill. "Brown Rice vs. White Rice: Which Is Better?". WebMD.
  8. (27 May 2016). "White or brown rice? Mee pok or spaghetti? Take our food quiz and digest the facts about glycaemic index.".
  9. "Difference between white and brown rice". reComparison.
  10. (2019). "Explorations in the History and Heritage of Machines and Mechanisms". Springer.
  11. "Enriched rice".
  12. (1 April 2019). "Rice, white, long-grain, regular, raw, unenriched". USDA.
  13. (1 April 2019). "Rice, brown, long-grain, raw". USDA.
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