Brown rice is a

whole grain A whole grain is a grain of any cereal and pseudocereal that contains the endosperm, germ, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. As part of a general healthy diet, consumption of whole grains is associated w ...

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

with the inedible outer hull removed. This kind of rice sheds its outer hull or husk but the bran and germ layer remain on, constituting the brown or tan colour of rice.

White rice White rice is milled rice that has had its husk, bran, and germ removed. This alters the flavor, texture and appearance of the rice and helps prevent spoilage, extend its storage life, and makes it easier to digest. After milling (hulling), the ...

is the same grain without the hull, the bran layer, and the

cereal germ Cereal germ or Wheat germ: The germ of a cereal is the reproductive part that germinates to grow into a plant; it is the embryo of the seed. Along with bran, germ is often a by-product of the milling that produces refined grain products. Cer ...

Red rice Red rice is a variety of rice that is colored red by its anthocyanin content. It is usually eaten unpolished or partially polished, and has a red bran layer, rather than the more common pale brown. Red rice has a nutty flavor. It has the highes ...

, gold rice, and

black rice Black rice, also known as purple rice, is a range of rice types of the species ''Oryza sativa'', some of which are glutinous rice. There are several varieties of black rice available today. These include Indonesian black rice, Philippine heirl ...

(also called purple rice) are all whole rices with differently pigmented outer layers.

Cooking time

Brown rice generally needs longer cooking times than

white rice White rice is milled rice that has had its husk, bran, and germ removed. This alters the flavor, texture and appearance of the rice and helps prevent spoilage, extend its storage life, and makes it easier to digest. After milling (hulling), the ...

, unless it is broken or flour blasted (which perforates the bran without removing it). Studies by Gujral and Kumar in 2003 estimated a cooking time between 35 and 51 minutes. A shorter cooking time is necessary for "converted" or

parboiled rice Parboiled rice (also called converted rice and easy-cook rice) is rice that has been partially boiled in the husk. The three basic steps of parboiling are soaking, steaming and drying. These steps make the rice easier to process by hand, while ...

Storage

Brown rice has a shelf life of approximately 6 months, but

hermetic storage Hermetic storage is a method of using sealed, airtight units to control moisture and insects in stored dry agricultural commodities. The hermetic storage restricts gas exchanges between the internal and external environments and the stored commodity ...

refrigeration The term refrigeration refers to the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or substance for the purpose of lowering the temperature.International Dictionary of Refrigeration, http://dictionary.iifiir.org/search.phpASHRAE Terminology, ht ...

freezing Freezing is a phase transition where a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature is lowered below its freezing point. In accordance with the internationally established definition, freezing means the solidification phase change of a liquid o ...

can significantly extend its lifetime. Freezing, even periodically, can also help control infestations of Indian meal moths.

Arsenic

Rice plants accumulate

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

, and there have been concerns over excessive arsenic levels in rice. There is more arsenic in the bran, so brown rice contains more arsenic. The

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

has introduced regulations on arsenic in rice, but the United States has not. Natural arsenic levels in groundwater and soils vary. Rice grown in some regions contains less arsenic than others. Arsenic from pesticides and poultry fertilizer may be taken up by rice. A 2012 report from the US publication ''

Consumer Reports Consumer Reports (CR), formerly Consumers Union (CU), is an American nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy. Founded ...

'' found measurable levels of

in nearly all of the 60 varieties of rice and rice products it tested in the US. ''Consumer Reports'' states that brown rice has 80 percent more inorganic arsenic on average than white rice of the same type, because the arsenic tends to accumulate in the outer layers of the grain. Its 2013 analysis found that rice cereal and pasta can possess significantly more

inorganic In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as '' inorganic chemist ...

arsenic than the 2012 data showed; ''Consumer Reports'' said just one serving of rice cereal or pasta could place children over the maximum amount of rice it recommended for their weekly allotment, due to arsenic content. One study published in the ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...

'' journal found a median level of arsenic that was 56% higher in the urine of women who had eaten rice.

Composition

Nutritional content

Brown rice and

have similar amounts of

calories The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...

and

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or ma ...

s. Between 72 and 82% of the dry weight of brown rice is starch, of which the majority is in the form of digestible starch. Brown rice therefore has the lowest protein and fiber content of cereal grains but the highest starch and carbohydrate content whilst its energy content is the second highest, after oats. Due to the low dietary fiber content there was a delay before the US

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

considered brown rice as a whole grain. Brown rice is a whole grain and a good source of magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, thiamine, niacin, vitamin B6, and manganese and does provide some fiber. White rice, unlike brown rice, has the

bran Bran, also known as miller's bran, is the hard outer layers of Cereal, cereal grain. It consists of the combined aleurone and pericarp. Corn (maize) bran also includes the pedicel (tip cap). Along with cereal germ, germ, it is an integral pa ...

and

germ Germ or germs may refer to: Science * Germ (microorganism), an informal word for a pathogen * Germ cell, cell that gives rise to the gametes of an organism that reproduces sexually * Germ layer, a primary layer of cells that forms during embry ...

removed, and therefore has different nutritional content. Brown rice is whole rice from which only the

husk Husk (or hull) in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. In the United States, the term husk often refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize (corn) as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective ...

(the outermost layer) is removed. To produce white rice, the next layers underneath the husk (the

layer and the

) are removed leaving mostly the starchy

endosperm The endosperm is a tissue produced inside the seeds of most of the flowering plants following double fertilization. It is triploid (meaning three chromosome sets per nucleus) in most species, which may be auxin-driven. It surrounds the embryo and ...

. Several

vitamin A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an Nutrient#Essential nutrients, essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its ...

s and

dietary mineral In the context of nutrition, a mineral is a chemical element required as an essential nutrient by organisms to perform functions necessary for life. However, the four major structural elements in the human body by weight (oxygen, hydrogen, carbon ...

s are lost in this removal and the subsequent polishing process. Among these are oil in the bran, which is removed along with the bran layer,

dietary fiber Dietary fiber (in British English fibre) or roughage is the portion of plant-derived food that cannot be completely broken down by human digestive enzymes. Dietary fibers are diverse in chemical composition, and can be grouped generally by the ...

, small amounts of

fatty acid In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, fr ...

s, and

magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ta ...

. A part of these missing nutrients, such as vitamins B₁ and B₃, and

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

, are sometimes added back into the white rice. In the US the result is called "enriched rice" and must comply with

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

(FDA) regulations for this name to be used. It has been found that germinated grains in general have nutritional advantages.

Germinated brown rice Germinated brown rice (GBR; ko, 발아현미(發芽玄米), bara-hyeonmi, ja, 発芽玄米(はつがげんまい), hatsuga-genmai) is unpolished brown rice that has been allowed to germinate to improve the flavor and texture, and to increase lev ...

(GBR), developed during the

International Year of Rice The year 2004 was declared the International Year of Rice by the United Nations, noting that rice is a staple food for more than half the world's population, and affirming the need to heighten awareness of the role of rice in alleviating poverty ...

, is brown rice that has been soaked for 4–20 hours in warm water before cooking. This stimulates

germination Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...

, which activates various enzymes in the rice, giving rise to a more complete

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

profile, including GABA. Cooked brown rice tends to be chewy; cooked GBR is softer, and preferred particularly by children.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown Rice American Chinese cuisine Rice dishes Rice Rice varieties Peasant food de:Reis#Verarbeitung