Whole Grain Brown Rice
JAKK FROST COOKIN BROILED SALMON SHRIMP MIXED VEGGIES AND WHOLE GRAIN BROWN RICE
Whats the Best Way For Cooking Brown Rice?
Cooking brown rice can be very confusing if you pay attention to a written recipe or package instructions. There’s more than one way to cook brown rice, just like there’s more than one way to cook chicken, beef, or vegetables.
Brown rice is whole-grain rice that is less processed than white rice, giving it greater nutritional qualities than processed rice. Because brown rice has its outer hull left in tact, it is a more wholesome and natural grain.
White rice and brown rice have a similar nutritional profile in the number of calories, protein and carbohydrates. The main difference between the two is created during processing.
When the outer layer or husk of an unprocessed grain of rice is removed, you get brown rice. When the next two layers, the bran and the germ, are removed, you get white rice. White rice is often polished, or par-cooked and re-dried.
On the way from brown rice to white rice, many vitamins and minerals are lost in the process. Vitamin B1, B3, iron and magnesium that occur in the outer layers of the grain are discarded.
However, in the processing of enriched white rice the vitamins are added back to increase nutritional quality of the final product.
Cooking brown rice is important to my boxing and conditioning Coach Nasser, he eats a lot of it. Nasser believes in whole grains for the best conditioning nutrition. The only problem is that every time he cooks brown rice, it comes out differently.
“Sometimes the rice is firm and crunchy, other times it’s soft and starchy,” he complains to me. “One batch of brown rice will taste very nutty, the next will be bland. What am I doing wrong?”
There’s more than one way to cook brown rice, I tell him. A cold cook will give you different results than a hot cook. Have you ever noticed how the grains sometimes split on the ends, while other times they stay in tact? This is the result of the rice heating with the water or not.
You can try this experiment in your own home. Place two sauce pans of a similar size on your stove top. Add 10 ounces of water to the first pot and bring it to a boil. Once it reaches the boiling stage, put ½ cup of brown rice into the pan, reduce the heat to a soft simmer, and put the lid on the pan. This is a hot cook.
In the second pan, add 10 ounces of cold water and ½ cup rice. Place the lid on the pan and bring to a boil. Once at boiling point, reduce the heat to a soft simmer. This is cooking brown rice in a cold cook.
After about 30 minutes or so, you should find that the cold cook has a lot more moisture, is a bit softer and the ends of the grains are split. The hot cook will be much nuttier, drier, and chewier.
Which way of cooking brown rice is the correct way? There is no correct way, it’s up to you as the cook to control the heat and arrive at the result you want. Whether chewy or crunchy, nutty or soft, the way you prepare this grain is within your control.
You can watch as it happens! See the entire cooking brown rice video.
About the Author
Chef Todd Mohr has a passion for helping people improve their cooking with simple cooking techniques that work! You can take a FREE Online Cooking Class and discover his unique methods for yourself. Your cooking will be transformed.
Choose Brown Rice
There is a difference in appearance, taste and nutritional content between brown rice and white rice. In light of these differences and studies showing the health benefits of brown rice and rice bran in the diet; there are more and more people making the switch. Brown rice is made up of numerous layers even after the simplest of processes that removes just the hull from the brown rice. If brown rice is processed further to the extent that the rice bran and parts of the germ layer are removed you have white rice. To add insult to injury; after all nutrients are removed from the brown rice; the FDA requires that the process must reverse itself to “enrich” the white rice with only a portion of the lost nutrients.
Magnesium, selenium, phosphorus, copper, thiamin, niacin, fiber, iron and vitamin B-6 are just a few of the vital components in the make up of whole brown rice. Unfortunately white rice in its “enriched” state still cannot compare to its former self; brown rice. Essentially brown rice and white rice are the same in relation to amounts of their calories, carbs, fat, and protein. However, major differences between brown rice and white rice from processing the brown rice result from not being able to add back all the great parts of the bran to the brown rice. There is a significant loss of magnesium in addition to fiber and fatty acids including bran oil from having been removed from brown rice.
In lieu of recent studies of the effects of brown rice and rice bran in a healthy diet; we do ourselves a great disservice in eating a processed brown rice in the “polished” white form. Studies show the rice bran oil may assist in lowering the bad cholesterol known as LDL. It also indicates that women who eat more whole grains like brown rice weigh less and gain less weight over time than women who eat processed foods. Magnesium is a work horse in converting protein and carbs to energy. The fiber in brown rice assists our digestive processes and help to treat constipation. In addition; the fiber in brown rice coupled with amounts of selenium also found in brown rice aid in the fight against colon cancer.
Individuals living on a vegetarian or macrobiotic diet have long understood the benefits of brown rice and rice bran in their diets. Under processed foods like brown rice lend themselves to a healthier diet and lifestyle. We eat all around better foods for our bodies; what is brown rice without a few good steamed vegetables. We exercise with the extra energy we have from a food like brown rice. It’s that wonderful merry-go-round; if you eat better, you live better; if you live better, you eat better. So hop aboard now before it’s time to get off.
About the Author
Learn about Rice N Shine at: http://www.1thinkhealthy.com/rice-n-shine.html
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