Rice is a culinary staple in Australia and around the world. It might seem like a given that brown rice is healthier than white and official public health resources often recommend brown rice instead of white as a “healthy swap”. But Australians definitely prefer white rice over brown.
So, what’s the difference, and what do we need to know when choosing rice? What makes rice white or brown? Rice “grains” are technically seeds. A complete, whole rice seed is called a “paddy”, which has multiple parts : the “hull” is the hard outer layer which protects the seed the “bran”, which is a softer protective layer containing the seed coat the “germ” or the embryo, which is the part of the seed that would develop into a new plant if was germinated the “endosperm”, which makes up most of the seed and is essentially the store of nutrients that feeds the developing plant as a seed grows into a plant. Rice needs to be processed for humans to eat it.
Along with cleaning and drying, the hard hulls are removed since we can’t digest them. This is how brown rice is made , with the other three parts of the rice remaining intact. This means brown rice is regarded as a “wholegrain”.
White rice, however, is a “refined” grain, as it is further polished to remove the bran and germ, leaving just the endosperm. This is a mechanical and not a chemical process. What’s the difference, nutritionally? Keeping the bran and the germ means brown rice has more magnesium.