In this blog, we’ll talk about which one is healthier? White rice vs brown rice.
What will be the best option for you? If you want to stay fit or your fitness goal is to gain muscle.
It is very necessary to manipulate carbs during the fat loss process, or in bodybuilding.
You see in google or ask any expert he will say, brown rice is better than the white rice. Because its glycemic index is high and has more fibre in them.
What is Glycemic index?
Glycemic index is something which has given a number or ranking between 0-100.
More the glycemic index, it will be worse for you. You will gain more fat very rapidly.
Diet whose glycemic index is low, will be good carb for you. It will not get stored in fat.
More the glycemic index of a food, more it will release sugar, and thus will provide more carb rapidly which in the long run is very harmful.
Glycemic Index in Brown Rice & in White Rice
Brown rice has a low glycemic index and white rice has more glycemic index.
Talking about numbers, let’s suppose brown rice has 50 glycemic index and white rice has around 65.
Here, you saw white rice has more glycemic index, that’s why everyone in the fitness industry advises for brown rice over white rice.
When someone starts bodybuilding or fat loss process, he will be told that brown rice is better. It will help you to lower your sugar levels.
They even advise you to switch to everything brown. Brown rice, brown bread, no refined flour, only wheat flour told by so-called experts or gym trainers.
What they advise is partially correct, they have that information so they shared. However, this knowledge or myth about brown rice is half correct.
What I’m going to say here is the full & detailed information.
The Reality of the Glycemic Index?
If you see world-class bodybuilders like Arnold, Dexter, Ronnie, Kai Greene or anyone, they are often seen having white rice in there in most of the videos available on the internet.
Seeing those, I often get confused that everyone advises to have brown rice and stop eating white rice. But, the world-class bodybuilders are taking white rice in their diet.
Then, I decided to dig deeper into this to find the correct information and bust the myth of white rice & brown rice.
I started researching to find the correct information on this, I got to know correct information on this. Don’t worry, I’ll share with you the sources of my information at the end of this article.
But, first, we have to know How Glycemic index is measured?
How it is measured?
How is the glycemic index measured and How it is discovered?
There is a research done by doctor Dr, David Jenkins at the University of Toronto in 1981.
In this research, he volunteered 8-10 people in sampling to check their blood sugar levels.
They were told to fast at night, and in the next morning, they were told to have some food whose glycemic index is to be measured.
Let’s say you have to measure the glycemic index of bread, wheat, rice or any food.
Their blood samples were taken and being checked at every 30 minutes gap to measure their blood sugar levels.
After having the food, if their sugar levels increase then that food will be considered under high glycemic index foods and same with low glycemic foods.
The average of those 10 men was taken, because every body type is different, their food digesting capacity is different.
That’s how the glycemic index is measured of any particular food.
An Interesting & Important Fact which is missing in the Market
An Interesting fact & an important fact about the number of the glycemic index.
Glycemic index is measured for any particular single food. This is because we don’t eat one food at a time, we take whole meals.
For example, You don’t just only Roti, along with you have to eat Sabji also. We don’t eat only bread or only rice at a time, we have to eat it along with a meal.
Did you eat only a particular single food? No right.
We don’t only eat roti or only dal or only rice or only potato. We have to take it along with something to enhance the flavour or taste.
You eat a complete meal which includes rice, roti, sabzi, chicken, salad, lassi, yoghurt, etc
So, here comes the interesting part.
When you combine all these foods in a meal, then the glycemic index of that particular food doesn’t take into consideration because you have manipulated with the glycemic index of that particular meal whose glycemic index is to be count.
It is irrelevant to talk about the glycemic index of a single particular food. Because blood sugars change by every food you intake.
Second, when you eat protein, fats, fibre which are all positive partitioning agents.
Positive Partitioning Agents
Now, what is positive partitioning agents?
They are the agents which help in keeping your glycemic index at a minimum.
Suppose, when you eat white rice whose glycemic index is let’s say 65, but you’re eating a whole meal.
Then the value of that glycemic index of those white rice only will be not be counted, the glycemic index of the whole meal will be taken into consideration.
Whole foods’ glycemic index will affect on your body, accordingly.
Either you have a lower or higher glycemic index of white rice, depends on what you have taken with white rice.
It depends on the amount of protein, fibre and fats present in your meal, Either your glycemic index will get low or high depends on the macronutrients of your meal.
So, the value of the glycemic index in white rice which is 65 gets down to say 40 depends on your proteins, fats and fibre present in food.
Brown rice vs White rice Nutritional Comparison
When the harvesting of rice is done, brown rice comes out by default.
The outer layer is then polished to makes it shinier and to enhance its texture, which ultimately becomes white rice.
The outer layer of brown rice contains various vitamins, minerals and fibre.
If we talk about 1 cup of cooked rice, brown rice contains about 3gm of fibre, whereas in white rice 0.6gm of fibre is present.
0.6 gm is because you remove the outer layer of that rice which has fibres.
Why so much fibre in Brown Rice?
One more thing here to notice is that how the hell so much of fibre comes in those small cups of brown rice?
The answer is the outer layer of brown rice is so thick that, it won’t get absorbed in your gut and thus you will not get the benefit of the inner rice completely.
One more thing, the outer layer also contains some anti-nutrients.
Anti Nutrients present in Brown Rice
Now, you will ask what are anti-nutrients?
Antinutrients are that nutrients which hampers the digestion of your other nutrients like protein or fats. It will hamper the benefits also.
That is why said you heard someone saying that, white rice is a much better option.
Well, there’s one general rule in fitness is that, When the food you are going to eat is processed, avoid it completely and have raw alternatives of that. Raw foods are easy to digest, overall raw foods are better.
But, this general rule has an exception in case of this white rice.
Brown rice is processed to make it white, then also white rice is better than brown.
Moderation is the Key
Moderation in White rice to neutralize its glycemic index.
If you’re eating salad along with white rice, then the fibre which is missing in white rice will actually compensate your fibre intake.
You don’t need to get tense because of those little fibres which you are missing in them.
Source Of Information
Here are the sources of information, what I said in the above articles –
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9302338/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996977/
CONCLUSION
Results show that despite higher nutrients contents of brown rice compared to white rice, experimental data does not provide evidence that the brown rice diet is better than the diet based on white rice.
Possible antinutritional factors present in brown rice have adverse effects on the bioavailability of these cereal nutrients.
Concluding that, you will get to know in this blog that the benefit of eating brown rice is very little but the demerit is very huge because of the anti-nutrients present in them.
Also, brown rice is costlier than white rice.
There will be no such benefits in switching to brown rice.
If you’re into bodybuilding or want to gain muscle then white rice is better than brown rice, if you’re taking it with a complete meal.
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