Which is better for losing weight, brown rice or white rice?

Brown Rice

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by Hannah Rice Myers

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Those poor carbohydrates. They have been getting a bad rap ever since Mr. Adkins appeared from the shadows with his revolutionary diet of all bacon, no bread. In the last few years though, those in the medical community have begun to feel a bit differently about our dastardly diet demons. In fact there are so many reports being released almost daily, it's nealrly impossible to determine what is the best route to take when you need to lose those excess pounds. I'm here to give you the low down on the good, the bad and the ugly. By the time I'm done, diet confusion will be a thing of the past.

* THE GOOD *

Brown rice is great for you if you're trying to lose any amount of weight. Everything in moderation of course, but it is a great source of nutrition for many reasons. It holds in its layers essential vitamins and minerals such as B1, B3, B6, Manganese, Selenium, Magnesium, and Lignans. Each of these nutrients serves a vital purpose in our bodies. They help to lower our LDL (bad cholesterol), they help protect against the damage of free radicals (those nasty little boys that are responsible for causing cancer), and they help lower high blood pressure. It has also been proven that the consumption of brown rice substantially lowers the risk of colon cancer. As for weight control, it is considered a complex carbohydrate. This means that it is high in fiber and is digested easier in our systems. It also has the ability to make us feel fuller for a longer period of time, which results in snacking less on the foods which are our hips' true enemies.

* THE BAD *

Who doesn't love white rice, especially when it's fried with our favorite Chinese combo platter? But truth be told, it has no nutritional benefit for us and can only hinder our weight loss efforts. White rice is brown rice that has been completely stripped (polished is the technical term) of its nutrients. While the higher powers of food manufacturing requires that the white rice be enriched with the vitamins it has had stolen from it, there are still eleven nutrients that have not been replaced before it gets placed on our shelves. In addition, it has less than one gram of dietary fiber, which means that it is not what we consider a complex carbohydrate, but rather a simple starch. These are what your doctor warned you about. These cause significant spikes in blood sugar levels which means that while we may feel a quick spurt of energy, we will crash in a short period of time and long for that Hershey's bar to get us back on our feet. This is devastating to our waistlines.

* THE UGLY *

By ugly I mean the bottom line. I'm sure that most of you have heard all about the Glycemic Index (GI). How could you not with all of the advertising that Nutrisystem has, pertaining to its use of it? Although I have been familiar with the term for some time, it wasn't until recently that I understood it. The GI measures carbohydrates by how quickly they are turned into blood sugar which then causes your body to produce insulin. Insulin can be our body's friend or enemy depending on what carbohydrates we give it to use. Its job is to move any sugar we are not using out of our bloodstream and store it for energy. Simple carbohydrates rank with a high GI because they are digested too quickly, overwhelming the insulin. The insulin doesn't know what to do with the immediate rush of blood sugar and after taking what your body needs for energy, it stores the rest as fat. These simple carbohydrates include pasta, bread and white rice.

Whole grain foods on the other hand, or complex carbohydrates, rank with a low GI because they are digested at a slower rate. This means that the blood sugar rises slowly, leaving it available for hours as energy. These are hours that it is available to be burned off rather than stored as fat. It also means that we stay fuller longer and the desire to reach for a pick - me - up is less likely. Examples of complex carbohydrates are high fiber vegetables, whole grain cereals and brown rice. With this being said, it is easy to see why those in other countries who make their entire meal from brown rice are less likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes and a whole host of other health problems that plague Americans.

You might think that your taste buds are stuck in their ways and that you just won't be able to enjoy whole grain anything as much as white anything. But truth be told, my tastes began to adapt as I slowly made changes to my diet. And the change in my waistline wasn't a bad motivator either!

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