Brown rice is one of the most nutritious staple foods. Health benefits of having brown rice over white rice are numerous due to the nutritional content present in them. Brown rice is processed to remove just the outer skin called husk. Hence the loss of nutrients in the process is minimal compared to white rice where in several layers of nutrient rich skin is removed for convenience. Brown rice retains all the fibre content in rice and hence it is helps in burning fat. It is one of the most recommended dietary foods in any weight loss diet.
Being fibre rich, brown rice tends to take longer to breakdown and require more energy to do so. This keeps your appetite in control for longer period of time, decreasing your chances of over acting. Brown rice has more than 80% of your daily requirement of manganese, providing you energy from both carbohydrates and proteins. All major varieties of rice like basmati, jasmine and sushi rice come in brown variations. This makes any average rice user to switch from white to brown easily as major dishes prepared with white rice can be done with brown variety.
Here are a few heath benefits of brown rice
One cup of brown rice provides 80% of our daily manganese requirements. Manganese helps the body synthesize fats, which helps you gain energy from carbohydrates intake and reduce risk of fat buildup.
The most popular health benefit of brown rice is its fat reducing properties. It is rich in fibre, which helps in burning fat and requires more energy to break it down. In addition to above, fibre also helps fill your appetite for longer periods thereby reducing chances of overeating.
Brown rice is rich in naturally occuring oils that are good for your body. It has lots of beneficial properties that are healthy to your body. The good fats in these natural oils help normalise and control cholestrol.
Brown rice is a whole grain as the refining process does not reduce it by more than just outer skin. This wholesomeness helps it retain all the good properties which helps reduce the buildup of arterial plaque and reduce the risk of heart disease and high cholesterol.
Several researches have now proven brown rice to hold lots of anti-oxidant properties. This is due to presence of phytonutrients, which is retained by brown rice as it is still a wholesome grain at this point. Antioxidants in brown rice work in multiple ways to prevent disease and slows ageing process.
Brown rice is a rich source of magnesium, a mineral that acts as a co-factor for more than 300 enzymes, including enzymes involved in the body's use of glucose and insulin secretion. It being a whole grain provides rich source of carbohydrates that are good for body compared to carbohydrates provided by processed rice and grains.
As brown rice is rich in magnesium, which is known to help regulate nerve and muscle tone by balancing the action of calcium. Magnesium, as well as calcium, is necessary for healthy bones. About two-thirds of the magnesium in the human body is found in our bones.
Brown rice cereal or brown rice itself is the perfect baby's first food since it is unprocessed resulting in dense natural nutrition and fiber content. Rapidly growing babies and toddlers require nutrient rich diets to help maintain rapid growth. Research have shown brown rice reducing risk of asthma in children by upto 50%.