White Rice/Milled Rice
Various features of this
variety of rice are as follows:
- White rice is the common term for milled rice which has had its
husk, bran, and germ removed. It is also called polished rice.
- White rice belongs to the Indica (long grain) category.
- To obtain white rice, the husks from rough or paddy rice should
be removed first, leaving the brown rice kernel. The outer
layers--the husk and the bran layer--are removed from the kernal
through the milling process.
- After milling, the rice is polished, giving the resulting seed a
bright, white, shiny coating.
- The white rice is little more than an empty starch because the
bran which is removed contains much of the dietary fiber, the germ
contains most of the vitamins and minerals, and the superficial
aleurone layer removed during polishing contains the grain's
essential fats.
- White rice is often artificially enriched with a few of the
nutrients stripped from it during its processing.
- The complete milling and polishing that converts brown rice into
white rice destroys 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1,
90% of the vitamin B6, half of the manganese, half of the
phosphorus, 60% of the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and
essential fatty acids. Fully milled and polished white rice is
required to be "enriched" with vitamins B1, B3 and iron.
Enrichment of white rice with B1, B3, and iron is required by law in
the United States.
- Despite having little more nutritional value, white rice is the
staple source of calories in many countries like Japan, Malaysia,
and China. Almost all rice is consumed in the milled form. Billions
of Asians survive on rice, which they mostly consume as white rice.
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