Highlights
1. The main difference between red rice and white rice is the color of their outer layer. Red rice is brown in color due to the un-removed bran and germ, while white rice is polished and lacks these outer layers.
2. Red rice is believed to have additional nutritive value compared to white rice. It contains rice bran oil, which can help lower LDL cholesterol in the blood.
3. White rice is enriched with externally added nutrients to compensate for the loss of vitamins and dietary minerals during the polishing process. However, the extent to which these added nutrients are bioavailable and absorbed by the human body is questionable.
Introduction
Red Rice vs White Rice
Red Rice vs White Rice | White Rice (Polished Rice) vs Brown Rice or Hulled Rice
Similar food can be categorized based on a variety of features. The most prominent keys are stage of processing, sensory properties, nutritive value and physical availability. Red rice and white rice are two main processed rice varieties. However, they are considerably varied from their organoleptic properties and nutritive values.
Red Rice
Red rice is also referred as brown rice or hulled rice. When the harvested paddy is subjected to partial milling or un-milled, those seed lots are called red rice. The name is derived from the color of the seed. It is reddish brown color due to un-removed bran and germ. In the red rice production, only the outer most layer of the grain is removed. Shelf life of red rice is approximately six months due to the occurrence of rancidity reactions in persisting fat containing germ. Although the red rice is vulnerable for several adverse chemical reactions like lipid oxidation, people believe that red rice contain additional nutritive value compared to white rice. In addition, they think that red rice has a remedial ability of different incommunicable diseases such as diabetes mellitus. Those are not only believes, but also they have various scientific backgrounds. With the removal of inner layers, some of the essential nutrients may remove with them and cannot be totally compensated by fortification. An advance nutritive function of rice bran oil is, helping lower the LDL cholesterol in human blood.
White Rice
The white rice got its name due to its outer layer color. It is also called as polished rice. Unlike the red rice, white rice is a result of grains removed of husk, bran and germ. Finally, it leaves the starchy endosperm mostly. Most people prefer to consume white rice due to its different flavor. It does not contain any nutty flavor like red rice does. At the succeeding polishing processes, several nutrients such as vitamins and dietary minerals are lost. To compensate this loss, white rice is enriched with externally added nutrients. However, what extend it has succeeded is somewhat questionable. Although those nutrients are externally added, it raises some problems regarding the bio availability and absorption inside the human body.
What is the difference between Red Rice (Brown Rice) and White Rice?
- The basic, visual difference between red rice and white rice is the color of their outer layer.
- But they are highly varying from their nutritive values and processing conditions.
- Outermost layer of the rice seed is removed in producing red rice, whereas the next most two layers (bran and germ) are also removed in white rice.
- Therefore, white rice lack in nutrients than the red rice. Vitamin B1, B3, and iron are some of the essential nutrients, which are lack in white rice.
- However, both rice varieties more or less contain similar amounts of calories, carbohydrates and proteins.
- The storage period of white rice is higher than the red rice. This is because of less fat content due to removal of the bran layer.
