White or Brown Rice?

Brown rice is commonly viewed as the “healthy” choice, over white.

The idea is that it is a whole grain, while white rice is a refined grain, meaning that the bran has been removed.

Whole brown rice has magnesium, selenium, and manganese in its bran, which are important minerals.

However, in this lesson today, I’m going to outline two reasons why I (maybe surprisingly) advocate choosing white rice over brown rice. They are: phytic acid, and arsenic.

Let’s start with phytic acid. Phytic acid is a substance contained in all whole grains. It acts as a chelator in the body, meaning that it binds to minerals like iron and calcium and carries them out of the body.

This would be a good thing if you have too much iron or calcium. High iron levels are definitely not ideal. Phytic acid also binds heavy metals in the gut, and can potentially help to minimize their accumulation in the body.

However, for the majority of people, it is best to avoid ingesting something on a regular basis that could carry minerals out of the body. Particularly if you have low iron levels, frequently get cavities, or have weak teeth or bones, this would be a concern.

The second reason why I recommend white rice instead of brown rice is arsenic. Rice itself absorbs more arsenic while growing than other grains, because it is grown under flooded conditions where irrigation water is often contaminated with arsenic from the soil.

Why is the soil contaminated? In the south-central part of the US, where the majority of rice is grown, there was also another crop in heavy production: cotton. For decades, cotton crops were heavily treated with arsenic-containing pesticides to control specific pests like the boll weevil beetle.

Those pesticides have now largely been banned, but the soil retains arsenic indefinitely, so even if the farmland is now organic, it still may contain higher levels of arsenic. We can call this the soil legacy.