Why Hoosier One Usually Chooses White Rice

Fair warning: this one is longer than our usual posts. Hang with me.

I wanted to show you how much thought can go into something as simple as the rice on your plate, because it’s a great example of how we think about food at Hoosier One.

Here’s how we landed there.

Years ago, my wife had testing done that showed elevated arsenic levels. That got our attention.

As we started reading about possible sources of exposure, we landed on something we hadn’t really thought about before: rice. Our family ate quite a bit of it back then, including rice grown in the Southern United States.

But it sent us down a rabbit hole.

It changed how we bought rice for our own family, and eventually how we thought about rice at Hoosier One.

Rice and arsenic

Arsenic is an element that occurs naturally in soil and water, although human activity can also add it to the environment. According to the FDA, rice tends to absorb arsenic more readily than many other crops. One reason is the flooded environment in which rice is commonly grown, which changes the soil chemistry and can make arsenic more available to the plant.

But there’s an important detail:

Not all arsenic is the same.

Arsenic compounds are generally described as either inorganic or organic.

The word organic here has nothing to do with organic farming. It describes the chemical form of the arsenic.

Inorganic arsenic is generally considered more toxic and is the form of greatest concern when researchers evaluate long-term exposure from foods such as rice and from drinking water. Long-term exposure to inorganic arsenic has been associated with several adverse health effects, including increased cancer risk.

Organic forms of arsenic are generally less toxic. Some forms found in seafood, such as arsenobetaine, are considered essentially nontoxic and are eliminated relatively quickly from the body. But not every organic arsenic compound is harmless, so the distinction is more nuanced than “organic good, inorganic bad.”

That is why, when we talk about rice, we pay particular attention to inorganic arsenic, not simply the total amount of arsenic present.

Why white rice usually wins for us

Brown rice retains the bran and germ that are removed when rice is milled into white rice. Those outer portions provide extra fiber and nutrients, but they also tend to contain more arsenic.

Consumer Reports has repeatedly found higher inorganic arsenic concentrations in brown rice than in comparable white rice, and FDA data show the same general pattern.

In the FDA’s 2016 risk assessment, average inorganic arsenic concentrations in uncooked rice included:

These are averages, not promises about any one bag, and the categories aren’t varieties grown side by side. But they help show why both the type of rice and where it comes from matter.

But because rice appears in our meals regularly, reducing our average exposure where we reasonably can matters to us.

Where the rice comes from matters too

We use jasmine more often than basmati because we love its flavor and texture, and it works well across many of the meals we cook.

When basmati makes more sense for a dish, we use it.

But variety isn’t the only thing we consider.

We also pay attention to where rice is grown and favor growing regions that have historically tested lower for arsenic.

In a large U.S. market study, California rice samples averaged about 41% less total arsenic than samples from the South-Central United States. Total arsenic includes several chemical forms, so that number is not interchangeable with inorganic arsenic, but it still helps illustrate that growing region can matter.

That’s why origin has become part of how we shop.

The variety name alone doesn’t tell us everything about a bag of rice.

And organic doesn’t automatically mean lower arsenic.

Arsenic is an element already present in soil and water. Organic farming standards don’t make it disappear.

The trade-off with brown rice

Brown rice absolutely has nutritional advantages.

It contains more fiber and retains more of the natural components of the whole grain.

It also contains more phytic acid, or phytate, a naturally occurring compound found in grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.

Phytate can bind to certain minerals, particularly iron and zinc, and reduce how much of them is absorbed from a meal.

That doesn’t make phytate a poison, and it doesn’t make whole grains unhealthy.

It’s simply another tradeoff.

And preparation matters too.

Where it makes sense, we soak grains and legumes, use sprouted grains, and pressure-cook beans and certain grains.

We do that partly for practical reasons—hydration, even cooking and tenderness—but some traditional preparation methods can also reduce compounds such as phytate. Sprouting, for example, can lower phytate, although the amount varies depending on the food and the process.

We aren’t trying to eliminate every naturally occurring compound from food.

We’re trying to understand the ingredients and prepare them thoughtfully.

We look at the whole meal

We’re comfortable serving white rice because a Hoosier One meal isn’t built around rice alone.

The plate might also contain vegetables, beans, herbs, quality protein, fats, fermented or pickled vegetables, and other grains throughout the week.

Those foods contribute fiber, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that white rice supplies in smaller amounts or doesn’t provide.

We don’t need the rice to do all the nutritional work.

We’d rather evaluate the whole meal—and ultimately the whole diet—than require every individual ingredient to maximize every possible nutrient.

What about blood sugar?

This is another fair argument for brown rice.

Compared on its own, brown rice often produces a lower glycemic response than comparable white rice.

But we don’t usually serve plain rice by itself.

It’s eaten with protein, vegetables, sauces and fats, and that changes the context in which the carbohydrate is consumed.

Controlled studies have shown that white rice eaten as part of a mixed meal can produce a lower blood-glucose response than white rice eaten alone.

That doesn’t make white rice low-glycemic, and it doesn’t erase differences between white and brown rice.

It simply means the response to a bowl of plain rice doesn’t tell us everything about the response to dinner.

Cooling rice changes some of its starch

There’s another detail that applies specifically to meal prep.

When cooked starch cools, some of it reorganizes into resistant starch.

Resistant starch resists digestion in the small intestine, so it isn’t broken down and absorbed in the same way as ordinary digestible starch.

In a 2015 study, white rice refrigerated for 24 hours at about 39°F and then reheated contained:

In the study’s 15 healthy adults, the cooled-and-reheated rice also produced a lower post-meal glucose response.

That is about one additional gram of resistant starch per 100 grams of rice.

So we keep it in perspective.

It’s a modest change, not magic.

We don’t cool rice to “hack” carbohydrates.

It simply happens to be part of the way meal prep works: we cook our rice, cool it rapidly under proper food-safety procedures, refrigerate it, and you reheat it at home.

Some resistant starch also reaches the large intestine, where gut microbes can ferment it and produce short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, which helps provide energy to cells lining the colon.

Responses vary considerably between individuals, so we aren’t claiming our rice will “fix your gut.”

It is simply another interesting example of how preparation can change food.

And importantly, this is not an argument for white rice over brown rice. Cooling can increase resistant starch in brown rice too.

It is a potential benefit of the way our rice is prepared.

Brown rice still has a place

We still use brown rice in some of our grain blends.

You’ll also see quinoa, millet, farro, einkorn, beans and potatoes across our menus.

Variety matters to us.

The FDA recommends eating a varied, nutritious diet rather than leaning heavily on any one food, which can also help reduce repeated exposure to contaminants that may occur naturally in particular foods.

Food doesn’t need to become a purity test.

So, why white rice?

When we put everything together:

• White rice generally contains less inorganic arsenic than comparable brown rice.
• Growing region matters, so we pay attention to where our rice comes from.
• The rest of our meals provides fiber and nutrients that white rice contributes in smaller amounts.
• Jasmine gives us the flavor and texture we want in many dishes (though basmati and other grains have their place too).
• Cooking, chilling and reheating can modestly increase resistant starch, although that benefit applies to brown rice as well.

No single one of those points makes white rice universally “better.”

Together, they explain why it usually makes the most sense for us.

We’re still learning

We’re a family that started asking questions about our own food.

We aren’t physicians, dietitians or scientists.

We read the research, try to distinguish well-established evidence from interesting ideas that are still being studied, and sometimes discover that something we believed needs to change.

That’s okay.

If better evidence comes along, we’re willing to change our minds.

For now, we keep learning, understand the tradeoffs, source thoughtfully, cook from scratch, and choose ingredients that make sense for the meals we serve.