Rice comes in many colours – white, brown, red, golden, even black. What is the difference? Which rice is better?

As part of our effort to put healthy food on the plate (for our guests as well as ourselves), here is what we understood of the rice we eat:

Coloured rice is a whole grain rice, while white rice is what remains of the whole grain rice after removing bran and germ – integral parts of the whole grain rice. White rice is nutritionally deficient compared to whole grain rice. It is rich in carbohydrates with a little bit of protein, while whole grain rice, in addition to carbohydrates and protein, is also rich in fibre, iron, vitamin B and omega 3 / 6 lipids. If whole grain rice has more nutritional value, why is rice refined at all?

We started at the beginning.

Rice grain has a protective outer shell, called husk (or chaff / hull). Husk is not a part of the grain itself and is inedible.

Husk has to be removed before rice can be consumed as food. However, unrefrigerated de-husked whole grain rice becomes rancid when stored beyond six months. To understand why this happens, we had to understand the constitution of whole grain rice:

1. Bran – the hard outer layer, whose pigmentation determines the colour of the rice – brown, red, black
2. Germ – the embryo or the reproductive part that germinates and grows into a new plant
3. Endosperm – tissue produced inside the seeds that surrounds the embryo and provides nutrition in the form of starch

Rancidity is caused by the oxidation of fats and oils when the whole grain is exposed to air, light or moisture. Bran is rich in oils and germ is rich in fats, while endosperm is poor in both. In order to increase the shelf life of rice, both bran and germ are removed by milling the whole grain rice, leaving only the endosperm. The result is refined rice or white rice, which is nutrient-depleted since endosperm is primarily carbohydrates with a little bit of protein. Bran and germ, on the other hand, are rich in protein, fibre, iron, vitamin B and omega 3 / 6 lipids in addition to carbohydrates.

Conclusion: whole grain rice or coloured rice is highly nutritious but has a short shelf life – of about 6 months when unrefrigerated. White rice increases the shelf life to about  4 – 5 years, but at the expense of nutrients.

Here is what we now do:

We buy rice from a farming community in a village called Garur, in the Gomati river valley of Bageshwar district, north of Almora. The farmers don’t use chemicals so the rice is completely organic. We buy our full year quota of rice – brown and red rice – in October / November when the yearly rice crop is harvested.

We buy rice grains with the husk intact. Husk prevents the rice grains from coming into contact with air, light and moisture, protecting the grain from becoming rancid.

We dehusk the rice grains periodically based on demand. Just-in-time dehusking ensures that the whole grain rice isn’t on the shelf for more than a month. So we consume the rice much before it can become rancid.

We use the traditional way of dehusking rice – by hand pounding the rice in a mortar, locally called Okhal, followed by wind winnowing. Okhal is a large stone that has a depression cut in. The pestle used for pounding is an oak log that is fitted with an iron head.

We employ local women from a village close to the Retreat for hand-pounding the rice. Two women work together as below:

The threshed rice is then winnowed in a ‘soopa’. The lighter husk is carried by the wind while the heavier rice grain falls back into the ‘soopa’.

The rice grain that we now have is the whole grain (composed of bran, germ and endosperm ).

We don’t process the grain any further. Since we leave the bran and germ intact, the complete nutritional value of rice is retained in the cooked rice.