BROWN RICE FOR HEALTH
Reynaldo M. Lantin, PhD
Promoting the Consumption of Unpolished Rice
or Brown Rice for Public Health and a Strategy
for Making Brown Rice Accessible to the Poor
Definitions
• Brown rice - unpolished rice or pinawa; any variety of
rice in which only the hull or ipa is removed and the
healthy bran coating is intact with the grain.
• Dr. Brown’s Rice - freshly hulled brown rice
• Dr. Brown – iconic medical doctor who prescribes
brown rice for health; also his/her allies in the
profession who advocate brown rice consumption
• White rice – polished rice or well-milled rice
• Rice bran or darak - the outer grain coating that is
removed during milling of palay into polished rice
Definitions
• Whole grain – rice, wheat, corn or any cereal in
which only the inedible part is removed; it can be
whole, broken or powdered (e.g. whole wheat
flour).
• Head rice – unbroken rice grain.
• Cracking or checking – “lamat” in the grain which
results in broken rice during milling; first
reported as sun cracking by Copeland in 1925.
• Huller – machine that removes hull or husk from
the grain; kiskisan, rubber rolls and impeller types
Rice Bran – Nutrition Facts
• Tests show promised use against arthritis,
peripheral neuropathy, cardiovascular disease,
high cholesterol and diabetes.
• Filling fiber content (“mabigat sa tiyan”) can
aid against obesity.
• Sustains energy of the athlete, laborer and
anybody, rich or poor.
Rice Bran – A Supernutrient
Harvard School of Public Health
• Contains just about all the vitamins needed,
except for Vitamins D and C.
• Contains phytosterols , polysaccharides, betasitosterol, fiber, Vitamin E complex and a large
complement of B vitamins, including B15, a
vital antioxidant.
• Has Co-Enzyme Q10, Omega 3 and Omega 6
Fatty Acids and even Oleic Acid also found in
olive oil.
Brown rice vs white rice
Source: FAO 1994
Item
Brown Rice
White Rice
Crude protein, g/100 g
7.1-8.3
6.3-7.1
Crude fat, g/100 g
1.6-2.8
0.3-0.5
Crude fiber, g/100g
0.6-1.0
0.2-0.5
Available carbohydrates, g/100 g
73-87
77-89
Neutral detergent fiber, g/100 g
2.9-3.9
0.7-2.3
Energy content, cal/100 g
1520-1610
1460-1560
Thiamine,mg/100 g
0.29-0.61
0.02-0.11
Riboflavin, mg/100 g
0.04-0.14
0.02-0.06
Niacin, mg/100 g
3.5-5.3
1.3-2.4
Α-Tocopherol, mg/100 g
0.9-2.5
0.075-0.30
Phosphorus
0.17-0.43
0.08-0.15
Phytin P, g/100 g
0.13-0.27
0.02-0.07
Health-giving, disease-preventing and
immunity enhancing
• Reduces blood cholesterol
• Effective laxative
• Decreases urinary calcium – prevents kidney
stones
• Rich source of Vitamin B-complex
• Phytate may prevent colon cancer
Squandering the Rice Bran
Healthy Food
• Livestock and poultry feed
• Low-value but bran oil is very expensive.
• Why is the bran removed during milling?
Brown rice –
poor man’s food no longer
• In Europe eating brown rice is a status symbol;
Germany is highest consumer of brown rice
• In US many Pinoy-Americans and CaucasianAmericans eat brown rice
• Organic brown rice from uplands and the
Cordilleras are now exported to the US
How to like
brown rice
 Select varieties for
• Taste
• Aroma
• Consistency
 Use quality-processed brown rice to avoid off-taste
• Properly dried palay
• Fresh brown rice
• Cleaned brown rice
 Cook brown rice according to consistency preference
• Duration of soaking
• Amount of water
• Completeness of cooking
 Eat with fresh organic vegetables and other healthy foods
How to like
brown rice
• Select a soft-textured rice variety – e.g. Jasmine, Burdagol,
IR841, Japonica, upland heirloom rice varieties
• Acquire brown rice taste gradually by blending it with
white rice in decreasing proportions – BR:WR = 50:50;
75:25, 100:0
• Experiment with
o
o
o
o
Soaking duration – at least 30 minutes before cooking
Amount of water – 1.5 to 2 times brown rice volume
Cooking duration and rate – slow cooking and low heat
Cooking appliance – traditional clay pot and pandan
leaves
• Develop eating discipline – avoid eating white rice
Just-in-time hulling (JIT)
• Fresh brown rice is tasty
• No expensive treatments and eco-unfriendly
packaging to extend shelf-life
• No energy-consuming refrigeration storage
• Store palay rather than brown rice
• JIT hulling of palay for cooking of fresh brown
rice
Advantages of just-in-time (JIT) hulling
• Freshness – no rancidity; fresh taste and aroma
• JIT hulling system is similar to traditional mortar
and pestle;
• Brokens are tolerated and may improve taste of
BR;
• Less wastage; more brown rice than white rice
derived per kilo of palay
• BR is accessible to both rich and poor where a
portable huller becomes available as part of the
BR production and processing system.
Why Brown Rice is More Costly than
White Rice
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Premium or fancy rice variety.
Short shelf life.
Low supply and demand.
Mostly the rich and famous can afford the
goodness of brown rice.
• By necessity, the middle-class buy brown rice
to mitigate diabetes, hypertension, high
cholesterol and other degenerative diseases; it
is cheaper than medicine
Social benefits – hunger alleviation
and increased income
• Landless rural poor procure wet palay directly
from farmers at fair trade price, sun-dry, store
and hull it in the community JIT hulling service
system – cost of BR as low as Php20/kg.
• Rice farmers grow high-value premium rice
varieties and heirloom upland rice.
• Access to BR by the rich and the middle class
Value addition to brown rice:
Germinated brown rice (GBR)
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GBR is simple to process from head brown rice
GBR increases the health value of brown rice
GBR improves taste and consistency
GBR is soft to eat even by children
GBR yet has added nuitritional benefits to
brown rice
Germinated brown rice (GBR)
• Altered flavor and texture – soft and pleasant
fragrance
• Increased levels of nutrients such as gammaaminobutyric acid (GABA).
• Used in Japanese and Korean
• Retains the health benefits of brown rice
• Marketed as a health food product
• Produced by soaking washed brown rice in warm
water of approximately 32 °C to 34 °C for 1 to 2
days
Health benefits from Germinated
Brown Rice (GBR)
γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) increased dramatically if
brown rice is soaked in 40 degrees in Celsius water for 8
hours to 24 hours.
Saikusa, Horino and Mori
(1994)
Intake of GABA for 8 consecutive weeks suppressed blood Okada et al. (2000)
pressure and improved sleeplessness, and autonomic
disorder observed during the menopausal or presenile
period.
GBR may be effective for suppressing liver damage
Jeon et al. (2003)
In Japan, people in the ancient era might have been
eating soaked brown rice
(Kayahara, 2003)
How to make Germinated Brown Rice
(GBR)
1. Select head brown rice grains - embryo must be
intact, grain not broken, cracked or checked.
2. Soak brown rice in water for 24 hours but
change the water every three hours.
3. Transfer in cheesecloth bag and maintain
moisture by occasionally dipping in water.
4. Process changes the internal minerals and get
the nutritious, easier to chew and tastier GBR.
Value addition to brown rice:
brown rice bread (BRB)
• RB is made from fine rice flour and in Japan,
is more expensive than brown rice and white
rice
• Can BR be made into rice bread like banana
bread?
• Can BR and which may be plain BR bread,
raisin BR bread, nut BR bread, BR bread rolls,
croissant BR bread and other kinds of BR
bread?
Value addition to brown rice:
Pinipig Brown Rice (PBR)
• Pinipig or flattened glutinous rice (malagkit) is BR
• PBR is a delicacy traditionally processed in Biñan,
Laguna but is getting rare because of scarcity of
local supply of glutinous rice (malagkit)
• Traditionally, PBR is made from green palay, that
is, the grains are in the soft to medium dough
stage or between milk stage- grain filling and
maturity stages
• Green food color is used in low-quality PBR from
mature grains.
Value addition to brown rice:
Parboiled brown rice (PrBR)
• Graphical depiction of nutrition transfer
• Parboiled rice carries 80% of the nutrients of
brown rice.
Financial and Economic Benefits
• Export to US, EU and ME – DA bought upland
palay directly from farmers, dried, hulled,
packaged and exported to US
• - Kinanda from Malvar, Batangas and
• - Tinawon from the Cordilleras and exported
• The 5% shortfall in rice self-sufficiency in
2013 could have been met by the increased
processing recovery of brown rice - PhilMech.
Promoting BR – Brief History
• After WWII to early 1950s – government
promoted pounded or unpolished rice then
enriched rice – a failure because:
- Pinoys thought that white rice is more
beautiful, modern and classy than brown rice;
- Pinoys have developed taste for white rice;
- Poor Pinoys considered BR as a “poor man’s
food.”
Results
• Obese and sickly Pinoys due to malnutrition;
• Preference for junk-food - cheap noodles,
chichiria
• General dislike for vegetables, especially
children and the youth
Promoting BR – Brief History
• Revival since 1990s
- UNFAO, WHO – start awareness on BR
-DOH, DA/PhilRice and PhilMech, DOST/FNRI
- IRRI
- Asia Rice Foundation
- Iowa State University Alumni Association in the Philippines
- Dr. Brown – iconic doctor and nutritionist in hospitals,
clinics, health-centered institutions and NGOs, healthy food
journalists, balikbayans (wisdom-enriched OFWs and retirees)
and advocates of brown rice consumption
Results
BR advocacy by
• DA, DOH, DOST, NGOs and LGUs
• Some food and culinary journalists, health magazines,
radio stations – e.g. DWBR 104.3 mHz
Increased popularity among:
• Happily, among the rich and middle class - Seniors with
degenerative diseases, balikbayans
• Sadly, not among the poor because of:
- The mindset that BR is a “poor man’s food”
- Non-accessibility and non-affordability
- Lack of awareness
A strategy for
inclusive brown rice consumption
Brown rice accessibility
The poor – hulling service provider in a sarisari store or public market (i-hull-4-u)
The middle class - hulling service provider in
convenience store, gas station, mall, resto,
resort, transport terminal, etc. (i-hull-4-u)
The rich – huller as kitchen appliance
(u-hull/Dr. Brown’s Rice delivery)
BR for the poor
Their priority values
• Alleviate hunger
• Affordable cost
• Energy for manual work
Secondary value – nutritional health
Systems – Barefoot hulling services in sari-sari stores, public
markets, cockfight sports arenas, fiesta fairs, remote areas
(possible use of solar/water/wind energy)
• I-hull your own palay while you wait for your
Dr. Brown’s rice
pay for service only
• I-hull my own palay while you wait for your
Dr. Brown’s rice
pay for cost + service
BR for the rich and famous
and for the middle class
Values
• Health/disease mitigation through proper nutrition
• Slim form and beauty
• Acquired taste for BR
• Food experience
Systems for stored palay - not stored or packaged brown rice
• Kitchen amenity: I-hull my own palay in my kitchen to get
Dr. Brown’s rice just in time for cooking
• Small-scale enterprise: I-hull my own palay to sell
Dr. Brown’s rice (raw or cooked) in a public place
convenient for you – gas station, mall, resto, resort, road
side, transportation terminal, etc.
Promoting BR - Factors to consider
Expensive at present due to:
• Premium varieties of rice
• Short shelf life
• Expensive packaging
• Low turn-over in supermarkets
• Rice mills unwilling to produce BR in small
quantities
Promoting BR - Strategies
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BR jingle for school children
Jingle contest
School feeding program
Breed rice for eating quality and yield
Improve the system – rice farmers store palay in
common facility, non-farmers buy palay directly from
rice farmers
• Corporate rice supply to employees – Dr. Brown’s Rice
not white rice for health and better nutrition of their
families – less illness, less absentism, higher
productivity
Jingle - tune adaptation of
“Ang Alitaptap”
By the Mabuhay Singers - 2000
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[Emoboy:]
Ang alitaptap ang alitaptap
Sa hating-gabi ay lumilipad
Kay gandang masdan
Kikisap-kisap
Tulad ay bituing may munting liwanag
[Emogurl:]
Ang alitaptap ang alitaptap
Di mo makita di maapuhap
Sa kadiliman pag lumilipad
Ay parang bituing kukuti-kutitap
[Emoboy:]
Ang alitaptap ang syang katulad
Ng pagibig mo na aandap-andap
Kung kaya dapat ika'y mag ingat
Ng hindi maglaho ang iyong liwanag
[Emogurl:]
Ang katulad mo ay alitaptap
May munting ilaw na sumisinag
Kung matapos ang buong magdamag
Maglalaho narin ang iyong liwanag
[Instrumental... Yebaah!! Aww!!!]
Jingle – lyrics adaptation of “Beautiful Brown Eyes”
By The Brothers Four – 1960s
Original chorus
Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes,
Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes
Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes
I'll never love blue eyes again.
Adapted chorus
Beautiful and healthful brown rice,
Beautiful naimas brown rice
Beautiful, kay gandang brown rice
We'll never eat white rice again.
Huller, dehuller or dehusker Illustrations
• Steel roll and screen concave
• Rubber rolls – pair
• Impeller or centrifugal
Making the impeller huller affordable
• Licensed local manufacture
• Franchised custom-service hulling of palay for
brown rice
Taste and Demo
Part 1
• Tasting of cooked Dr. Brown’s Rice, the
freshly hulled brown rice
Part 2
• Demonstration of the portable huller to
process palay into fresh brown rice and
Sale and sign-up
Part 1
• Sale of Dr. Brown’s Rice
• Limited to 1 kg/pax
Part 2
• Franchising information
• Signing up intent