[Sca-cooks] Brown Rice (was, converted rice)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Avraham haRofeh:
>What Master A left out is that parboiling the rice before removing the bran
>and germ also forces some of the nutrients from those outer layers into the
>kernal. Converted rice is therefore (marginally) more nutritious than plain
>polished white rice... but brown rice smokes 'em both nutritionally. The
>cooking process and proportions are the same; converted rice needs 15-20%
>longer cooking times.

Yes, I knew about the nutritive aspect but didn't bother to mention
it; the different cooking time was something I was aware of but
couldn't easily describe. It's probably covered by "Follow package
directions."

Re brown rice. One of the things I find interesting is that I have
never met an Asian by birth or descent who actually preferred brown
rice, for all the advertising hype. Yes, it's a lot more nutritious
than the polished varieties. But the ad copy would have you believe
that people all over Asia, in their massively superior wisdom over we
mere cave-dwellers in the West, are all stuffing themselves full of
brown rice. For one thing, whole-grain rice is not defatted, and can
become rancid in warm climates, which is probably why polishing,
parboiling and pre-steaming rice before storage became something of a
norm in the warmer parts of Asia, and rice tends not to be eaten in
the really cold parts of Asia anyway.

Adamantius, who prefers real oatmeal, polished rice, and malted,
fermented barley