Poll of the Day > Is rice actually healthy?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I like rice, but it's literally just starch
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Depends on how processed it is.
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Healthy is such a nebulous term. It seems to waffle between:

- highly micronutrient dense
- not carb dense
- not calorie dense
- is lacking cholesterol
- lacking processed sugars
etc...

Really almost any food is perfectly fine to eat as long as your diet as a whole has a good micro and macro nutrient balance and you're not getting too many calories.

Ask that to the Asian people that are living to 130 years old

(Not the ones who killed themselves)

brown rice is

white rice not so much, it's mostly used as filler or a delivery system for something else juices
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you want low glycemic index, which varies a lot by the type of rice (and brown is usually better, but not necessarily IIRC).

best to combine it with something else to lower its absorption rate, like peas and chicken or something.
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Sahuagin posted...

best to combine it with something else

I like broccoli, but the easiest thing I do is mix in a can of campbells soup
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Grendel posted...

Healthy is such a nebulous term. It seems to waffle between:

- highly micronutrient dense
- not carb dense
- not calorie dense
- is lacking cholesterol
- lacking processed sugars
etc...

Really almost any food is perfectly fine to eat as long as your diet as a whole has a good micro and macro nutrient balance and you're not getting too many calories.

Not sure how I blanked on this comment.

By healthy I guess I mean somewhere between ramen and steamed broccoli.
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Like most things its healthy in moderation
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Even if its somehow not its still delicious despite being just starch, and thats got to say something...
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Super carby
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Starch is good for you unless you're overweight
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Ideally you should be receiving about 50-55% of your daily calories from carbohydrates. High carb diets increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, while a low carb diet increases the risk of heart disease and cancer.
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Probably not but everything gives you cancer so....
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captpackrat posted...

Ideally you should be receiving about 50-55% of your daily calories from carbohydrates. High carb diets increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, while a low carb diet increases the risk of heart disease and cancer.

Calories cause obesity... you can't be obese on a 100% carb diet of like 500 calories a day
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You can't live on rice alone and you can't live on beans alone. But you can live on rice and beans.
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Brown rice is at leat healthier than white rice.
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Lokarin posted...

captpackrat posted...

Ideally you should be receiving about 50-55% of your daily calories from carbohydrates. High carb diets increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, while a low carb diet increases the risk of heart disease and cancer.

Calories cause obesity... you can't be obese on a 100% carb diet of like 500 calories a day

There isnt a singular cause of obesity.
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If you are eating reasonable portions of white rice alongside an array of fresh fruits, vegetables, high fiber items, and proteins, you will more than likely be healthy.

If you are going to chipotle and putting rice inside your flour tortilla for your burrito on a regular basis, you will likely have some negative effects.
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kangolcone posted...

There isnt a singular cause of obesity.

lok is more or less right: eating more calories than you use, over the long run, causes obesity. (where obesity is just excessive weight-gain.)

it does also depend on your metabolism though (which is the "...than you use" part).
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Bulbasaur posted...

brown rice is

white rice not so much, it's mostly used as filler or a delivery system for something else juices

This is a myth, just FYI. Brown rice has a little more fiber in it, but other than that, the glycemic indices are pretty similar to other types of rice like white rice. There are a few more nutrients in brown rice but it's not a huge difference.

@Bulbasaur
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so what you said is that brown rice is literally healthier than white rice.

thanks
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Bulbasaur posted...

so what you said is that brown rice is literally healthier than white rice.

thanks

Marginally so, but there's hardly any difference. It's just another health fad based in fiction for the most part.
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it doesn't matter how big the difference is

the fact is is that it's healthier, just like i said, thanks
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brown rice tastes better anyway
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Bulbasaur posted...

it doesn't matter how big the difference is

the fact is is that it's healthier, just like i said, thanks

supposed to be that some white rices are better than some brown rices. there are a lot of different varieties of rice and it doesn't completely work out as brown being necessarily better than white. but, generally, it's probably the case that most brown are better than most white.
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Bulbasaur posted...

it doesn't matter how big the difference is

the fact is is that it's healthier, just like i said, thanks

Saying one thing is healthy, and the other is "not so much," does not imply what you just said. The fact is that both are extremely similar with almost negligible differences between them.
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If you're intent on living healthily then you can skip rice. It lowers your hunger level, then your body gets rid of it. That's all it does, there's nothing particularly useful in it.
It's the same story with flavoured/sweet cereal; you could live on it but it's not healthy for mind or body.

If you're going to attempt either; fill your cupboards with vitamin, protein and mineral supplements.
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BarbaricAvatar posted...

If you're intent on living healthily then you can skip rice. It lowers your hunger level, then your body gets rid of it. That's all it does, there's nothing particularly useful in it.
It's the same story with flavoured/sweet cereal; you could live on it but it's not healthy for mind or body.

If you're going to attempt either; fill your cupboards with vitamin, protein and mineral supplements.

Its probably not bad to have. Having a good that just lowers your hunger seems like something good to have as a side in some cases...
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Ya,

a food that is more filling than its calories would suggest while also not being harmful would be a win.

Which is most veggies, but rice ain't no veggie, it's a grrrrrrn
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