The Daily Yomiuri has an interesting article on new test results which seem to clearly  show the diet benefits of eating brown rice: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120729002557.htm

From the article:

“The group gave mice a choice between diets of fatty food and normal food: a high-fat diet consisting of 45 percent lipids, 35 percent carbohydrates and 20 percent proteins, and the other 10 percent lipids, 70 percent carbohydrates and 20 percent protein. The mice chose the high-fat food every time and eventually became obese.

However, after the researchers replaced half of each diet’s source of carbohydrates–corn starch and other substances–with brown rice, the mice opted for the normal food and as a result cut half their increased weight. When the team mixed white rice with the food instead of brown rice, the same phenomenon was not seen.”

An interesting point, besides the results themselves, is that they now seem to want to create supplements based on the ingredient in brown rice which seems to cause this effect. Brown rice has never been popular in Japan, and it’s hard to get people to eat it because it has a history of being a “poor person’s food.”

I actually like brown rice, but almost never eat it because I don’t know how to make it and can’t find any “instant brown rice” here. In fact, I will reveal a shocking secret. Even though I’ve lived in Japan for almost 29 years I have never cooked rice, not even once, in my life. There – you now know my secret.

What I do is heat up microwave rice. But after reading that article I’m going to try to make brown rice. Maybe prepare a week’s worth and freeze it in 200 gm packets I can heat up?

doug