Food Tip: Brown Rice and Wild Rice

by Shereen Jegtvig

Eating foods from the grains and cereals food group is essential for a healthy balanced diet.  The grains and cereals give your body energy and can offer fiber, vitamins and minerals.  Typically, we think of grains as being wheat, oats and barley, but rice fits into the grains and cereals category too, although technically rice is not a grain, but a grass.

There are several types of rice that vary in starchiness, shape and size, plus there are subtle differences in flavor.  Most of the rice you’ll find is white rice that has had the bran covering removed, which gives your rice dish that fluffy texture.  Unfortunately, stripping the bran removes the fiber and some nutrients.  Although any type of rice will give your body energy from the starch stored inside each seed, your best bet for good health is to choose brown rice over white rice for extra fiber. 

Brown rice has a slightly different texture because it isn’t as fluffy as white rice, and a nuttier flavor, which is quite delicious.  An alternative is wild rice, which really isn’t rice, it’s actually a grain (yes, I know, it gets confusing sometimes).  Wild rice is more aromatic and has a stronger flavor than brown rice.  Wild rice blends nicely with mushrooms  and the flavor can be softened a bit with broths or by mixing the wild rice with brown rice.

The best part about brown and wild rice is that it’s so easy to buy the healthy stuff.  You’ll find plain bags of both wild and brown rice in most any grocery store.  You’ll also find pre-packaged side dish mixes for both brown and wild rice, but watch out for extra sodium, fats and unwanted additives.

Take a look:

The top two products from Farmhouse are side dishes that contain all the extra seasonings  – both have a lot of sodium per serving, although they use natural ingredients.  The rest of the products are simply bags and boxes of brown or wild rice. Perfect for delicious recipes like this wild rice and mushroom dish from Dr. Andrew Weil.

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