10 Reasons to add Brown Rice to your Diet
I’m going to start documenting all the brown rice combos I come up with. Brown rice is like the best staple you can eat. And it’s extremely versatile. So I’m officially promoting brown rice!! It’s awesome, eat some! Eat it once a day or maybe every other day.
So you might be thinking, “what is so great about brown rice? It actually sounds really bland and boring…” Well, brown rice by itself is pretty boring…but when you add all sorts of great veggies and olive oil it can be one of the best tasting things ever!
For instance today, I heated brown rice and kidney beans together, then added raw chopped cabbage, artichokes, kalamata olives, Gorgonzola cheese, and olive oil. So good! So satisfying!
I could go on and on about brown rice, but I’m going to keep it short and sweet. Here we go, 10 reasons to add brown rice to your diet.
1. It is extremely high in both insoluble and soluble fiber which helps rid your digestive track of toxins.
2. It contains selenium, a trace mineral that has been proven to help prevent colon cancer.
3. Brown rice helps you lose weight because it is a unrefined whole grain full of fiber. Unrefined grains go through our systems much easier than refined grains, like white rice, which are much harder to digest. I lost 12 within about a month of a half of consistently eating brown rice and other whole grains.
4.The oil in brown rice helps lower LDL (bad cholesterol).
5. Brown rice contains magnesium which lowers blood pressure reducing risks of heart attacks and strokes.
6. Brown rice is a gluten free food.
7. Brown rice when combined with beans or lentils contains all eight essential amino acids. These proteins are essential for life but we cannot make them in our bodies, therefore we need to consume foods containing these eight amino acids. These are the same proteins found in meat, but without all the bad saturated fats that come along with eating red meat.
8. The effects of asthma can be reduced with brown rice because the anti inflammatory compounds it contains.
9. Because of it’s high mineral and vitamin content, it keeps our hair, teeth and nails all nice and pretty.
10. It’s easy to make!! I don’t care what you say, this is one of the easiest meals to make. Why? Because now they have frozen organic brown rice! So I just pop it in the microwave for 3 minutes and it turns out perfect. Look, I don’t know how to cook rice and I eat it almost everyday, so no excuses!
2 Responses to “10 Reasons to add Brown Rice to your Diet”
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Kate
that looks so good! I think I am going to have that for lunch today!
I have recipe for you, then.
Tropical Rice Pudding:
Combine cooked brown rice with a small amount of light brown sugar, reduced fat coconut milk, dried pineapples, almond slices, shredded coconut, etc. I heat it in the rice cooker, being careful not to add the coconut milk until most of the water is absorbed. It comes out very delicious, high in fiber and low in fats and sugar. I adapted this recipe from my husband’s diabetic cookbook so that my dairy-allergic daughter could have it, and we pair it with our homemade curried potatoes.
Curried potatoes:
We buy the frozen cubed potatoes with onions and peppers, toss it with oil in the wok, and add coconut milk, ginger, curry powder, cumin, a splash of soy sauce, diced apples and occasionally chicken. I’ve eaten at authentic Punjabi restaurants, and it comes very close to their mild curries and kormas.