Brown rice

My organisation has litle 'communities of interest' set up by people who share a common interest to come together and further their interest. Recently, this lady in my office starting eating healthily in a bid to lose weight and for general well-being. She went full time into brown rice and started to gather a following. She decided to set up a brown rice COI.

One of the 'activities' of this COI was to cook brown rice for everyone for lunch, and everyone brings their own food as they share lunch together. Last week, I walked in on the pantry when the rice was cooking and my, I was pleasantly surprised by the fragrance of the rice that whafted out from the pantry. It smelt like baking bread!

Piqued, I decided to ask her for some brown rice cooking tips. I have heard horror stories about cooking brown rice, like how it takes a zillion hours to cook and needs a specific amount of water. None of the 'hand' or 'finger' method of measuring water here!

Here are some tips she shared. Firstly, she recommended using the old fashioned electric rice cooker (the idiot kind), rather than those expensive new- fangled Japanese 'fuzzy logic' rice cookers. The former takes a lot less time to cook any form of rice, and it's also easier to clean up afterwards. Secondly, she said that eating brown rice is more filling than eating white rice, so this helps you to cut down on your portions. This is supposed to be why it is the weight-watchers' answer to GI and a lower carb diet. Lastly, she drew up a chart of recommended water to rice to serving proportions. Here it is:

She recommended Songhe brand, saying that the rice has been washed once before, so when you rinse the rice, it's cleaner. Thus, you only need to rinse the rice once. She has also tried Pineapple brand, which is totally unprocessed. The rice is thus dirtier and requires that you rinse it more than once. However, this may appeal to people who believe that less processing is more 'organic'.
So now it's my turn. I've just brought my first bag of brown rice and I'm raring to go. Altho some people seem to have 'problems' eating brown rice e.g. they'll mix it with white rice, or first-timers find that it over stimulates their bowel movements, this isn't the first time I've tried it. Mom and Gran experimented with replacing white rice with brown rice in our diet many years back. I don't exactly know why they abandoned their attempts, but I'm willing to give it a shot again, if only just to enjoy the beautiful aroma whafting through my kitchen as the rice cooks!