Reasons Steaming Parboiled Rice Is Bad For Health

Parboiled rice

Sometimes, the post in this blog is because of life experience. This post is a perfect example of that. Some of the bag of rice in Nigeria carry the label ‘premium parboil.’ My neighbour measured some quantity from her bag of rice and wants to cook it. She has to soak it in water before watching it, light the cooking gas, place a clean cooking pot on the fire, added the rice with some quantity of water. Some few minutes later, she brought the whole stuff down. As I was watching, she filtered out the water and transferred the rice back to the pot adding fresh water. After some more minutes, she brought the whole pot down.

This is the typical scenario in many homes today. This practice can be traced back to years ago. Even some blogs on how to cook rice in Nigeria describe the above method. A look at foreign blogs on how to cook rice for a better result suggest methods that have a better rationale protecting the nutrients and at the same time giving a nice taste and looks. However, none of the Nigerian blogs specifies the type of rice you can use as it is a general practice.
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In the 90s, there is two type of rice in the country, Ekpoma, which is the local rice and Uncle Ben, which is a foreign product. The local rice has not gone through any processing method. This is different with the foreign rice that is parboiled. In fact, it is clearly written in most of them premium parboil. The characteristics of the local rice are different from the foreign rice. This is because the processing method is different. This translate to the cost of the rice. Because of this, foreign rice, which is more expensive, is considered the food for the rich.
The above description of cooking rice was the general method of cooking local rice. The reason is that it prevents the rice from getting sticky. If the cook fails to go through this route, the rice will not be tasty and sticky.
Situations changed when the economy of the country started to improve and the so-called poor could now afford the foreign rice. However, the practice of parboiling rice continued even with the foreign rice. Hardly will you find a home that does not practice this in the country. Many persons ignored any explanation against it. To them, there are still benefits like the local rice. The consequence of this act is much as we shall see in this post.
To get to know the consequences, it is important we get to know how these rice are processed before getting to us. That way, we would understand the great mistake in steaming rice.
There are two types of rice, which is brown and white rice. In addition, the methods of preparing them are just two, which is wet and dry. The dry method is general for immediate consumption among family. The wet method is used for rice that they export. Since the majority of foreign rice goes through this process, let us see the process.
The processing of local rice involves removing the husk and packaging before selling. The process of imported foreign rice is quite different.
There are two methods of preparing foreign rice. The practice in India is the oldest and the most common. This is different from that of the Americas.

How To Prepare Rice In America

The harvested grains together with their husk is dry to reduce moisture. The drying method depends on many factors. The dried rice known as rough rice is grind in automated mills. It is filtered from debris and other particles using sieves and blowing method.
The light coloured rice is cooled and polish by a brush machine. The next stage, which is the important step, is for the rice to be steam (parboil), dried and milled. The steaming hardens the starch so that they remain firmer, less sticky, and separate when cooked in a short time.
The rice is shelved to remove the husk. The husk particles are separated from the rice. As for brown rice, the bran, which is the outer coating, is removed using a huller machine. The bran contains a high percentage of oil, which encourage spoilage of the rice in no distant time. Removing it serves as preservation techniques.
In most times, vitamins and minerals are added to the kernel layer to compensate for the bran remove in a controlled manner.
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How To Prepare Rice In India

The Indian method is very simple. It involves steaming the rice with the husk. The oil dissolves into the husk while the nutrients go into the kernel. The starch also becomes firmer. The husk is removed and the rice package.
From the two methods described above, it is very clear that the rice imported has already been parboiled. It is even clearly written on the body of the package sack ‘parboiled.’ Now the question is ‘why parboil again?’ After all cooking this rice well is not sticky. However, those that still practice this claim that it is still sticky and the quantity of starch remove is not enough by the manufacturer.

Disadvantages

There are obviously no benefits of re parboiling so I will list the disadvantages.

1. The extra added nutrient will be lost to the hot water because the husk that does prevent the nutrients from leaving during steaming is no longer there
2. Saves you time
3. Saves you cooking fuel

Advantages Of Steaming During Production Process

1. Hardens the grains and prevent breakage during husking
2. Kill insects in the grains
3. Removes the oil that leads to spoilage
4. Promotes movements of nutrients from bran to the grain

Are there any benefits of steaming local rice? Yes, there is. However, there are no benefits when it is done wrong. Boiling a rice without its husk will only cause the nutrients to leave into the water. Therefore, technically there are no benefits. The best way to do it is to soak the rice in cold water for minutes before cooking.
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