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People have been eating white rice for millenia. I don't believe white rice is as bad for you as white bread.

by astazangasta 7y ago

Havoc 7y ago
People have also been dying young for millenia. Not really a good measure of how healthy things are.
- JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
  And people have been dying in general since the dawn of humanity. Dying young is the effect of far more than food. So I would argue dying young is an equally bad metric to make your case.
- astazangasta 7y ago
  Come on. Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia?
  - failrate 7y ago
    The Japanese Naval fleet was once almost completely ruined by beri-beri due to diets of polished white rice.
    - astazangasta 7y ago
      I am not claiming rice is a nutritionally complete food, I'm saying it is a perfectly fine part of a healthy diet.
  - novia 7y ago
    Fun fact. Asian people suffer the health effects from high body mass (such as diabetes) sooner than people of other ethnic groups, and because of this their obesity BMI cutoff is actually lower. So, while you may not see Asians that look huge compared to what you're used to seeing, they do in fact have trouble with obesity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/
  - Havoc 7y ago
    >Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia? See that's a much better line of reasoning than the one I was objecting to. As for obesity in Asia. My main question there would be total calories intake. I mean you can stay thin on McDonalds if you calorie count it...
  - wyclif 7y ago
    If you think there's no obesity problem in "Asia", visit the Philippines. Now, a lot of the current obesity epidemic there is caused by the introduction of Western-style junk food, but it's also caused by eating too many carbs (rice) and combining that with unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food, so I'm not saying it's all because of processed, high glycemic index white rice. But if they switched to brown rice it would help a lot. Easier said than done, because it's a cultural thing. Almost all of the good stuff in natural rice (the bran and chaff contain many vitamins and a lot of fibre) is stripped off in making commercial white rice.
    - matwood 7y ago
      I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food'. To bring it back to HN, switching rice types is optimizing an already fast function to make it a bit faster while leaving the obvious bottleneck untouched. This is thought process is exactly what my earlier comments were addressing. Worrying about white rice when consuming cookies and soda all day. A person should worry about things like rice and fresh potatoes after getting rid of all the garbage from their diet.
      - wyclif 7y ago
        I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food' But I didn't say that. In fact, I carefully qualified my statement, saying that the majority of the obesity problem is caused by junk food. And note, I never said brown rice is a "cure", I actually said it would help. The implication was clearly that by itself (without reducing a diet of processed foods and soft drinks), it's not going to be effective. I just can't fathom how you got "cure" out of my comment. You know, I'm getting a bit tired of commenting here on HN if this is the sort of conversation I'm going to have, where I'm cautious about making sweeping and unsupported statements, and where I take pains to qualify my comments so that people don't get the wrong idea. It's too bad that no matter how much I try to head such comments off at the pass, someone will reply reflexively without reading carefully.
internet_user 7y ago
rice is one of the most hypoallergenic foods. GI index isn't everything.
failrate 7y ago
White rice is bad. Brown rice is better. A mix of rides and other grains is even better.
- firethief 7y ago
  It not so simple. Arsenic bad too.
  - failrate 7y ago
    Yes, arsenic concentration in rice is a consideration. However, this is not germaine to the discussion of what constitutes a healthy rice intake from the carbohydrates:fiber ratios. Edit: arsenic concentrations in rice has more to do with where the rice is geown than the type of rice. For example, I don't buy rice from Arkansas.
    - firethief 7y ago
      I didn't realize only macros were germaine. In that case yes, it is as simple as you make it sound.
dgudkov 7y ago
White rice is not dangerous per se. Eating it won't kill you. The problem is that people nowadays move much less than they used to do it for millennia, because of changes in the way people get around (cars), entertain themselves (TV/internet), and work (office/knowledge work). Carbs provide high calories which made them popular in the times where any work was mostly physical work and people needed more calories. Nowadays, the modern lifestyle requires less calories therefore meals that served people well for millennia are no longer suitable as they provide too much calories. There are other factors -- dramaticaly increased affordability and abundance of food, and mass use of taste enhancers in food (such as sugar and salt) that make people overeat, but that's another story.

People have been eating white rice for millenia. I don't believe white rice is as bad for you as white bread.

Havoc 7y ago

People have also been dying young for millenia. Not really a good measure of how healthy things are.

JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
And people have been dying in general since the dawn of humanity. Dying young is the effect of far more than food. So I would argue dying young is an equally bad metric to make your case.
astazangasta 7y ago
Come on. Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia?
- failrate 7y ago
  The Japanese Naval fleet was once almost completely ruined by beri-beri due to diets of polished white rice.
  - astazangasta 7y ago
    I am not claiming rice is a nutritionally complete food, I'm saying it is a perfectly fine part of a healthy diet.
- novia 7y ago
  Fun fact. Asian people suffer the health effects from high body mass (such as diabetes) sooner than people of other ethnic groups, and because of this their obesity BMI cutoff is actually lower. So, while you may not see Asians that look huge compared to what you're used to seeing, they do in fact have trouble with obesity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#International_... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/
- Havoc 7y ago
  >Rice is the staple crop for most of Asia. If it is so unhealthy why is there no galloping obesity across Asia? See that's a much better line of reasoning than the one I was objecting to. As for obesity in Asia. My main question there would be total calories intake. I mean you can stay thin on McDonalds if you calorie count it...
- wyclif 7y ago
  If you think there's no obesity problem in "Asia", visit the Philippines. Now, a lot of the current obesity epidemic there is caused by the introduction of Western-style junk food, but it's also caused by eating too many carbs (rice) and combining that with unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food, so I'm not saying it's all because of processed, high glycemic index white rice. But if they switched to brown rice it would help a lot. Easier said than done, because it's a cultural thing. Almost all of the good stuff in natural rice (the bran and chaff contain many vitamins and a lot of fibre) is stripped off in making commercial white rice.
  - matwood 7y ago
    I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food'. To bring it back to HN, switching rice types is optimizing an already fast function to make it a bit faster while leaving the obvious bottleneck untouched. This is thought process is exactly what my earlier comments were addressing. Worrying about white rice when consuming cookies and soda all day. A person should worry about things like rice and fresh potatoes after getting rid of all the garbage from their diet.
    - wyclif 7y ago
      I'm not sure how you can say that changing from white to brown rice is the cure when people are consuming 'unhealthy amounts of soft drinks and processed food' But I didn't say that. In fact, I carefully qualified my statement, saying that the majority of the obesity problem is caused by junk food. And note, I never said brown rice is a "cure", I actually said it would help. The implication was clearly that by itself (without reducing a diet of processed foods and soft drinks), it's not going to be effective. I just can't fathom how you got "cure" out of my comment. You know, I'm getting a bit tired of commenting here on HN if this is the sort of conversation I'm going to have, where I'm cautious about making sweeping and unsupported statements, and where I take pains to qualify my comments so that people don't get the wrong idea. It's too bad that no matter how much I try to head such comments off at the pass, someone will reply reflexively without reading carefully.

internet_user 7y ago

rice is one of the most hypoallergenic foods. GI index isn't everything.

failrate 7y ago

White rice is bad. Brown rice is better. A mix of rides and other grains is even better.

firethief 7y ago
It not so simple. Arsenic bad too.
- failrate 7y ago
  Yes, arsenic concentration in rice is a consideration. However, this is not germaine to the discussion of what constitutes a healthy rice intake from the carbohydrates:fiber ratios. Edit: arsenic concentrations in rice has more to do with where the rice is geown than the type of rice. For example, I don't buy rice from Arkansas.
  - firethief 7y ago
    I didn't realize only macros were germaine. In that case yes, it is as simple as you make it sound.

dgudkov 7y ago

White rice is not dangerous per se. Eating it won't kill you. The problem is that people nowadays move much less than they used to do it for millennia, because of changes in the way people get around (cars), entertain themselves (TV/internet), and work (office/knowledge work). Carbs provide high calories which made them popular in the times where any work was mostly physical work and people needed more calories. Nowadays, the modern lifestyle requires less calories therefore meals that served people well for millennia are no longer suitable as they provide too much calories. There are other factors -- dramaticaly increased affordability and abundance of food, and mass use of taste enhancers in food (such as sugar and salt) that make people overeat, but that's another story.