I highly doubt that AtlasObscura article, it sounds like a classical urban myth. In East Asia there are tens if not hundreds of millions of people who've eaten

I highly doubt that AtlasObscura article, it sounds like a classical urban myth. In East Asia there are tens if not hundreds of millions of people who've eaten nothing but white rice as the staple in their diet their whole life, and it's not caused any issues as far as I'm aware. Of course if you eat just rice and nothing else, that might be unhealthy. But that's not an issue with white rice.