 Wine is switching from white rice to brown rice, enable overweight individuals to significantly reduce their weight, their waist size, their blood pressure, and the level of inflammation within their bodies. We think it might be the fiber. Brown rice has four times as much dietary fiber as white, including prebiotic types that foster the growth of our good bacteria, which may help account for the anti-obesity effects of brown rice. Besides the prebiotic fiber, there's all sorts of vitamins and minerals that are lost when brown rice is milled into white, along with phytonutrients, such as gamma-arizonal, which may theoretically help shift one's preferences to healthier foods. There are also petri dish studies that suggest it may help lower cholesterol, and along with other compounds found in rice bran, which is what makes brown rice brown, may inhibit human cancer cell growth. Through antioxidant means, anti-proliferative and pro-cancer cell suicide mechanisms, immune system modulation, and increasing barrier protection. But again, this is all just in test tubes, not people. There are two human studies, though. The Adventist Health Study found that brown rice is one of four foods associated with significantly decreased risk of colorectal polyps, which can turn into colorectal cancer. Eating cooked green vegetables every day was associated with a 24% lower risk, as much as dried fruit, just three times a week. Eating beans, chickpeas, split peas, or lentils at least three times a week was associated with a 33% lower risk, but brown rice seemed to garner 40% lower risk, and that was just a single serving a week or more. The other study reported increased muscle strength after supplementation with the brown rice compound, in hopes that it could provide a side-effect-free alternative to anabolic steroids. But the dose they were giving is equivalent to like 17 cups of brown rice a day, so it's not clear if it works at practical doses. Naturally pigmented rice, such as black rice or red rice, may be even more nutritious than brown. During the last decades, it's been shown that these natural anthocyanin plant pigments may have a variety of beneficial effects. They're what makes blueberries blue and red cabbage red. Recent recognition of the fact that diets rich in plant foods lower the risk of cancer promotes enthusiasm for isolating these compounds as pharmaceutical agents. But why not just eat the blueberries, or add some red cabbage to your stir fry, a top some colorful rice. Black, purple, and red rice and their pigment compounds have been shown a variety of antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-heart disease, anti-diabetes, anti-allergy activities. But these are all studies done in the lab. We don't yet have clinical studies, but they have everything that brown rice has, plus five times more antioxidants in all these extra goodies. So that's why I always cook red, black, or purple rice, or rather my rice cooker does, always with a handful of lentils or split peas thrown in for good measure since they cook in the same timeframe. But why don't most people even choose brown over white? Well, brown doesn't last as long on the shelves, so it can actually be more expensive, even though it's less processed, whereas white rice is like apocalypse food, even putting twinkies to shame still edible after 30 years, though by then may have a slight Play-Doh odor.