Brown Rice: Benefits, Nutrition, vs. White Rice & How to Cook It

Brown rice is rice in its whole form: only the inedible outer hull has been taken off, so it keeps the bran and germ that milling strips away to make white rice, and with them the grain's fiber, magnesium, manganese and B vitamins.167 Brown rice is one of the grains I recommend, eaten in a low to moderate amount and ideally soaked or sprouted first, because the whole grain digests more slowly and raises your blood sugar more gently than white rice does.8910112

Much of the blood sugar trouble people live with today goes back to refining. As I've said on my show, the biggest culprit behind insulin resistance, by far, is sugar and refined grains.9 Milling turns rice into a refined grain too, polishing it down to its fast-digesting starch, while brown rice keeps the grain whole, so your stomach empties it more slowly, the sugar reaches your blood more gently and you get the minerals that grew with the starch.1121 That's food as medicine at its simplest, and it's why brown rice has a set place on the dinner plate in my protocol for insulin resistance: half a cup beside baked wild salmon and broccoli.5

Rice cooked low and slow is also one of the oldest healing foods for digestion. Chinese medicine has long used congee, rice simmered until it breaks down into a soft porridge, as a medicinal food, and I prefer congee made from brown rice.12 If steadier blood sugar is part of why you're here, the protocol below shows you exactly how to build brown rice into your meals.

Did you know?

• In one blood sugar study, the brown rice and the white rice came from the same batch of the same variety, so the only difference between them was milling, and the brown rice raised blood sugar less.13

• As brown rice begins to sprout, it builds up GABA, a calming compound your nervous system also makes.14

• In Chinese medicine, congee is believed to help your energy circulate, especially when you eat it in the morning, and to improve your sleep as well as your digestion.12

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Is brown rice healthy?

Your body was designed to run on whole foods, and a grain is a good example of why that matters. Left whole, a kernel of rice comes packaged with the fiber, minerals and B vitamins your body needs to handle its starch, and when milling takes those layers away, what's left is starch that moves into your blood quickly.7111 Swapping the refined grain for the whole one is one of the simplest changes you can make at the root of the blood sugar problem, and the research in people shows it: smaller rises in blood sugar after meals, a lower risk of type 2 diabetes over the years and a little more weight lost, all covered below.234

I keep grains on the plate, and the ones I recommend are whole, organic and properly prepared, which is how traditional cultures ate them.1015 I group rice with quinoa and millet among the grains that keep their bran and germ, and with them their fiber, minerals and plant compounds.7 Brown rice is still a starch, though, so the amount matters, and that's where your portion and the rest of your plate come in.9

Brown rice nutrition facts

Calculated from USDA FoodData Central records 169704 (rice, brown, long-grain, cooked) and 168878 (rice, white, long-grain, regular, enriched, cooked). A cup of cooked brown rice weighs 202 grams and a cup of cooked white rice 158 grams. % Daily Value uses FDA adult reference values.16

Manganese is the standout, at 86% of the daily value in a single cup,1 and it's a mineral your body uses in the enzymes that handle carbohydrates and protect your cells; our guide to manganese explains more. The B vitamins come next, niacin and thiamin,1 which help your body release the energy stored in that starch, and the magnesium and phosphorus in brown rice are two of the minerals your bones are built from. Brown rice also brings small amounts of the vitamin E family, including 0.93 milligrams of gamma-tocotrienol per cup, a form of vitamin E concentrated in grain oils.1

The macros are simple: brown rice is mostly carbohydrate, about 25.6 grams per 100 grams cooked, with 2.74 grams of protein and less than 1 gram of fat, and almost all of that carbohydrate is starch, with half a gram of sugar in a cup.1 Gram for gram, it has slightly fewer calories than white rice (123 per 100 grams against 130), and the cup comparison above flips only because a cup of brown rice is heavier.16

Brown rice vs. white rice: what's the difference?

Both start as the same seed of Oryza sativa. Milling polishes away the outer layers, and what it takes with them shows up row after row in the nutrition table: gram for gram, the brown grain keeps about twice the manganese, more than twice the phosphorus and about five times the riboflavin.16 Brown rice also has about three and a half times the fat of white rice (0.97 grams against 0.28 per 100 grams), the natural oils of the bran and germ, and it tastes nuttier and chews a little firmer, too.16

White rice comes out ahead on iron and folate, because enriched white rice has synthetic iron, folic acid and some B vitamins added back after milling, and the two rices are about even on selenium.106 A cup of brown rice brings 1.13 milligrams of its own iron, along with the zinc and magnesium that milling removes and enrichment doesn't put back.16

The difference shows up in your blood, too. On the international glycemic index tables, boiled brown rice averages 68 and boiled white rice 73,16 and in glycemic index terms that's a modest gap, because the variety and the way rice is cooked move the number as well. The trials in the benefits section, where people ate both rices in otherwise matched meals, show the difference more clearly.132

White rice still has its place while a gut heals: people working through SIBO tend to do very well on bland, easy-to-eat foods like jasmine rice cooked soft in a slow cooker with chicken.17 For everyday meals, though, brown rice gives you more of what the grain was designed to carry.

How brown rice works in your body

Think of the bran as the grain's own jacket. It wraps the starchy center of the kernel, along with the germ, and as long as it's there, your digestion has to work through it before it reaches the starch.711 In a study of 10 healthy adults who each ate several kinds of brown and white rice, brown rice emptied from the stomach more slowly than white rice whatever its starch type, and the researchers traced that slower pace to the bran layer itself, which helps explain why brown rice raises blood sugar less.11

That slower pace eases the load on your pancreas, too: in a study in which men with and without metabolic syndrome each ate both rices, insulin rose less after the brown rice meal than after the white rice meal.18 The chain from your plate to your blood runs like this:

The same grain can also go to work on your gut. Cooked long and slow until it breaks down into congee, rice is believed in Traditional Chinese Medicine to warm and heal the digestive system.12 For a stressed gut, I recommend warming foods like soups, stews, cooked vegetables, rice congee made into a porridge and herbal tea, because from the TCM perspective you want to warm the body.17

Soaking or sprouting the grain before you cook it adds one more step in your favor, because it starts breaking down phytic acid, one of the antinutrients in the bran, which holds on to minerals, so your body can absorb more of them.715 The soaking and sprouting section below shows you how.

Brown rice benefits, ranked by the research

Ranked by the strength of the research in people, these are the benefits brown rice brings you:

Soaking and sprouting brown rice

Most of us cook grains straight from the bag today, but for most of history, grains were prepared before they were eaten, and it's a step worth bringing back to your kitchen:15

Phytic acid is a natural compound in the bran of grains that binds minerals and blocks enzymes in digestion, and lowering it frees up more iron, zinc, calcium and magnesium for your body to use.7 Vitamin C with your meal helps, too, but sprouting and fermentation help even more.15 Sprouting brown rice for 12 to 72 hours cut its phytate by 60% in research cited by a 2019 review of sprouted grains,28 and in lab soaking tests, warmer water worked faster: half the phytic acid in brown rice was gone after 96 hours in water at 86°F (30°C) and after 24 to 36 hours at 122°F (50°C).29 An overnight soak in warm water starts that process, and a sprout of a day or two takes it further. As the grain germinates, it also builds up GABA,14 and in lab work, sprouting and heat processing broke down some of the proteins in brown rice that can trigger allergies.30

Sprouted (germinated) brown rice also has trials of its own. In the 2022 meta-analysis, pre-germinated brown rice, compared with white rice, lowered total cholesterol by 24.22 mg/dL, LDL cholesterol by 20.05 mg/dL, triglycerides by 43.28 mg/dL and fasting blood sugar by 15.83 mg/dL across five trials for each measure, and brought 1.75 kilograms more weight loss across four.4 The single trials point the same way, with fasting blood sugar and blood fats improving on pre-germinated brown rice, but not on white rice, in 11 adults with high fasting blood sugar or type 2 diabetes who each ate both for six weeks apiece,31 and they improved only in the sprouted-rice group in a four-month trial of 60 Vietnamese women aged 45 to 65 with impaired glucose tolerance.32 In the 3-month trial of 68 adults with type 2 diabetes, total and LDL cholesterol were lower on germinated brown rice than on white rice.27

To soak and sprout brown rice at home:

1. Rinse. Put 1 cup of brown rice in a bowl or jar and rinse it well.

2. Soak. Cover it with warm water by a couple of inches and leave it on the counter overnight, about 12 hours.

3. Sprout (optional). Drain it, rinse it and leave it damp in a covered jar or sieve, rinsing twice a day, for 1 to 2 days, just until tiny white tips appear.

4. Cook. Cook soaked or sprouted rice with a little less water than usual, since the grain has already taken some in, and it will be tender sooner.

Sprouted brown rice is also sold ready to cook, and it's worth looking for if you don't have time to sprout your own. If you like sprouted grains, our guide to sprouted grain bread covers the loaves made the same way.

Types of brown rice

Brown rice comes in as many shapes and aromas as white rice, because nearly any rice can be sold brown with just its hull removed:

• Long-grain brown rice cooks up fluffy, with grains that stay separate, which makes it the everyday choice for bowls and sides. It's the kind in the nutrition table above.1
• Medium- and short-grain brown rice are plumper and softer, and short-grain turns sticky, so it's the one to use for sushi bowls, rice pudding and risotto-style dishes.
• Brown basmati is a long, slender, aromatic grain with a nutty flavor that suits Indian and Middle Eastern dishes and pilafs.
• Brown jasmine rice is fragrant and a little soft, and it's the rice in my anti-inflammatory congee.12
• Sprouted brown rice has been soaked until it began to sprout and then dried, so you can cook it like regular brown rice.
• Parboiled brown rice is steamed in its hull before milling, and it's the form that was used in the 3-month trial in India.22

Other whole-grain rices sit close by. Black rice and red rice keep their bran too, and their color comes from anthocyanins and other plant pigments in that bran,33 while wild rice comes from a different grass altogether.

How much brown rice should you eat?

Brown rice is one of the better carbohydrates you can choose, but it's still a carbohydrate, so the portion is part of what makes it work:

Rice sits at the center of some of the world's longest-lived food cultures, and portion is part of how they eat it. Japanese longevity diets feature rice as a staple, but it's traditionally eaten in smaller portions alongside fermented foods like miso, natto and pickled vegetables, and in Okinawa, rice is combined with sweet potatoes, soy and vegetables, a point Dr. Will Cole and I make in Heal Your Cells.7 A small bowl of rice beside a plate full of vegetables, fish and something fermented is a pattern worth copying.

If you're active and training hard, you can eat a little more. My protocol's eat-freely list includes sweet potato, oats or rice after training,5 when your muscles are ready to take in that starch. If you're working on blood sugar, keep to the half cup, eat it after your vegetables and protein, and take a short walk after the meal.5

How to buy and store brown rice

On the food lists in The Biblio Diet, brown rice is on the eat side, with the note that organic and sprouted are best for grains, while rice protein powder and rice milk sit on the avoid side.10 So buy organic brown rice, and sprouted brown rice when you can find it, and cook the whole grain rather than the processed rice products. For the variety, the label tells you what you need: long-grain for fluffy rice, short-grain for sticky dishes, and basmati or jasmine for aroma.

Because brown rice keeps the bran and germ, it also keeps their oils, more than three times the fat of white rice,16 and natural oils can turn rancid over time. Buy an amount you'll use within a few months, store it in an airtight container in a cool, dark cupboard, and keep it in the refrigerator or freezer if you want it to last longer. Fresh brown rice smells mild and nutty; a sharp, oily or stale smell means it's past its best.

How to cook brown rice (stovetop, pasta-style and pressure cooker)

Brown rice takes longer than white rice because water has to work its way through the bran, so give it time, and soak it first if you can, which shortens the cooking and softens the grain. These are the four easiest methods:

Stovetop. Rinse the rice, add it to a pot with the water and a pinch of sea salt, and bring it to a boil. Cover it, turn the heat to low and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the water is absorbed, then take the pot off the heat and leave it covered for 10 minutes before fluffing it with a fork.

Pasta-style. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the rinsed rice and boil it uncovered for about 30 minutes, until it's tender. Drain it in a fine sieve, return it to the pot, cover it and let it steam off the heat for 10 minutes. This method gives you separate, tender grains, and it also lowers the arsenic in the rice, which the safety section explains.

Electric pressure cooker. Add the rinsed rice and water, seal the lid and cook at high pressure for about 22 to 25 minutes, then let the pressure release on its own for 10 minutes. It's the fastest way to cook brown rice, and it turns out soft, even grains.

Rice cooker. Use the brown rice setting and the water line your cooker gives for brown rice, which is usually more water than for white.

Cooked brown rice keeps in the refrigerator for a few days, and it freezes well in portions, so cook a big batch and you'll have the base for several meals.

How to use brown rice

Brown rice is one of the easiest whole grains to work into your week, because it goes with almost anything savory and a few sweet things, too.

Brown rice recipes

The congee and the lemon chicken soup below make warming bowls for fall and winter, and cooked brown rice also works well in a holiday stuffing with mushrooms, celery, onions and fresh herbs. Most of them use about half a cup of cooked rice per serving, with protein and vegetables doing the rest.

Anti-inflammatory brown rice congee

This is my anti-inflammatory congee from Ancient Remedies, made with brown jasmine rice, mushroom broth and turmeric.12 It's simple to make, because the rice does the work as it simmers, which makes it an easy bowl to turn to when your gut needs a rest.

Baked salmon, broccoli and brown rice bowl

Baked wild salmon, broccoli and half a cup of brown rice make a balanced plate, and eating the broccoli and salmon first and the rice last is the order my protocol teaches.5

For a sushi-style version, our smoked salmon sushi bowl works with short-grain brown rice.

Lemon chicken and brown rice soup

This is a take on Greek avgolemono, where egg and lemon whisked into the broth make it creamy without any cream. Start with homemade chicken bone broth if you have it.

Brown rice salad with tomatoes, basil and olive oil

Cooled brown rice holds its shape in a salad, and with ripe tomatoes, basil and good olive oil, it makes a lunch that keeps well for a couple of days.

Coconut brown rice pudding

Short-grain brown rice turns creamy when you simmer it in coconut milk, and a spoonful of raw honey at the end sweetens it without any cane sugar.

For a dairy-free pudding made another way, try our coconut milk pudding.

Chicken and vegetable brown rice stir-fry

Fried rice works best with cold, day-old rice, because the grains have firmed up in the refrigerator and crisp in the pan instead of clumping.

Our salmon stir-fry is a good fish version to serve over brown rice.

Two more ways to cook with it

• Turkey-stuffed bell peppers. Brown rice, ground turkey, tomatoes and herbs baked inside peppers make a complete dinner in one dish; follow our turkey-stuffed bell peppers recipe and use brown rice.
• Kitchari. In Ayurveda, rice simmered with split mung beans, ginger, turmeric and cumin makes kitchari, a gentle one-pot dish eaten during a cleanse; try our cleansing Ayurvedic kitchari with brown rice.

Brown rice side effects and arsenic: who should be careful

Brown rice is a safe, everyday food for most people, and the one thing worth managing is arsenic.

Arsenic. Rice takes up arsenic from the soil and water it grows in, and in brown rice much of it sits in the outer bran layers along with minerals such as manganese and zinc,34 so brown rice carries more inorganic arsenic than white rice: 80% more on average in Consumer Reports' 2014 tests of rice of the same type.35 Arsenic turns up in contaminated groundwater, rice and rice-based products, and fruit juices and wine,7 and inorganic arsenic is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen.36 What matters most is how much rice you eat rather than which rice you choose, and in an analysis of 55 types of rice, switching from white to brown rice raised intake of several essential nutrients and was worth it as long as arsenic levels stayed within the recommended limits.37 To keep your exposure low:

• Keep your portions modest, about half a cup at a meal, and rotate your grains, with quinoa, oats, millet, buckwheat and amaranth on the menu too.510
• Choose brown basmati from California, India or Pakistan, which had about a third less inorganic arsenic than other brown rices in Consumer Reports' testing.35
• Cook it pasta-style in 6 to 10 parts water and drain it. In tests by FDA scientists, cooking brown rice in excess water cut its inorganic arsenic by about 50%,38 and in an earlier test of long-grain and basmati rice, boiling it in 6 parts water and draining removed 45%.39 Parboiling it first in fresh boiling water, draining it, then finishing it with just enough water to absorb removed 54% from brown rice, with no more loss of minerals than cooking in excess water.36 Rinsing alone removes little.38
• For babies and toddlers, vary the grains in place of relying on rice cereal, rice pasta, rice cakes and rice drinks, which can be high in arsenic, and don't give children under 5 rice drinks in place of milk.35 In 2020, the FDA set an action level, its guidance to manufacturers, for inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal.40 Our guide to arsenic in rice covers it in more depth.

Celiac disease and gluten. Rice is naturally gluten-free,41 so plain brown rice suits a gluten-free diet. With celiac disease, choose rice labeled certified gluten-free, since grains can pick up gluten during processing.

Rice allergy. A rice allergy is rare, and it can turn up in people allergic to peaches, who can react to a similar protein in rice called a lipid transfer protein.42 In one study of 10 peach-allergic patients with a history of rice allergy, all 8 who took a rice challenge in which neither they nor the researchers knew who got what reacted, and the other 2 weren't challenged because of past severe reactions.42 If your mouth itches or swells after eating rice, stop eating it, and treat swelling in your throat or trouble breathing as an emergency: call 911.

A sensitive gut. Some people with gut problems don't do well with starches like rice, as the gut card above describes.17 If brown rice leaves you bloated, try it soaked and slow-cooked into congee, and if that doesn't settle, give grains a rest while your gut heals.

Leftover rice. Rice can carry spores of Bacillus cereus, and food poisoning from rice comes mainly from how it's cooled, stored and reheated.43 Cool leftover rice quickly, refrigerate it, and reheat it until it's steaming hot.

Interaction check: Low. None is documented at food amounts.

The bottom line

Brown rice: frequently asked questions

References

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2. Mohan V, Spiegelman D, Sudha V, Gayathri R, Hong B, Praseena K, et al. Effect of brown rice, white rice, and brown rice with legumes on blood glucose and insulin responses in overweight Asian Indians: a randomized controlled trial. Diabetes Technol Ther. 2014;16(5):317-25. doi:10.1089/dia.2013.0259
3. Sun Q, Spiegelman D, van Dam RM, Holmes MD, Malik VS, Willett WC, et al. White rice, brown rice, and risk of type 2 diabetes in US men and women. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(11):961-9. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.109
4. Golzarand M, Toolabi K, Eskandari Delfan S, Mirmiran P. The effect of brown rice compared to white rice on adiposity indices, lipid profile, and glycemic markers: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2022;62(27):7395-7412. doi:10.1080/10408398.2021.1914541
5. Axe J. Insulin Resistance & Prediabetes: The 90-Day Healing Protocol. DrAxe.com; 2026 (p. 21, the 7-day meal plan built on the Phase 1 rules, "vegetables first, whole carbs last and paired with protein, a walk after the two biggest meals"; Monday dinner "Baked wild salmon, broccoli, ½ cup brown rice"; Phase 2 "Build" eat-freely list, "Sweet potato, oats or rice after training").
6. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central: Rice, white, long-grain, regular, enriched, cooked. FDC ID 168878 (SR Legacy, NDB 20045; per 100 g; 1 cup = 158 g). Accessed November 4, 2026.
7. Axe J, Cole W. Heal Your Cells. Avery; 2026. ISBN 9798217181353 (grains passage: ancient grains such as quinoa, millet and rice retain their bran and germ; sprouting reduces phytic acid; Japanese longevity diets eat rice in smaller portions alongside fermented foods. Toxins chapter: "Arsenic is found in contaminated groundwater, rice and rice-based products, and fruit juices and wine.").
8. Axe J. Top 7 Diabetes Triggers You MUST AVOID (How to Reverse Diabetes). The Dr. Josh Axe Show. 2024 (Dr. Axe at 14:09-15:01 and 20:14-20:24; YouTube n67Anrpljo4).
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15. Axe J. 10 Signs You Have an Iron Deficiency (How to Boost Iron Naturally). The Dr. Josh Axe Show. 2024 (Dr. Axe at 22:46-23:07; YouTube JjlsPil8ZSE).
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37. Menon M, Smith A, Fennell J. Essential nutrient element profiles in rice types: a risk-benefit assessment including inorganic arsenic. Br J Nutr. 2022;128(5):888-899. doi:10.1017/S0007114521004025
38. Gray PJ, Conklin SD, Todorov TI, Kasko SM. Cooking rice in excess water reduces both arsenic and enriched vitamins in the cooked grain. Food Addit Contam Part A Chem Anal Control Expo Risk Assess. 2016;33(1):78-85. doi:10.1080/19440049.2015.1103906
39. Raab A, Baskaran C, Feldmann J, Meharg AA. Cooking rice in a high water to rice ratio reduces inorganic arsenic content. J Environ Monit. 2009;11(1):41-4. doi:10.1039/b816906c
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Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS

Doctor of Natural Medicine · Founder, DrAxe.com

Dr. Axe is a certified doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist, and multiple New York Times bestselling author. He has spent 20+ years in clinical practice helping people heal at the root cause and founded one of the most-visited natural-health platforms in the world.

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