Nutritionally Speaking: Rice Doesn’t Keep Well

Dear Dr. Meinig: Thank you for your recent article on rice. This is a product that seems to keep well but I seem to remember reading or being told that it does not store in large quantities like wheat does. Could you enlighten us, as it is less expensive to buy rice in 25 and 50 lb. bags. – G.C.

 

Dear G.C.: A good article on this very question by my friend Bargyla Rateaver, Ph.D., ap-peared some time ago in Let’s Live Magazine. I called Dr. Rateaver and she gave me permission to reprint it, as did Let’s Live and the copyright holder, Oxford Industry, Inc.

Incidentally, in talking to me, she spoke of her own trip to the Lundberg Rice Farm in Richvale, Calif. She mentioned that their field of organic rice showed at a glance that the soil there was infinitely superior to that of the one next to it grown for competitive commercial purposes. Should any of you write to Lundberg’s, I would recommend purchasing only their organically grown brown rice.

Now here is Dr. Rateaver’s article, RANCIDITY IN RICE:

“It has long been known that wheat in its hull lasts for years, but the same is not true for rice. Although rice does not have the same oil content as wheat, it nevertheless can acquire rancidity in its oil content.

In the hull, rice will keep longer than when hulled, but no rice should be expected to keep for years. There is no point in the consumers’ buying 50 lb. sacks, unless cool storage, below 60 degrees F., can be guaranteed, which in California means the refrigerator or freezer, except along cool coastlines.

If rice is bought in the hull, how will it be milled in the home? I recall from my youth in Madagascar, where every hired person was paid partly in rice; the unhulled grain was kept in huge bins on the breezeway beside the kitchen. In such a hot, tropical climate, nothing can be kept long, but there was no worry with rice, because everyone ate it three times a day and the bin was frequently emptied and refilled. Before each meal, the rice was put into a mortar and pounded with pestles, and then winnowed before cooking.

In temperate climates, under commercial operations, rice is stored with a view to pests and rancidity, both. The one big source of organically grown rice is the Lundberg Brothers of Richvale, Calif. They keep a very, very clean millroom, and use special rubber rollers for the mill, which does less scratching of the grains and causes fewer to crack up; this means less rancidity hazards, and less pests in the corners where not-so-clean-operations harbor bran bugs and weevils. All rice is stored in refrigerated silos.

Refrigeration alone is not the only precaution these conscientious people take. The rice is rotated and aspirated. This means the rice is constantly stirred by large augers which take the grains out of one bin and into elevators, all the while, air is being moved over the grains.

The moving air helps to dry off any larvae of the bran bugs and the weevils, and aspirates whisks the pests off the rice. This is all done automatically inside the storage system, and usually in the cool morning hours.

In hot climates, such as the interior California valleys, it is impossible to keep sun-exposed silos very cold, but the Lundbergs sell off their rice rapidly; the longest rice stays in storage is a year to a year-and-a-fourth, meaning that rice stays in through two cold seasons and is pretty well cooled off. In the summer the cool air is aspirated through it, which helps to keep as close to 60 degrees as is possible. Lifting the rice as it flows from auger to bin makes it possible to blow the cool air over each grain and remove any pests which may be there. The bugs are air-blown off.

In spite of the favorable price, one should not buy a large quantity of rice for eating unless he can spare the refrigerator or freezer space. Our family buys it in 60 lb. bags because we use it so fast, but even so, it is always refrigerated in a tightly closed bag which is tied smaller each time it is emptied of part of its content, to keep the air off too.

We should be very grateful to the Lundbergs for their long, hard fight against the hazards of growing rice organically in the midst of poison sprayers who use air power for every operation, spreading contamination wherever it may fall. They have steadfastly withstood the competition and provided us with a pure product which is much cleaner than rice from other sources, on every level and by any criteria. It has been very difficult and very expensive for them to do this, but they have kept on with innovations and experimentation until they have finally solved most of the problems.

Because others, considered to be well-worth-high-pay-and-respect, have stated that rice need not be kept cold because it does not turn rancid. I suggest you do not strain your loyalty, but ask any university which has the knowledge for the documented data.”