Is white rice good for you?

 Many have claimed that white rice is bad for you including the well-renowned Dr David Sinclair. I agree with many of his views, including that fasting may be the single biggest thing you can do to improve your health - others such as Dr Layne Norton disagree with this and maintain caloric restriction provides equivalent benefits. In either case, your health will improve.

On to the claim that white rice is bad for you! Is it true?

If this claim were true then the 10,000+ years of white rice ingestion by Asian cultures would surely have lead to chronic disease and obesity. This is not what we have seen. These cultures remained healthy, lean and free of the ‘diseases of modern civilisation’.

Context is important in diet and it is inappropriate to point the finger in such a way without it.

The epidemiology (which can be a very weak and poor argument in many situations) does not support the theory that white rice is a problem given the 10,000 years of relative health that these cultures enjoyed while having up to 95% of their diet come from white rice. In this case, the epidemiology is a very strong indicator that this theory is incorrect.

Diseases of modern civilisation started showing up in rice-eating cultures once they were introduced to processed foods. So it is clearly something to do with the westernised diet that is causing issues. No culture that has been exposed to it has escaped unscathed.

My two cents: it seems that polyunsaturated fats are the biggest culprit. It is the only single cause I have found that explains every tribe, nation or culture’s health outcomes.