White rice selection

Dear ALL,
Rice is a staple diet of many around the world. But how are you choosing your rice, or if one wish to choose a healthier option of the available white rice, how do we choose that… Can please share your criteria of selection of the rice, because i find it too hard to choose between the various options that are now available in the market. The rice variety that i see are mostly AA, AAA, Fragrant rice (mostly these come from Thailand, Philippines), Basmati rice (India). Some of these are sticky rice variety. Yes there are rice with low GI available.

1. What type of white rice shall one choose if it is not parboiled and brown rice.
   (Lets keep brown rice aside for the moment).

Rice is one of my favorite cereal grain.and I prefer white rice as it’s easier to digest.It does not matter whether short grain or long grain. waxy or not as long it will be accommodated to a particular cuisine I partake.
I prefer it fragrant like the Jasmine of Thailand , Basmati of India or Dinorado of the Philippines.
Often it should not be overly aged as it can impart a musty or " old rice" taste which can be distracting and affecting the cuisine harmony…

Can we have more reply on your choices of rice, please.
I would also like to know if Basmati rice is any better than normal white rice in terms of health. Or we could say that there is no uniform parameters when choosing a rice (healthier version).

Basmati rice is prepared often as pilaf ( pulao) as well as Biriyani…so nutritionally as it’s not cooked alone but with other ingredients the end product has more nutrients than other white rice like Jasmine which are often cooked plain.
However if all white rice are cooked Identically as plain ( in a rice cooker) with just water ,they are nutritionally similar…

Rice is a food which is generally consumed globally, due to different processing methods of white rice they may possess different variations of nutrients

yes, we consume this throughout our life time. But apparently so hard to know which one is the best among those varieties…

Personal criteria for Well milled white Rice Selection
1.Availability
2. Fragrant and taste good
3 Easy to cook.
4 Reasonable price
5.Fresh milled and not aged
Note:
As white rice had similar nutrients quality I ignored this and those enriched rice …They are all carbohydrates rich with not much difference in proximate analysis.values

White rice is never a healthy option due to it’s high GI values. Comparison wise there is a very slight difference in nutritional value so just like what the other posters said ,they are similar.

Regarding healthy rice its obvious the darker ones are the best. Here is an interesting link about it.

So ultimately we come to the point that brown rice is better than white rice. So this is again similar to our thoughts related to oils - consume variety of oils and the same now goes for rice as well. Include brown rice, parboiled rice and basmati rice for certain meals though white rice remains our main favourite.

In southern India, we consume rice on daily basis. Most of our dishes were rice or product of rice. From my experience, we select rice majorly based on cooking time, taste and type of dish. Since, rice varieties have their own cons and pros. It is very difficult to say “This one is the best rice”. One have to consider the GI values of rice since rice have higher GI values major reason for higher diabetic prevalence in India.
My suggestion is select the rice based on the dish you are going to prepare.

Aged rice is best

I agree to some extent, as aging improves hydration and it provides better yield upon cooking ,but I would be careful not to over store or overage rice, due to the off flavor it can impart in the cooked rice that can range from musty to rancid off smell and taste.

yes i have seen some of the rice packets labelled with the period of aging (1 yr ). This was especially seen for Basmati rice. Exploring further on my good quality rice search, i purchased 3 different kinds of rice. Two of them are products from Thailand, of which one was chosen based on the labelling as ‘brown’ rice and labeled as Health plus, this was also rice vacuum packed (which i thought is a superior packaging). The other one was normal fragrant rice. The 3rd one was Basmati rice - product of India. Understand each one might have different benefits or drawbacks. But what surprised me was the Healthplus brown rice - in its texture (both before and after cooking), and was non-consumable. If you toss a cup of this raw rice, it sounds like a weightless item/rubbery type, and when i try to break it isn’t crispy (ie, not easily breakable like normal rice), & after cooking ( i would say it didn’t even get cooked for a very long time) it was so rubbery. Second day, another attempt was made to soak this rice in water for few hours before cooking, and yet again no difference. I am more of a sustainable person, and cant think of wasting this new purchase as well…The other 2 were fine, consumable and i am fine with it. Any comments or suggestions on what are your expectations of brown rice or such healthier quality rice!