The Benefits of Eating Parboiled Rice

Most of us know that rice is one of the most consumed foods on this planet and more than 50% of its human population relies on rice as its staple food item. Of the many, amazing varieties of rice used globally, one is parboiled rice. This moniker might fool you into believing that it is a pre-cooked/boiled variety, but that is just not the case.

Most of us know that rice is one of the most consumed foods on this planet and more than 50% of its human population relies on rice as its staple food item. Of the many, amazing varieties of rice used globally, one is parboiled rice. This moniker might fool you into believing that it is a pre-cooked/boiled variety, but that is just not the case. It is just processed differently from other rice varieties and the resultant rice is cooked and served just like other varieties of rice.

As opposed to the most consumed rice variety, i.e. the white rice, which is processed by removing the hull, the parboiled variety retains the hull, and is hydrated and steamed during its processing. This lets the grains retain the nutrition provided by the bran layer. This steaming process causes the vitamins and mineral to migrate from the bran to the rice kernel.

This practice of parboiling rice was widespread in southern India along with a few Southeast Asian countries before it caught favour with the western nations. Let’s now discuss how healthy this parboiled variety of rice is:

Carbohydrates

Parboiled rice has almost double the fiber content than the most consumed white rice. A single cup of parboiled rice is a source of 41 grams of total carbohydrates, which is about a third of our daily carbohydrate requirement. This same amount of parboiled rice satiates 4-6% of our daily fiber need. Moreover, the carbohydrates in this variety do not cause a surge in the blood sugar level due to their low glycemic score of 38, which is more than twice as low as that of white rice.

B Vitamins

The parboiled variety is a rich source of B vitamins, niacin and thiamine. When combined, these vitamins digest the sugar and help convert the carbohydrate into energy. B vitamins in parboiled rice also help you create neurotransmitters and hormones.

Minerals

A cup of parboiled rice provides around 3% of our daily requirement of calcium, magnesium, iron and potassium. Your body also gets about 5-7% of your daily zinc requirement. These help your body in forming the protein structure and regulate DNA. It also saves your immune system from getting impaired.

Folate

Folate or Vitamin B9 helps our body metabolize amino acids and nucleic acid. These are used to make protein and DNA respectively. Parboiled rice serves as an amazing source of folate. Eating parboiled rice ensures that our homocysteine levels stay normal, thereby reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. A cup of parboiled rice provides us with more than 200 micrograms of folate, which is slightly more than 50% of our daily requirement.

Parboiled rice is very similar to brown rice. All those familiar with brown rice know that it’s slightly more difficult to digest, as compared to white rice. This is mainly due to the starch not getting broken down so easily. This is, however, not the case with parboiled rice. The starch in this variety is more gelatinized, due to the hydration and steaming process.

To know more about the various such rice varieties and their health implications, make sure you keep following Nextech Agri Solution.

 

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The Complete Rice Production Cycle

Generally, rice plants take about 3 to 6 months to grow from seedlings to reach maturity, mostly varying according to the environmental conditions and undergo 3 distinct growth phases, which are vegetative, reproductive and ripening.
As such, rice varieties across the world are categorized into 2 groups based on their growth duration.

Generally, rice plants take about 3 to 6 months to grow from seedlings to reach maturity, mostly varying according to the environmental conditions and undergo 3 distinct growth phases, which are vegetative, reproductive and ripening.

As such, rice varieties across the world are categorized into 2 groups based on their growth duration. There is a short-duration variety maturing in 100 to 120 days and a longer when taking about 150 days.

Let’s now take a look at how rice is grown:

1. Seed Quality Analysis & Selection

To realize the yield potential, a seed must be grown, harvested and finally processed justly. Also, healthy, good-quality seeds carry the potential of increasing the yield by 20%. Some of the benefits of using good quality seeds are:
– Decreased seeding rates
– Increased crop emergence
– The decreased need for replanting
– Vigorous early growth
– Increased resistance to pests, insects and natural diseases
– Reduced weed growth

A good seed is one which is pure, i.e. coming from single variety, uniform in size, viable and free of pathogens, insects and seed-borne diseases.

2. Land Preparation

It’s mandatory to prepare the land and render it suitable for planting seeds. The soil, before planting, should be in the best physical condition if one expects an optimum plant growth. Essentially, land preparation involves plowing, digging up or harrowing to till and leveling the soil.

3. Crop Establishment

There are two common practices for planting rice seeds. These are:
– Direct seeding: Done either by hand or machine, direct seeding involves broadcasting pre-germinated/dry seeds. Generally, dry seeds are manually planted into the soil in ecosystems that are rain-fed, while pre-germinated seeds are planted in areas with dry soil.

– Transplanting: More popular of the two, transplanting involves the transfer of pre-germinated seeds from seedbed to wet fields. Although it requires less seeds and is a particularly effective method to control weeds, it is labour intensive.

4. Water & Nutrient Management

Since rice is grown in bunded fields which are flooded for up-to 10 days prior to the harvest, it’s fairly easy to determine that rice is extremely sensitive to water shortage. Contributing to this fact is its semi-aquatic ancestry. Keep in mind the following water management tips for maximum rice yields:
– Construct field channels
– Optimum land preparation
– Leveling the soil
– Construct bunds to limit any water loss

It’s also important to keep in mind that rice plant requires different nutrition at different stages. Nutrition management is a chief component of rice production.

5. Crop Health

Globally, farmers annually lose about 35% of their crops to plant diseases and pests. Rodents, insects, viruses, weeds, etc. are arch nemesis of rice plant. It’s important for rice farmers to understand how the crops interact with the pests and avoid such conditions. Certain tips that could help are:
– Land and water management
– Hand weeding
– Herbicides
– Good cleaning of farming equipments
– Pest resistant seed varieties

6. Harvest

Harvesting involves the collection of mature rice plants. AS we’ve discussed above, rice crops generally take 100 to 150 days to mature, depending on their growth duration. To minimize grain damage and for maximum yield, it’s mandatory to involve good harvesting techniques. It can be done either manually or using a combine harvester. Harvesting includes:
– Reaping
– Threshing
– Cleaning
– Hauling
– Field drying
– Stacking
– Packaging

 

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Olam Engages Local Communities for the Rice Harvest

One of the leading agri-businesses, Olam International operates from seed to shelf in more than 60 countries, providing food and raw materials to over 23,000 customers worldwide. With their global rice supply chain and immense market strength, they have successfully linked their rice farms and smallholder farmers to clients in all the major rice consuming country.

One of the leading agri-businesses, Olam International operates from seed to shelf in more than 60 countries, providing food and raw materials to over 23,000 customers worldwide. With their global rice supply chain and immense market strength, they have successfully linked their rice farms and smallholder farmers to clients in all the major rice consuming countries.

A producer of renowned Mama’s Pride and Chef’s Choice Rice, Olam International has started harvest in its dry season rice farming season. For the process of harvesting, a total of 11 combined harvesters and a splitter harvest machine were deployed. “The high-tech machineries couldn’t, however, stop the farms from involving more than 600 seasonal farmers from the host communities from participating in the farming process”, Mr. Pieter Nel said.

According to the farm officers, the dry season farm comprises of 3,000 hectares, out of the total of 12,920 hectares. The dry season rice farm is expected to yield up to 4.5 tons of rice per hectare, which is more than 300% of the national yield, which sits between 1.3-1.8 tons per hectare. The high yield can be accredited to Olam International for involving some of the best farming practices, including but not limited to the increased soil standards to meet rice varieties. As Nel told, it was done following a series of laboratory tests on different soils. Other practices involved aircrafts for seedlings, spraying effective pesticides and applying quality fertilizers.

Mark Mclean, who’s appointed as the farm manager told that 1,400 hectares would be added to the 3,000 already being used. The additional land would be utilized for the forthcoming rain-fed season. Mclean also stated that over 100 rice varieties with high yields are being studied with a view to adopt them. Currently, only 4 high yielding varieties are planted, namely L34, C90, C20 and Faro 44.

Laying importance on safety and quality, Madan Singh, the Director of quality assurance informed how the company conducts relevant analysis to ensure the rice meets the nutritional value and is safe and does not use chemicals indiscriminately during production.

Abubakar Ogashuwa, the company’s Community Relations Manager, mentioned that the farms have created access roads that have been instrumental in linking the farms to six host communities surrounding them, provided them with solar power, introduced scholarship for the students, constructed classrooms with school compounds and built boreholes for each of the 6 communities.

He further mentioned how the Olam farm is in constant talks with the herders and nomads around to avoid complications arising out of their animals invading the farms.

Read through our other blogs to stay updated on the latest news and events in the rice industry.

 

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