According to an October 20, 2010 study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, black rice bran may cut inflammation. See the article, "Black rice bran may help fight disease-related inflammation." See the article, "The Next Big Food Fad is Black Rice Bran."
UC Davis in the Sacramento-Davis regional area also researches rice. In the Sacramento area, UC Davis also studies the health benefits and production of rice bran oil, rice bran, and whole-grain brown rice.The University of California Cooperative and Extension (UCCE) Rice Project is an interdisciplinary collaboration that fosters research in rice production management and facilitates the exchange of information and the development and spread of promising technologies.The project studies rice production in California, especially in the Sacramento area.
You'd have to eat many times more servings of black rice to get the same nutrients from black rice bran, which is difficult to find at this time in stores. But you can buy black rice and grind it to a flour in a coffee grinder or a dry grinder (such as a Vita-Mix dry grinder) and then sprinkle the black rice flour or meal over other foods. As the studies on black rice bran reach the stores, availability of black rice bran may change. In the meantime, keep on grinding the black rice into flour and sprinkle it on foods. If you cook black rice, you'll find it's a very sticky rice and tastes good as a fruit-sweetened rice pudding, the way some people may eat it in China, for example. Black rice also is popular in Thailand and Indonesia.
For more information on black rice, see the California Rice Commission website. You might also look for black, Japonica and mahogany Japonica short grain rice in the Sacramento area. In fact, Sacramento and the surrounding valley areas are California's main rice-growing regions.
To buy black Japonica rice online, which may be a field blend of black and mahogany Japonica rice, check out the Max Vite, website where you can order just one bag of Lundberg Black Japonica Rice or as many as you want. Or you can also see the site, Lundberg Black Japonica Rice, 16-Ounces (Pack of 12): Amazon.com . Lundberg is located in N. California in Richvale, located approximately 80 miles north of Sacramento.
Black Japonica rice grains have a thick bran layer that is black or mahogany in color. The grains are sweet, nutty and musky in flavor and chewy, with a moist,crunchy texture. Best uses for black rice are for salads, soups, stuffings, and casseroles.
Scientists are reporting evidence that black rice — a little-known variety of the grain that is the staple food for one-third of the world population — may help soothe the inflammation involved in allergies, asthma, and other diseases. Their study appears in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Chinese black rice could replace blueberries as the supreme superfood for a fraction of the price and deliver more health benefits announced researchers at American Chemical Society's (ACS) annual fall meeting, according to an American Chemical Society Septemeber 7, 2010 press release, "ACS in the News."
Zhimin Xu, associate professor at the Department of Food Science at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, explained in a September 1, 2010 American Chemical Society (ACS) announcement, "Just a spoonful of black rice bran contains more health promoting anthocyanin antioxidants than are found in a spoonful of blueberries, but with less sugar and more fiber and vitamin E antioxidants."
Is there a way to make it easier to find black rice bran in Sacramento? The anthocyanin antioxidants are high in black rice and black rice bran. These are substances that may help fight heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.
If black rice bran has more antioxidants than brown rice bran, why is black rice harder to find in stores, but easy to obtain online? And a search for black rice bran online, brings up few places to order it, whereas black rice is easier to find online than in some stores locally, but the black rice is some brands may be often mixed with mahogony Japonica rice.
In Albany, California, Mendel Friedman, of the US Dept. of Agriculture, and colleagues have also done previous research showing some potential health benefits of eating black rice bran. But will you get the same benefits if black rice is easier to find than black rice bran in the stores or online? Keep on searching.
Stores may get the idea and start selling it. In the meantime, if all you can find is black rice, then be sure to soak it at least an hour before you cook it. Black rice takes longer to cook than brown rice. But after it's soaked and softened, then it cooks up like any other rice.
Also see the following sites selling black rice online, "Temple of Thai.com," and Black Jasmine Rice at the Alter Eco Fair Trade site. Lotus Foods sells back rice. It has been known in historic times in China as "forbidden rice." Some sites sell black rice from Thailand. Other sites sell black rice from China or other nations. Other sites sell California-grown black rice. Check out the search engine sites under the key words, "black rice."
Bran is the outer husk of the grain. Experiments, which were done in cell cultures, hinted that black rice bran suppressed the release of histamine, which causes inflammation, according to the news release, "Black rice bran may help fight disease-related inflammation."
In the new study, scientists tested the effects of black rice bran extract on skin inflammation in laboratory mice. When they injected the extract into the mice, it reduced skin inflammation by about 32 percent compared to control animals and also decreased production of certain substances known to promote inflammation. But will black rice bran work with people in a similar way to what worked with mice?
Brown rice bran extract did not have these effects, according to researchers. When the scientists fed the mice a diet containing 10 percent black rice bran, it reduced swelling associated with allergic contact dermatitis, a common type of skin irritation. The findings "further demonstrate the potential value of black rice bran as an anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic food ingredient and possibly also as a therapeutic agent for the treatment and prevention of diseases associated with chronic inflammation," the article notes.
You can read and download the original article based on the study, "Protective Effects of Black Rice Bran against Chemically-Induced Inflammation of Mouse Skin. " The study's contact is Mendel Friedman, Ph.D. Western Regional Research CenterAgricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Albany, Calif. 94710.
If you're looking for black rice or black rice bran in Sacramento, try some of the ethnic Japanese grocers for Japonica black rice. Or buy from N. California's Lundberg company. Or buy online from Amazon.com. For more information on rice in Sacramento, see, Farmers' Rice Cooperative, P.O. Box 15223, Sacramento, CA 95851.
The Farmers' Rice Cooperative (FRC) is the largest grower-owned Rice Cooperative in California. FRC is the leader in rice milling and packaging technology in its facilities and a major supplier of premium medium grain and short grain rice for retail, food service, industrial and export. Products offered include rice flour, brewers, brown, second heads, waxy sweet, regular milled white rice, short grain, medium grain, long grain, stabilized rice bran.
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