Health benefits of rice bran oil in foods, soaps, and cosmetics

April 17, 7:56 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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One way to beat the recession is to use rice bran oil in your frying pan, baked goods, soaps, hair conditioners, cosmetics, and sun screens. What has this easy to make, multi-use, low-cost, rice bran oil got that makes it so healthy and nutritious?

Around 40 studies of the health benefits of rice bran oil are listed the Rice Bran Oil Information site. Click on the Cholesterol-Lowering by Rice Bran study. It concludes that components of rice bran have cholesterol-lowering activity. However, the study was done on hamsters. Rice bran itself, also lowers cholesterol.

It’s the rice bran oil’s oryzanol and tocotrienol. Rice bran oil reduces the harmful cholesterol (LDL) without reducing good cholesterol (HDL). The many studies of rice bran oil found that the oil’s key element, oryzanol is responsible for lowering LDL cholesterol. And it smells good when heated in a frying pan.

Tocotrienol, found in natural vitamin E with its eight elements such as alpha, gamma, delta, to name a few, is said to be the most powerful vitamin E component existing in nature. Some studies tout its anti-cancer effect. Rice bran oil is rich in the alpha tocopherol part of vitamin-E source, and also contains the highest amount of tocotrienol found in liquid form vegetable oils.

Let's compare rice bran oil to olive oil. Rice bran oil has a 490 degrees F smoking point, higher than olive oil. Rice bran oil's smoke point is higher than even grapeseed oil (480 degrees) or peanut oil (320 - 450 degrees).

According to the World's Healthiest Foods site, commercial producers of olive oil list their pure olive oil smoke points in the range of 425-450°F. Light olive oil products (which have undergone more processing) are listed at 468°F. Manufacturers of extra virgin oil list their smoke points in a range that starts "just under 200°F" and that extends all the way up to 406°F. Variability may reflect differences in the degree of processing.

Rice bran oil with its higher smoke point is good for baking bread, cookies, cakes, or frying. The flavor is neutral and it spreads smoothly on foods. Use it as you’d use shortening to make pie crusts or grease your cookie sheets as well. And rice bran oil contains tocopherol, tocotrienol, and oryzanol which are natural antioxidants in the vitamin E family. Rice bran oil is rich in gamma-oryzanol and is the only readily available oil, other than palm, that contains significant levels (approximately 500 ppm) of tocotrienols.

More antioxidant-manufacturing companies are using rice bran oil as their basic oil because rice bran oil has good oxidative stability. In Japan, rice bran oil is popular. So is the eating of rice bran in baked goods and cereals. For centuries, Japanese women used rice bran oil to smooth wrinkles out on their face. Rice bran oil today is used to make soaps. According to the article at the Honest Foods.com site, “Most Japanese restaurants in the USA have now switched to Rice Bran Oil for their Tempura Frying Oil because of its superior performance in this special application.”

the Honest Foods.com site also notes that women that use rice bran oil as a skin moisturizer are called “nuka-bijin,” which in English means bran-beauty. It’s the oryzanol in the rice bran oil that whitens the skin slightly by restraining the ‘eryhema’ activity of ‘tyrosinase’ (according to the Oilseeds International Ltd. site.

As the women walk in the sunlight, the rice bran oil acts as a sort of sun screen to block a little of the sun’s ultraviolet rays. So all over Japan, rice bran oil has been used for decades in sunscreen products and hair conditioners, lipsticks, nail polish, and other cosmetics because it can be turned into a lipstick or smooth well in a cream or conditioner. It is known for its spreadability.

In the US, the cosmetic uses, including hand-made soap, of rice bran oil is increasing, but for now, it’s sold in supermarkets as an oil you put on salads or use for baking and frying.

Science Daily’s article, dated May 12, 2005, “Can Rice Bran Oil Melt Away Cholesterol?” reported that “A natural component of rice bran oil lowers cholesterol in rats, and ongoing research also shows it may have potential as an anti-cancer and anti-infection agent in humans, according to a University of Rochester scientist who has studied the antioxidant since 1996.”

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