Why Para-boiled milled rice is better than Raw milled Rice?

A large population of south India are typically rice consumers. Most of the rice is
produced in South India too. About 20 years back, the rural parts in some areas in
Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka used to depend on other sources of cereals like Jowar and
Maize of different varieties. However, of late, with change in economic conditions and
food “Perception” that rice is a superior crop (with respect to social status), there has
been a considerable shift in the food preferences, with a majority moving on to rice. One
reason could be that rice has been traditionally sold at a higher price than the remaining
cereals and successive governments have promoted rice cultivation (for reasons only
known to them).

There is nothing wrong with this trend. Rice too is a rich source of carbohydrate.
However, the carbohydrate in rice is easier to digest than the carbohydrate in Jowar and
Maize. So for a sedentary life-style, rice was a better alternative. For physically
intensive labour, Jowar and Maize have been better suited. However, the preference has
been towards rice ( and wheat).
Coming back to our main point – rice comes in two varieties to the constomers – Raw
Milled and Para-boiled.

The raw milled rice is what is obtained by running the raw grain of paddy, in which the
rice is enclosed (with the HUSK) through rollers. This separates the husk from the inner
seed. The higher the processing, the whiter the rice appears and the thinner it gets. And
for some reasons in the past, the perception has been - “the whiter the rice, the better it is”
In a lot of cases, this led to loss of nutritious bran (which has most of the B-vitamin that
rice had to offer). In the Northern parts of India (and now in the South too), there is an
additional perception that the thinner the grain, the better is the quality in terms of
“poshness” (e.g., long grained, thin Baasmati rice).

Para-boiled rice (AFAIK) is prepared by first boiling the paddy seeds and then milled and
processing it like rice above.

However, preferences in different states have been different with respect to how much is
the processing required for para-boiled rice. Para-boiled rice is generally thicker, more
off-white tending to red (the color or the bran). It also takes longer to boil and has a
different (not very sweet) smell during the boiling process. The states of Kerala and
Tamil Nadu prefer the para-boiled rice while the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh
(at the time of writing, there was a proposal to break this into three states) prefer the Raw
milled rice. One of the reason for this preference was an old social structure – not sure
how true this is. When there was a strict adherence to the four varnas of Brahmin,
Kshetriya, Vaisya and Shudra, the Brahmins refused to eat food “Cooked” by other
varnas. It was however OK to eat the produce from the fields cultivated by the other
castes. So since it was difficult to ascertain who boiled the grain used for the para-boiled
rice, the brahmins decided to stick to raw rice. It was not milled then. The women folk
would pound the paddy and then separate the husk. Then there is another round of
pounding to remove the bran. Many of these practices have died down with time and
mechanization.

Overall, in a lot of places, there is the preference for raw milled rice. And typically, raw
milled rice is costlier than the para-boiled variety.

However, from the view of the overall nutrient constituents, para-boiled rice is better.

The following are some of the nutritional values of one variety of milled raw and
paraboiled rice.

Constituents per 100 grams of rice*

Ingredient Units Para-boiled Raw Milled

Milled
Moisture grams 13.3 13.7
Protein grams 6.4 6.8
Fat grams 0.4 0.5
Minerals grams 0.7 0.6
Fibre grams 0.2 0.2
Carbohydrate grams 79 78.2
Energy Kcals 346 345
Calcium milligrams 9 10
Phosphorus milligrams 143 160
Iron milligrams 1 0.7
Carotene micrograms 0 0
Thiamine micrograms 0.21 0.06
Riboflavin micrograms 0.05 0.06
Niacin micrograms 3.8 1.9
Total B6 in mg. micrograms 0.24 0
Folic Acid micrograms
Free micrograms 8.9 4.1
Total micrograms 11 8
Vitamin C micrograms 0 0
 Ingredient Units Para-boiled Raw Milled
Milled
Colene micrograms 0 0

From a cursory look, it does not seem to have much difference. But note that the small
differences are big when taken in large quantities. Differences in 100 gms might not
mean much. Think of the difference in 1 Kilogram which is 10 times the above value or
20 Kgs over one month, which is TWO Hundred times the values in the tables.

Article summary – This article highlights the difference between the processing
techniques involved in the production of raw rice and the para boiled rice. An overview
of the nutritional constituents of both kinds of rice varieties has also been provided.