Rice and Diabetes: What You Need to Know for Optimal Blood Sugar Control
Key Takeaways
Rice varieties are classified as long, medium, or short grain based on their length-to-width ratio. Each variety has different GI values.
You can have “brown” and “white” rice in each variety of rice. The former refers to rice with the bran layer and germ intact, making it more nutritious than its “white” counterpart.
White rice can still be a part of a well-balanced, nutritious diet.
Ultimately, in addition to the type of rice you choose, you should also be mindful of how it’s prepared, what else you’re having with it, and how much you consume, as all these factors could also impact your blood glucose levels.
Singaporeans love rice. We’ve loved this starchy grain since ages ago, as evidenced by our then-government’s failure to get the country on board with consuming more wheat products instead of rice due to the global rice shortage in 1967 (two years after its founding).
Met with overwhelming resistance, the campaign — aptly named “Eat More Wheat” — eventually fizzled out after three years.
As you’re well aware, though, love isn’t an excuse for indulging. Especially if it’s bad for your health. For example, feeding a toddler processed chicken nuggets every meal just because they’ve been hankering after them isn’t … to put it mildly, wise.
This begs an important question on the topic of rice and diabetes:
Should you eat rice when you have diabetes?
After all, rice is a rich source of carbohydrates that could potentially raise your blood glucose levels far beyond your recommended targets.
But, the relationship between rice and diabetes management is not always clear-cut. That’s because many types of rice are available, with different nutritional profiles and glycemic index values.
A brief refresher on the glycemic index (GI). It uses a scale from one to 100 to rank carbohydrate-containing foods based on how quickly they raise your blood sugar levels when eaten on their own.
Foods that cause the most dramatic increase in blood glucose levels are given higher GI values, while those that cause a more gradual rise are given lower GI values:
Low GI: 1 to 55
Medium GI: 56 to 69
High GI: 70 and higher
Technically speaking, while none of the rice types meet the benchmark for being unhealthy, some will be healthier than others.
If you just went, “Huh?” don’t worry. It’ll all become clear once you become familiar with the different types of rice available.
First, rice varieties
Rice varieties are classified as long-, medium-, or short-grain based on their length-to-width ratio when cooked:
Long-grain rice: Has a length that’s at least three to five times its width. Produces distinct firm gains that stay fluffy after cooking. This type of rice includes Basmati and Jasmine rice.
Medium-grain rice: About two to three times longer than it is wide. Produces moist, slightly chewy grains that stick to each other when cooked. Popular medium-grain rice varieties include Arborio and Valencia (which are perfect for risotto), and Bomba rice (which is used in paella).
Short-grain rice: Round and chubby; only a tiny bit longer than it is wide. Also commonly known as glutinous rice, short-grain rice varieties release the most starch during cooking, which causes them to swell and stick together in clumps. Example varieties include Japanese short-grain (used in sushi), Chinese black rice (used in black glutinous rice dessert), and short-grain glutinous rice (used in mango sticky rice).
Here’s how each of those varieties are classified based on their GI values:
Low GI
Basmati rice
Chinese black rice
Medium GI
Arborio rice
Valencia rice
High GI
Japanese short-grain rice
Short-grain glutinous rice
Jasmine rice
Bomba rice
Hmm. It seems like we’re missing a variety. Where’s brown rice, which is widely regarded as the healthier grain choice?
Next, brown vs white rice
Brown rice isn’t a specific strain of rice; instead, it describes how much of the grain was removed during processing. Here is some crucial background information: just like other grains, rice is the edible seed of a grass.
Each grain contains:
Hull or husk: A hard, protective outer layer that’s inedible. As a result, it’s removed in all types of rice.
Bran: An edible, thin layer of “skin” underneath the hull. It’s the whole-grain section of a rice grain and is usually brownish-tan, although it may also be red or black depending on the pigmentation in the bran layers. Rich in nutrients, including protein, fat, carbohydrates, antioxidants, and dietary fiber.
Germ: A small kernel found under the hull. It is also nutrient-dense, containing antioxidants, vitamins B and E, protein, fat, and dietary fiber.
Endosperm: The large, white interior of the rice kernel.
So, brown rice is a whole grain with the bran layer and germ intact, allowing it to have higher levels of fiber and nutrients.
White rice, on the other hand, is basically the same grain, but with the bran and germ stripped — leaving behind only the starchy core, the endosperm.
To showcase the nutritional differences between white and brown rice, let’s pit one cup of long-grain brown rice against one cup of long-grain white rice (the table compares only key micronutrients for brevity’s sake):
| Long-grain brown rice | Long-grain white rice | Recommended Dietary Allowance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories/cal | 248 | 205 | N/A |
| Carbohydrate/g | 52 | 44.6 | 130 |
| Protein/g | 5.5 | 4.25 | 0.8 g/kg of body weight |
| Fat/g | 2 | 0.4 | 38 for adult men and 25 for adult women |
| Fiber/g | 3.2 | 0.6 | N/A, but 25 to 30 g or more daily is widely recommended |
| Folate/mcg | 18.2 | 91.6 | 400 |
| Magnesium/mg | 79 | 19 | 400 to 420 for adult men and 310 to 320 for adult women |
| Manganese/mg | 2 | 0.7 | 2.3 for men and 1.8 for women |
| Selenium/mcg | 11.7 | 11.8 | 55 |
| Vitamin B3/mg | 5.2 | 2.3 | 16 for adult men and 14 for adult women |
Now, if you’re thinking, “Huh, that’s not a huge difference,” you’re right. That’s because white rice is typically enriched with most (but not all) of the nutrients lost in the milling process, and this closes its nutritional difference to its wholegrain counterpart.
So, strictly speaking, brown rice is healthier than white rice because it provides more of the following:
Dietary fiber, which results in a more gradual rise in your blood glucose levels by slowing gastric emptying (i.e., brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice)
Select nutrients, including magnesium and vitamin B3
But that doesn’t mean white rice isn’t healthy. Ultimately, it is still nutritious.
How to approach eating rice when you have diabetes
OK, so here are a few practical tips for eating rice when you have diabetes:
Eat low-to-medium GI rice varieties (e.g., Basmati rice) most of the time and indulge in high-GI varieties (e.g., glutinous rice) only occasionally.
While you should ideally choose brown rice over white rice, there’s nothing wrong with preferring the latter. White rice can be part of a healthy, balanced diet (we’ll cover this in more detail below). That said, it’s important to remember that whole grains should make up 30% of your total staples intake. So try to add whole grains to your diet in other ways (e.g., whole-grain bread or quinoa).
Going beyond the type of rice
Which would you say is better for your blood glucose levels?
Plain jasmine rice with a side of grilled chicken breast and slow-roasted bell peppers or
Biryani (which typically features Basmati rice cooked in ghee or butter and a variety of spices drowning under a generous helping of curry)
That’s right. It’ll be the plain jasmine rice, which, ironically, has a higher GI value than basmati rice. This highlights three crucial things beyond rice type you need to note when you have diabetes:
Preparation method: How is the rice cooked? Is it served on its own, stir-fried (e.g., with salted egg sauce, which is packed with added sugar, fat, and sodium), or made into porridge (note: the longer the cooking time, the more of the rice’s cellular structure breaks down, making it easier for your body to “access” the carbs — resulting in a higher GI value), etc.? Oh, and a public service announcement: don’t waste your money on carb-reducing rice cookers. Most don’t work, and the amount of carbohydrates removed is insignificant even among those that work.
Side dishes: What else are you having with the rice? Eating a well-balanced meal with a good distribution of protein, fat, and dietary fiber could help regulate your postprandial (i.e., post-meal) blood glucose levels. And here's the answer for those wondering if the order in which you eat your foods matters for glycemic control.
How much you eat: The amount of rice you eat also affects your blood glucose levels. For example, although Arborio rice has a medium GI, a large serving can still cause your blood glucose levels to rise more rapidly than a smaller serving of Japanese short-grain rice.
Being more mindful of the type of rice you choose (not just in terms of the specific variety but also how it’s processed and cooked, your choice of side dishes, and how much you eat) is a great way to optimize your postprandial blood glucose levels.
But what about your blood glucose levels at other times of the day? And what if you need more detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance to achieve good glycemic control?
NOVI Magnum, a holistic, personalized diabetes treatment program, can help. Click here to learn how a well-rounded healthcare team — a doctor, registered dietitian, and health coach — could help you see a reduction in HbA1c and, in turn, better health outcomes.