If carbohydrates were bad, most of Asia would not be thin. There is much research to show that a diet high in complex carbohydrates is the healthiest diet and one that is capable of reversing heart disease and diabetes. Most of our carbohydrates should come from grains, fruits and vegetables.
Complex carbohydrates come from whole food products and break down appropriately in the body. Refined grains, such as white flour, are stripped of their nutrients and deliver sugar too fast to our bodies. Crackers, cookies, breads, and pastas (made with refined and/or bleached white flour) are not good sources of carbs.
Of the grains, white rice is the best. White rice has been much maligned in the public consciousness lately and has been lumped in with white bread, white sugar, and iceberg lettuce as a food devoid of value. Meanwhile, brown rice has been getting all the positive press. In general, I advocate eating whole foods with rice as somewhat of an exception.
Brown rice is white rice, with a thick coating around it. This shell is known as the germ layer, or bran, and this layer is what is "polished" off in making white rice. When analyzed in the lab, this germ layer is found to have some fiber and vitamins; but they have a poor bioavailability and most of it will just pass through us. Fiber is indigestible and just adds bulk to your stool. You can, and should, get all the vitamins and fiber you need from vegetables and fruits. Brown rice and white rice have roughly the same number of calories, but brown rice has more fat.
Eating the rice with this germ layer is a little like eating a walnut and not taking off the shell. Of course, nature had to put some nutrients into that coating to create it, but those nutrients are not very accessible to us. Our bodies will spend a great deal of time (largely unsuccessfully) trying to break through the covering and most of the material will eventually pass through us resulting in a loss of energy and a slowing of our metabolism.
A little bit of brown rice can be helpful for certain types of constipation because the extra fiber helps bulk up the stool; but too much brown rice can actually exacerbate constipation by slowing the metabolism.
Brown rice was popularized with the macrobiotic movement and studies were carried out using brown rice as it is found in Japan, which is partially milled: that is to say that about 75% of this germ layer has already been removed. The brown rice that we get here in the United States is completely unshucked, so unless you are going to mill it yourself, brown rice will be a tall order for your body to digest.
The Chinese eat almost everything, including a lot of things that we would scoff (or even retch) at the mere thought of eating. When I was studying in China, I ate snake, pork kidneys, sea cucumbers and beef testicles, to name a few. So the fact that the Chinese go to the trouble to polish off the germ layer of brown rice indicates there must be a good reason: they found that it is easier to digest. If removing the germ layer of brown rice had led to a deficiency, the Chinese would have figured that out by now.
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