We see it happen all of the time - a paper is produced saying something is either bad or is a Miracle Vegetable of The Week, it gets worldwide mainstream media attention, and then a bunch of other people jump on to do more studies. Then people jump in to do studies debunking them. Rinse, repeat
If you have witnessed the hysteria regarding BPA, for example, you have seen we are in the piling on stage, while white rice has overcome the 'it is not as healthy as brown rice' stage and is gaining ground in neutral science.
Like anything, white rice can be bad - too much of anything is bad. But the same health pundits who gush about how much healthier Asians are forget that they eat a lot of cheap white rice. So is brown rice really better for you? Was it ever? It doesn't depend on who you ask, it depends when. I have done gags in the past where I have asked people to match the year with the 'Miracle Vegetable' claims (red wine, chocolate, Acai berries, for example) but brown rice has enjoyed an unreal level of longevity.
Yet the old joke that if you eat Chinese food, that you will be hungry again in an hour, is still part of the lexicon, because it has a simple arithmetical premise: white rice is calories dilute, which means you have to eat a lot of it to get calories. Half the calories of beef, notes Ryan Andrews, R.D., director of education for Precision Nutrition in Details Magazine. So any rice is filling with fewer calories than lots of other foods. And the Satiety (Fullness) benefit of brown rice is overblown, since most people don't eat just rice you would never be able to tell.
The other big complaint is that white rice is 'processed' - this is part of the natural is good/unnatural is bad fallacy that has taken the alternative world by storm. Sometimes processing is not only good, it is necessary. In the case of white rice, the processing that brown rice lacks removes anti-nutrients the plant uses as a defense system against pests.
That's right, if you hate pesticides don't eat brown rice.
