Hello, and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinegel.

There are at least a dozen different types of rice to choose from at the grocery store.

You'll see long grain, short grain, white, brown, basmati, instant, converted.

And you've probably wondered at some point which is the healthiest choice, and that's

what we're going to talk about today.

There are some fairly big differences between the various kinds of rice in terms of their

cooking times and the texture of the cooked rice.

So the first thing you need to know is if you're cooking from a recipe, it's pretty important

to pay attention to what kind of rice the recipe calls for.

Substituting a different kind of rice can really change how the recipe turns out and

not always in a good way.

Here are some of the different types of rice you're likely to encounter.

Hard grain rice is very starchy and cooks up soft and sticky.

It's used in things like sushi, paella, and risotto.

Long grain rice contains less starch, so the cooked grains are drier and more separate.

It's often used in pilafs or dishes with a lot of sauce.

Medium grain, as you might expect, is somewhere in between.

Now jasmine and basmati are both long grain varieties that have been cultivated to bring

out distinctive flavor profiles.

And these often turn up in Indian and Asian food.

Now all of those different types of rice are available as either white or brown rice.

And in each case, brown is the whole grain version, whereas white rice has been milled

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