I just read Chuck Lowery’s response to my thoughts on arsenic in brown rice with great interest. I can understand his points and also wonder if he is underestimating the power of brown rice. I have no desire to start a long debate on the merits or limitations of brown rice within macrobiotics or any healthy lifestyle. My desire is only to express my personal reasons for continuing to eat brown rice and why I also continue to recommend it to my family, friends and clients. At home we have implemented the recommendations from my blog except that we still use the soaking water from the brown rice.

Brown rice has a number of qualities that I find endlessly fascinating. From my personal experience brown rice is the only whole grain that we can eat on a regular or daily basis and never get tired of it. In my early macrobiotic days I tried eating a number of other grains exclusively without any brown rice and found that I grew tired of them quickly and could not wait to get back to my brown rice. When I cook any of these other grains with brown rice I never get tired of them. The other grains I tried eating exclusively included barley, millet, bulgur and oats.

Brown rice can grow in both water and dry land. When including short, medium and long grain rice, it also grows in a wide variety of different climates.

Anything that you cook with brown rice cooks in about the same time as the rice, even if that food takes a much longer time to cook on its own. For example chickpeas can take up to three hours to cook on their own and cook in about an hour with brown rice. It seems that most other foods align with brown rice. It is not the same with other grains.

More importantly, brown rice enhances the taste of all other foods. This is completely unique. Any other food cooked with brown rice tastes good. Brown rice combines well with all other grains, beans, vegetables, seeds, nuts, fresh or dried fruits, sugar, rice syrup, maple syrup and other sweeteners, poultry, eggs, fish or shellfish, cheese and other dairy products, herbs, spices and seasonings. In all of my years in practice, I have not been able to find an exception, though some are likely to exist. Brown rice has the ability to complement, embrace and harmonize with all foods and seasonings. I find this truly amazing!

It has been my observation over many years that eating brown rice gives us the ability to see the relationship between the part and the whole and to understand how they relate to each other. This relationship between part and whole is the basis of macrobiotic cooking, healing and lifestyle.

It seems natural that we would receive these unique qualities by eating brown rice on a regular basis. The situation with arsenic in brown rice is not new. I find it concerning that many people may choose to stop eating brown rice out of fear without understanding the situation fully.