Nutritional Information for Rice Bran

Rice bran is considered to be a "super food." Not only does it contain high amounts of fiber, vitamins and minerals, but it also contains antioxidants that might improve your health when eaten regularly. Mixed into cereals or baked goods or blended into smoothies, rice bran is a way to add more nutrition to your diet without adding too many calories.

Definition

• Comprised of the inner husk and the germ of rice, rice bran is created as a byproduct when brown rice is milled into white rice. It originally was seen as an animal feed ingredient at best and a waste product at worst. With new technology allowing for the improved shelf life of rice bran, it's becoming a more widely available nutritional supplement.

Overall Profile

• An ounce of rice bran contains 88 calories. It isn't a low-fat food, even though it is a healthy food. A 1-oz. serving of rice bran contains 6 g of fat, or 9 percent of the recommended daily allowance, including 1 g of saturated fat. It contains 14 g of carbohydrates, with 6 g of fiber---or nearly one-quarter of the recommended daily allowance---and 4 g of protein. Rice bran is also a good source of iron, vitamin B6, potassium, thiamine, niacin, manganese and phosphorus.

Fiber

• One of rice bran's most impressive qualities is the high amount of dietary fiber packed into only 1 oz. Much of the fiber in rice bran is insoluble fiber, which is a form of fiber that the body cannot metabolize. This type of fiber promotes regularity while keeping your digestive system and your body healthy.

Antioxidants

• Rice bran contains the antioxidant compounds known as oryzanol, as well as vitamin E, which also acts as an antioxidant. These antioxidant compounds have been shown to play a potential role in lowering cholesterol. The Pennington Biomedical Research Center reports that studies have shown that eating rice bran regularly for as little as 10 weeks can lead to a reduction in high cholesterol in people with moderately high cholesterol.

Raw vs. Cooked

• Rice bran retains its nutrients best when it's eaten raw rather than cooked, and it is more nutrient-dense when it's cooked briefly than when it's cooked for a long time. This is also why rice bran rather than rice itself has a higher nutritional profile. Though rice bran is present in brown rice, eating the rice won't give you the full health benefits of the bran because the long cooking time necessary to making brown rice digestible destroys many of the nutrients present in raw rice bran.