My mother in-law had been telling me to eat brown rice for couple of years but had been ignored. But slowly I did manage to incorporate some brown rice into our diet by mixing it with white rice. Recently I have been seeing the light on brown rice in the United States, brown rice finally got his fame and recognition after all these years of preferring refined white rice. Brown rice was a poor people food back then because only the rich can afford to buy the refined, processed and fragrant white rice. When people have more money, they expect a better quality and refine food. But by doing that, they are actually eating a less healthier food because refine food means a lot of the naturally good for you thing has been taken away by further processing. Processed food has added coloring, preservative, trans fats and terms that I don't know how to pronounce in it. So, now we learned that the minimally processed food is still the best for you, the best is to cook the food yourself at home with fresh grocery. Avoid refined food and go for whole wheat, brown rice, lots of different colors of vegetable, beans, nuts, extra-virgin olive oil, fruits, herbs and spices. It is easy to eat healthy and healthy food can be delicious. I am switching to brown rice because it is the right time to do so but I still keep some white rice for cooking my nasi lemak and porridge. As I don't think the nasi lemak (Malaysia fragrant coconut rice) would taste like nasi lemak if brown rice is used. The trick in cooking brown rice is you need to add more water, almost like double the white rice water amount. For my rice cooker, for 2 cups of white rice, I used 2.5 water level. But for cooking 2 cups of brown rice, I need to use 4.5 water level. Then, your brown rice will be soft and more easily digested (this is for cooking short grain brown rice). For long grain brown rice, for 2 cups of rice, I used 3.5 cups of water.
