Brown rice/bread is healthier than white rice/bread.
Rice goes through a variety of processes before it's ready for cooking. After harvesting, the seeds are run through a rice huller/husker for milling to remove the outer grain husks. After this process, you're left with brown rice.
White rice there's added steps. The germ and the inner husk (bran) is removed, the grain is then polished, usually using glucose or talc. These added steps to turn brown rice to white remove nutrients that are sometimes then introduced back in via synthetic sources - this is called fortified white rice. The same type of thing happens in brown bread vs. white bread. The loss of nutrients is broad and substantial. Added to that, the dietary fiber contained in white rice is around a quarter of brown rice.
Processing of brown rice also benefit the environmental. The less processing of a food, the less energy required.There's also the issue of the synthetic vitamins added back in - produced in laboratories and factories from a variety of chemicals; and these sorts of processes are well known for their negative impact on the environment.
If you're accustomed to white rice, making the switch to brown rice will be change to your taste bud. Try adding extra sauces to mask the "wilder" taste of brown rice for a while to allow your tastes to adjust.
Uncooked brown rice doesn't keep for as long as white rice. Store in an airtight container.
Brown rice takes a little longer to cook than white rice, but if you pre-soak the rice for a while and cook using the absorption method. This Absorption method is where you use less water and cover the pot, leaving very little excess water left by the time the rice has cooked - the steam generated using this method also helps speed up the cooking process.
