On Mon, 5 May 2003 01:57:20 -0700, Jens Wilkinson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>About the thiamin thing, one thing that actually
>surprised me is that apparently in Japan white rice is
>not fortified with B1, which seems strange, but from
>what I've heard it's partially because of the taste,
>but I think also that people generally wash their rice
>before cooking it, and if you added thiamin it would
>be washed away anyway.

Todd also didn't believe that white rice would be fortified.
But how else could it be that all the main-staple-rice-eaters of the world
don't get beriberi now?
And: why is (US) white rice so high in B1?
Yes it seems strage.

Those who only add a little rice to the diet otherwise dominated by meat
(all protein from meat) eat relative small amounts of rice. All the calories
that don't come from the fat in the meat of from other junk fat or junk carb
sources.
But main-staple rice eaters (~5-600g of *dry* rice per day is necessary)
survive..

There are several ways to "fortify" rice.
Parboiling causes some of the thiamin from the silver skin to go into the
white part of the grain.
That's a kind of "fortification" (less destructive "refining") which
shouldn't change the taste too much and adds natural thiamin to the white rice.

Synthetic thiamin which is used for fortification  isn't the same stuff as
natural thiamin. It has some thiamin activity but has to be converted to
real thiamin in the body - and that requires other b-vitamins to be present
as I've read.

regards

Amadeus S.