Very quick gloop question

[CaketheParrot]

Is white jasmin rice okay?

[Pajarita]

No. No white rice, no white flour - all you get out of them is starch, no nutrients. But no brown rice either UNLESS it is Indian or Thai brown Basmati or Jazmine rice (the one from USA has too much arsenic in it). I use red and/or black rice - they are whole grains (like brown rice is) and they are more nutritious (the red rice is the most nutritious of ALL the rices) AND safer for birds.

[CaketheParrot]

This says it’s a product of Thailand, is that the Thai rice you were talking about?
https://www.google.com/shopping/product ... 71599,cs:1

As a Viet that’s the type my family uses so we have lots of extra if it’s okay for parrots. If not we’ll get something else but it would be great if we could use this. (Sorry if I’m over asking I don’t have any kitchen experience besides making eggs 3 ways and like 2 cake recipes).

[Pajarita]

First of all, do NOT EVER worry about asking too many questions. To answer questions is what we are here for so go ahead and ask everything you need or want to ask. We all started asking a million questions because none of us knew anything about parrots when we first started. It is the people who do not ask questions that are not good parrot owners...

I am not sure if the link shows brown or white rice - it seems to be white because it says: "Jazmin white scented rice"

Now, both Jazmine and Basmati are 'aromatic rice' (there are other varieties but these two are the best known) which is, I think, what they were trying to convey with the 'scented' part of the name but all types of rice come in whole grain or hulled and, normally, the whole grain is called 'brown' and the hulled is called 'white' but this is because we only knew (and ate) different types of white rice (as in long grain, medium grain or short grain white) and even the 'special rice' like Arborio (for risotto), the Bomba (for paella) or the 'sticky' or 'sweet' rice (used in East Asia) are all white rice. Then you have the black (with different varieties like 'Forbidden' or 'Japonica'), the red (Himalayan, Thai, Wehani) and these are always whole grain. There is also the 'golden rice' which is a genetically engineered variety that processes betacarotene (they made it for the countries where poor people eat a lot of white rice and usually have severe vit A deficiency, especially the children).

The reason why I said that brown (the whole grain version of the white rice) rice needs to be from Thailand or India is that, here in US, they used a lot of arsenic in the 50s not knowing that the arsenic they put into the soil will not disappear and will, instead, accumulate so anything that is planted in these arsenic-polluted fields will have too much of it. I use Lundberg's Wehani rice for my gloop.

[CaketheParrot]

Thank you for understanding my ignorance haha

That makes so much more sense now, we’ll get Cake some better rice. Thank you for all your help and patience!! It’s been a blessing!

[Pajarita]

My pleasure. My husband says that I should have been a professor because I 'give lectures' instead of answering a question - and my grandchildren always go: "Ohhhh, nana, you are talking science AGAIN!" whenever I give them a loooong explanation of anything they ask so, as you can see, giving long (and I like to believe 'complete' replies) is part of who I am