Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Brown Rice or White Rice?

26 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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In this short video, sports‑nutrition coach Kelsey Higginson explains how athletes can use both brown and white rice as fuel, depending on the timing and purpose of the meal. She describes brown rice as a whole‑grain carbohydrate that retains the bran and germ, digests more slowly, and provides a steady, prolonged release of energy—making it ideal for regular training days, dinner, or any meal where there is ample time for digestion. White rice, having the bran and germ removed, is a refined grain that is digested quickly, delivering rapid energy to the muscles; therefore it is best suited for pre‑game or pre‑training meals when athletes need fast‑acting fuel within a few hours. The speaker emphasizes matching the type of rice to the athlete’s schedule to optimize performance and recovery.

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Should athletes be eating white rice or brown rice? Rice is one of the biggest sources of fuel that I have my athletes eat, and I recommend both of these at different times and for different situations. Brown rice, it is a whole grain, which means it has the germ, the bran, and all of that boring stuff that you don't care about. It is a whole grain, therefore it takes longer to digest. It helps your digestion more. It's gonna give you a slower release of energy throughout the day. White rice, it has the bran and the germ removed, and so it's not necessarily a whole grain anymore. From the time you put white rice into your mouth to the time where it hits your muscle energy tanks, is very fast compared to brown rice. So the time where I would have you eat brown rice, the slower digesting one, are for normal training days, normal dinners, normal meals, when you have a lot of time for that food to digest. It will give you a more steady release of energy. White rice would be pregame, pre-training. You only have a couple hours beforehand and you need to digest it quick and you need the energy from it fast.