Green Labelled Rice Shows a Higher Nutritional and Physiochemical Quality Than Conventional Rice in China

Jiuliang Xu,Jiahui Zhong,Xuexian Li,Baozhen Zhang

doi:10.3390/foods10050915

Jiuliang Xu, Jiahui Zhong + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10050915

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Abstract

In China, green food refers to a wide array of certified agricultural and processed edible commodities that are produced strictly following defined standard protocols and labelled with a specified “Green Food” logo. The demand for green labelled rice is rapidly growing due to its higher quality and adherence to safety standards compared to conventional rice. Therefore, the physicochemical and nutritional quality of green rice needs to be further investigated for consumers’ benefits. Using Daohuaxiang 2, one of the most famous types of green rice, we found that green rice was significantly superior to conventional rice in terms of thousand kernel weight, chalkiness, amylose content, and rheological properties. Green rice contained lower levels of heavy metals than conventional rice due to a dramatic reduction in chemical inputs during its cultivation. The concentrations of Cr, As, Cd, Pb in green rice decreased, respectively, from 98.7 to 180.1 μg/kg, 49.8 to 62.3 μg/kg, 7.8 to 9.1 μg/kg, and 29.0 to 42.8 μg/kg on average. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC–MS)-based metabolomics, in combination with multivariate analysis, revealed that 15 metabolites differentially accumulated when comparing green and conventional rice. Among these, 12 metabolites showed a high accumulation in green rice, including seven amino acids, two sugars, and three fatty acids. Overall, our results suggest the superior quality of a type of green rice that is popular in China, which may boost green rice consumption and facilitate the further expansion of green rice production in China.

Highlights

Rapid economic growth in China has been accompanied by the increasing concern of consumers with respect to food quality and safety
Green food was first introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture of China in 1990, and it refers to a unique Chinese certification scheme for food, which indicates that the food was produced in accordance with the principle of sustainable development and that standard operational protocols were applied throughout the whole industry chain, as designated by the China Green Food Development
This paper investigated and compared the quality and metabolomics of rice grown in green-certified versus conventional production systems

Summary

Introduction

Rapid economic growth in China has been accompanied by the increasing concern of consumers with respect to food quality and safety. In China, there are three levels of certification systems for food, which is indicative of the stringency of the associated standards, namely safe food, green food, and organic food [1]. Green food was first introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture of China in 1990, and it refers to a unique Chinese certification scheme for food, which indicates that the food was produced in accordance with the principle of sustainable development and that standard operational protocols were applied throughout the whole industry chain, as designated by the China Green Food Development. Green food, which is of a relatively lower standard compared with organic food, provides a “middle way” between safe and organic food and is widely accepted in China [3]. The annual sales and export values were Chinese Yuan (RMB) 455.7 billion yuan and USD 3.21, accounting for 8.20% of the total farmland area in China, and 9.7% of the GDP was from agriculture [4]

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