Rice Bran as a Functional Food: An Overview of the Conversion of Rice Bran into a Superfood/Functional Food

Rice bran is a byproduct of the rice milling process; it constitutes 10% of rice, with a potential global production of 48 million tons per year. The major portion of this is used as animal feed or discarded as waste material. However, rice bran is attracting attention from researchers because it is widely available, cheap and rich in nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, bioactive compounds and dietary fiber. Many food‐processing techniques that have improved rice bran resources have been pioneered, such as enzyme treatment and fermentation. We have been investigating the functional role of rice bran since 2003. Our experiments revealed that rice bran and its active compounds, such as γ‐oryzanol, tocopherol, tocotrienol, adenosine and ferulic acid, play a role as a functional food. In this review, we summarize how rice bran is a super food and functional food to illustrate the global interest in rice bran and its functional aspects and medicinal qualities. We also describe the techniques to prepare functional bran and the composition and health benefits of functional bran, which may encourage entrepreneurs to produce rice bran‐based food on a large scale and meet the global demand for super foods and functional foods.