White rice can contribute to constipation, especially if it makes up a large portion of your diet. A cup of cooked white rice contains only about 1.4 grams of dietary fiber, which is a small fraction of the 25 to 35 grams most adults need each day. That low fiber content is the core issue: without enough fiber to add bulk to stool and keep it moving through the intestines, things slow down.
Why White Rice Is Low in Fiber
White rice starts as brown rice. During processing, the outer bran layer and the germ are stripped away, leaving just the starchy center. The bran is where most of the fiber lives, along with minerals like magnesium, potassium, and iron. So white rice retains the calories and carbohydrates (about 41 grams per cup) but loses the components that support healthy digestion.
This is exactly why white rice is included in the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), a traditional recommendation for people dealing with diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. These bland, low-fiber foods are easy to digest and help firm up loose stools. The same property that makes white rice helpful during a bout of stomach flu is what makes it potentially constipating under normal circumstances.
How It Affects Your Digestion
Fiber works in two ways to keep you regular. Insoluble fiber adds physical bulk to stool, making it easier for your intestines to push along. Soluble fiber absorbs water and forms a gel-like consistency that softens stool. White rice is low in both types. When you eat a meal built around white rice without much else in the way of vegetables, legumes, or other fiber sources, your digestive system has less material to work with. Stool becomes smaller, drier, and harder to pass.
This doesn’t mean a single serving of white rice will back you up. Constipation is rarely caused by one food in isolation. It’s the overall pattern that matters. If white rice is a staple at most of your meals and you’re not compensating with high-fiber foods elsewhere, you’re more likely to notice sluggish bowel movements over time.
The Cooled Rice Factor
There’s an interesting nuance worth knowing. When white rice is cooked and then cooled, its starch structure changes. Some of the regular starch converts into resistant starch, a type that behaves more like fiber in your gut because your body can’t fully digest it. A study published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that freshly cooked white rice contained 0.64 grams of resistant starch per 100 grams, while rice cooled for 24 hours in the refrigerator and then reheated contained 1.65 grams, roughly two and a half times more.
That’s a meaningful increase in percentage terms, but it’s still a modest amount overall. Cooled and reheated rice is a slightly better option for your gut than freshly cooked rice, but it won’t transform white rice into a high-fiber food.
White Rice vs. Brown Rice
Brown rice keeps its bran and germ intact, which means it delivers noticeably more fiber, magnesium, potassium, and B vitamins than white rice. If constipation is a recurring issue for you, switching from white to brown rice is one of the simplest swaps you can make. Brown rice does take longer to cook and has a chewier texture, which is why many people prefer white rice. But from a digestive standpoint, brown rice is the clear winner.
White rice is easier to digest, which can be an advantage for people with sensitive stomachs or inflammatory bowel conditions. For everyone else, the easier digestion is part of the problem: your gut doesn’t have to work as hard, and stool moves through with less momentum.
How to Eat White Rice Without Getting Backed Up
You don’t have to give up white rice entirely. The key is building your meal so the rice isn’t carrying the entire nutritional load. Pairing white rice with fiber-rich foods offsets its low-fiber profile and keeps your digestive system moving normally.
- Beans and legumes: A classic combination for a reason. Red beans and rice, rice and lentils, or a side of black beans can add 6 to 8 grams of fiber per half-cup serving.
- Cooked vegetables: Zucchini, asparagus, mushrooms, broccoli, or leafy greens served alongside or mixed into rice add both soluble and insoluble fiber.
- Fruit with skins and seeds: Finishing a rice-based meal with a pear, apple, or a handful of berries adds another few grams of fiber.
Johns Hopkins Medicine specifically highlights meals like rice and beans, roasted vegetables, and grain bowls with mixed ingredients as high-fiber options for people dealing with constipation. The rice itself isn’t the enemy. It’s rice eaten alone, meal after meal, without fiber-rich partners that creates a problem.
Water intake matters too. Fiber needs fluid to do its job. If you increase fiber but don’t drink enough water, you can actually make constipation worse. Aim to drink water consistently throughout the day, especially when eating higher-fiber meals.
Who Should Be More Careful
People who eat white rice as a dietary staple, sometimes two or three times a day, are most at risk of constipation from it. This is common in many food cultures around the world. If that describes your diet, you don’t need to abandon rice. Focus on what surrounds it on the plate. A rice-heavy diet with plenty of vegetables, legumes, and fermented sides is very different from a rice-heavy diet built mostly around refined starches and protein.
Children and older adults tend to be more sensitive to low-fiber diets, so it’s especially worth paying attention to meal composition for those groups. Anyone already prone to constipation from other causes (low physical activity, certain medications, not drinking enough water) will feel the effects of a low-fiber grain like white rice more than someone whose digestion is otherwise running smoothly.