Rice, oats, wheat, quinoa, bread, pasta, flour and other grain foods: nutrition, processing, storage and cooking.
Seitan is essentially cooked, hydrated wheat gluten. That lets it pack roughly 20–30 grams of protein into 100 grams with little fat, but there is no universal seitan number: water, starch, broth, and seasoning can move the label substantially.
Rice can be eaten frequently, even daily, as part of a balanced diet, but it does not need to be the only grain. FDA notes that rice absorbs arsenic more readily than many crops and recommends dietary variety. Rotating rice with oats, wheat, corn, barley, quinoa, and other grains broadens nutrition and reduces dependence on one food source.
You do not need to rinse every kind of rice. With basmati and other long-grain varieties, rinsing can remove loose surface starch and help the grains stay more separate; with risotto and some other dishes, that may not be the goal. Ordinary rinsing also has little effect on inorganic arsenic and does not sterilize rice, so texture, arsenic, and food safety are best treated as three separate questions.
When rice that should be fluffy turns mushy, the usual problem is too much moisture plus too much gelatinized starch around the grains. Excess water, overcooking, repeated stirring or a naturally sticky variety are the main causes. Rinsing can remove surface starch, but it cannot fix an overly wet ratio or make sushi rice behave like basmati.
In the United States, cooked pasta should generally be refrigerated within 2 hours and eaten within 3–4 days, following USDA leftover guidance. The clock starts when the pasta is cooked and reheating does not reset it. If the dish contains meat, seafood, cream or another more perishable ingredient, follow the shorter storage limit for the whole dish.
Cooked quinoa provides more protein and fiber than white rice at similar calories: about 4.4 grams of protein and 2.8 grams of fiber per 100 grams versus roughly 2.7 grams and 0.4 gram. It also has fewer carbs, about 21 grams versus 28. The advantage is real, but a serving of quinoa still functions more like a grain base than a main protein source.
Cooked white and brown rice are much closer in calories, carbohydrate and protein than they are often made to sound. The important difference is structural: brown rice keeps the bran and germ, so it provides roughly 1.5–2 grams of fiber per 100 grams versus less than 1 gram in white rice and usually substantially more magnesium and other micronutrients.
Cooked rice is safest when it is cooled quickly, refrigerated within 2 hours and reheated evenly to 165°F / 74°C. The key hazard is not reheating itself: Bacillus cereus spores can survive cooking, and heat-stable toxin may form if rice spends too long warm.
With cooked rice, the most important moment may happen before the container reaches the fridge. USDA's general leftover window is 3–4 days, but rapid cooling matters because Bacillus cereus spores can survive cooking.