If you don't eat that much brown rice, buying it from bulk bins may be better than buying large quantities at once, since it does go rancid after a while (unlike white rice). If you get a reusable bag for the supermarket and keep it in a reusable container there's still no more packaging involved :-)

Yeah, buying brown rice in bulk is foolish unless you eat a LOT of it. It goes rancid. You could keep it in the freezer, but that's also a green no-no, no?

"You could keep it in the freezer, but that's also a green no-no, no?"

Counter intuitive as it seems, no.

http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/appliances/refrigerators.html

A full refrigerator retains cold better than an empty one. If your refrigerator is nearly empty, store water-filled containers inside. The mass of cold items will enable the refrigerator to recover more quickly after the door has been opened. On the other hand, don't overfill it, since that will interfere with the circulation of cold air inside. The simplest solution is to buy the right size for your family in the first place.

So a cold bag of rice could help keep your fridge temp more stable, and thus consume less energy.

Unpolished rice anyone?
"Polishing" refers to the process of removing the husks of rice.
Brown rice is less processed than white rice, but unpolished rice is less processed than brown.
I will quote M. K. Gandhi in his book, "Diet and Diet Reform"
"Whole, unpolished rice is unprocurable in the bazaars. It is beautiful to look at and rich and sweet to the taste. Mills can never compete with this unpolished rice. It is husked in a simple manner. Most of the paddy can be husked in a light chakki without difficulty. There are some varieties the husk of which is not separated by grinding. The best way of treating such paddy is to boil it first and then separate the chaff from the grain. This rice, it is said, is most nutritious and, naturally, the cheapest. In the villages, if they husk their own paddy, it must always be cheaper for the peasants than the corresponding mill-husked rice. Wholly unpolished rice is always hand-husked and is every time cheaper than the mill-husked rice, the variety being the same."
Later in the book, some experts site nutritional advantages to unpolished rice vs. polished rice such as: higher Vitamin B; much higher protein; phosphorus. Although, we in the West with stalked markets need worry less in terms of nutrition than India's poverty must. We have things like wheat to suffice rice, and lots of milk for protein (not to mention we are mostly carnivores).
cheers

I switched to drinking rice milk as a way to reduce my environmental impact. I had learned of the many negative effects of cattle grazing and wanted to reduce my dairy consumption. However, I just learned that rice paddies are a huge source of methane production, like cows. Is rice milk production equally as bad as cow milk production?