Best way to loop over a csv/dat file to access individual rows in shell scripting

Question

Generally, we use the while for read combination to loop over CSV or DAT files, and then render each row accordingly in a mailing report using HTML. This is for point automation in our Linux machines where the data set is not huge, and normally ranges in between 100 and 150 rows.

Is there another way to do the same, which is faster and “makes more sense”, because I heard that generally one shouldn’t use while to perform the said task.