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Rice
Oryza
sativa
'Rice
is a necessary and appropriate food for virtuous and graceful life' Confucius
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Rice is the
staple food of over half the world's population, and there are three
basic varieties - long grain, short grain and glutinous - spread
across the 19 species of this member of the grass family.
A tropical
plant, it requires quite high temperatures and humidity to grow
successfully. The plant has a hollow stem which carries oxygen down
to its roots, an evolutionary adaptation to growth in flooded areas,
although it is thought that the now long-established paddy-field
cultivation by man, which nowadays is where 90% of the world's rice
is grown. was probably not developed as an agricultural skill until
late in the Neolithic period, probably around 3,000BC. The remainder,
which does not need to be flooded, growing much like any other cereal
crop, is known as upland rice.
Wild rice, the
dark grain which has been fashionable, sometimes mixed with American
long-grain for some time now, is not a true rice at all, but the seed
of an aquatic grass, Zizania aquatica. It grows in the swamps and
shallow lakes of central North America and was once the staple food
of several Native American tribes, who used to harvest it by shaking
the ears of grass over their canoes to collect the seeds - a method
which is still used today.
Theories
differ widely as to exactly where and when rice cultivation first
started. Some scholars believe that it first appeared in the Ganges
Delta, in India, in around 3,000BC, moving eastwards as early trade
movements began during the Chinese Bronze Age. Other sources claim
evidence exists in excavations in Eastern China dating back to
6,000BC, whilst yet another group point to food remains found in a
cave in Northern Thailand, dating back to around 6,000BC, as the
earliest evidence of Man's cultivation of this basic foodstuff.
It is
mentioned in several very early texts: Susrutha Samhita a medical
work from around 1,000BC classifies the then existing strains in
India, including advice on nutritional value; Greek texts from around
the time of Alexander's invasion of India in 320BC refer to rice as
being an Indian grain; Aristobulus, writing in 280BC mentions that
rice was being grown in Babylonia, Bactria and Lower Syria. Rice was
slow to emerge any further Westwards from Asia, probably because of
its expense and resistance to transplantation in cooler climes. It
warrants no mention at all in the Bible. The Ancient Egyptians, keen
horticulturists and ever ready to try a new food, did not grow it,
despite the ideal conditions along some stretches of the Nile, and
the Greeks and Romans regarded it as an expensive novelty to be used
a medicine.
Eastwards its
progress was more successful. It is thought that rice spread with the
movement of South Chinese immigrants to the Phillipines before the
first millennium BC, reaching Japan by 1st century BC.
A charming
Chinese legend explains the origin of rice, attributing it to Kuan
Yin, the goddess of compassion, also know as Sungtzu niang-niang, the
lady who brings children. The story goes that the rice plant had
always existed but, at first, its ears were empty. Seeing that
Mankind were suffering and hungry, Kuan Yin went into the rice fields
and emptied the milk from her breasts into the barren plants. Before
she had filled all the plants, however, she had pressed so hard that
blood began to flow with the milk. That is why there are two types of
rice, white and red.
The earliest
appearance of rice in written records in this country is a quantity
itemised in the household accounts for the court of Henry III in
1234, and when the cereal finally arrived in any quantity, it was the
glutinous, short-grained variety which found favour, for use in milk
puddings. Initially, the rice/milk pudding was costly and indulgent
luxury, containing refined sugar and spices as well as the equally
expensive grain itself. Rich Elizabethans tended to reserve it for
nursing mothers, whilst by the time of Charles I it was regarded as
an aphrodisiac.
Pudding rice
remained the British favourite until Anglo-Indian dishes, such as
Kedgeree, found favour in Victorian England. Adapted from the Indian
mix of rice and dal, Kitcheri, the British in India added smoked fish
and chopped, hard-boiled eggs, dropping the lentils somewhere along
the way, and the dish was almost a mandatory part of the British
breakfast sideboard for decades.
Thailand is
currently one of the world's greatest producers of quality rice,
having three to four harvests annually. In fact, rice is so ingrained
within Thai culture that a common phrase to express hunger is 'I have
an appetite for rice'.
Rice far more
adaptable than many people give it credit for. It is used to brew
beers; to make fermented wines; distilled to make spirits. It can be
ground to provide a flour for pancakes, dumplings and breads. By
cooking , wrapped tightly, in either in banana leaves or cooking
foil, rice can also be 'compacted' into sliceable loaves and makes it
an interesting way to serve it as the central carbohydrate in a meal.
The most
enduring recipes, however, can be traced back to the Sassinad
Persians from around 10th century AD. Modern dishes such as the
Iranian Polo, Indian Pilau, Spanish Paella, Italian risotto and
French Pilaf all bear traces of influence of their Arab forebears.
Moghul rulers
of India loved pilau and, to add to the sensual enjoyment of the
dish, would have their rooms filled with the fragrance of saffron
before it was served.
Ayurveda
values brown, unpolished rice as being effective on all three forces
which affect bodily and mental functions, the tridoshas - Pitta: Sun
(metabolism); Kapha: Moon (body fluids balance); Vata: Wind (nervous
system). It is regarded as being sweet, cooling, diuretic, beneficial
to the eyesight and a strengthening tonic for the heart.
Unani Tibb,
the system of botanical medicine and dietetics developed by the
Persian physician, Avicenna, believes that rice increases pleasant
dreams and 'produces an abundance of semen'.
Nutritionally,
brown rice, which still has the vitamin and nutrient bearing bran
worn away by milling, is far superior to the polished white. Modern
processing methods which parboil the grain before milling, causing
some of the nutrients to migrate from the outer coat to inner parts
of the grain. Even so, all the essential nutrients are dramatically
reduced, if not wiped out completely.
A nutrition
comparison between the basic types shows that the Vitamin B1 is
reduced considerably by polishing, as are many other nutrients and
valuable dietary fibre. It was the loss of the vitamin B1, however,
which led to beri-beri outbreaks in the Far East at the end of the
19th century. Beri-beri, which takes its name from the Sri Lankan
word for weakness, causes mental confusion, loss of feeling in the
feet and legs, paralysis of the eye muscles, muscular degeneration,
heart irregularities and emaciation. In 1886 the Dutch East India
Company began investigations into the cause of the disease, but it
was not until 1911, when a Polish chemist named Cosimir Funk found
that an extract rice hulls could be used to prevent the disease. He
originally believed it to be a nitrogen-bearing compound, or amine
and, as it seemed vital to life he dubbed his new discovery
'vitamine', a contraction of vital amine. It was later discovered
that the substance wasn't actually an amine and so the 'e' was
dropped. The word vitamin, however, had arrived to stay.
Rice bran is
also a good source of vitamin K, which helps blood clotting and in
the absorption of calcium, and vitamin E, which has been attributed
with helping to slow down all the harmful oxidation processes in body
cells, such as ageing and the formation of free radicals which can
trigger cancers and damage heart tissue.
The Glycaemic
Index, invented to help in the treatment of diabetes, and which
measures the rate at which blood glucose levels rise when
carbohydrate foods are ingested, rates brown rice at 66, Basmati rice
at 58 and white rice at 72. The lower the rate, the slower the
digestion rate, keeping blood sugar levels more constant.
As with all
highly nutritious foods, however, there is always a danger that other
organisms get to them before we do. The spores of the organism
bacillus cereus germinate rapidly and produce toxins in batches of
cooked rice which has been left to stand in warm, moist conditions.
Unfortunately the toxins cannot be destroyed by normal cooking
methods, and symptoms, which include stomach pains, vomiting and
diarrhoea, occur as quickly as 1 hour after eating contaminated food.
CONSUMPTION:
World rice
production in 2004 was just under 610 million tonnes. At least 114
countries grow rice and more than 50 have an annual production of
100,000 t or more. Asian farmers produce about 90% of the total, with
two countries, China and India, growing more than half the total
crop.
For most
rice-producing countries where annual production exceeds 1 million
tonnes, rice is the staple food. In Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, rice provides 50-80% of the
total calories consumed. Notable exceptions are Egypt, Nigeria, and
Pakistan, where rice contributes only 5-10% of per capita daily
caloric intake.
The typical
Asian farmer plants rice primarily to meet family needs.
Nevertheless, nearly half the crop goes to market; most of that is
sold locally. Only 6-7% of world rice production is traded
internationally.
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