Rice Oryza sativa ‘Rice is a necessary and appropriate food for virtuous and graceful life’ Confucius 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. Per 100g Water Dietary fibre Energy Value Protein Fat Carbohydrate   g g k cal kj g g g Brown raw 13.9 4.2 357 1518 6.7 2.8 81.3 Long Grain Polished, raw 11.7 2.4 361 1536 6.5 1.0 86.8 Parboiled, raw 12.4 N 364 1523 6.7 1.0 78.7 Red raw 13.2 N 354 1481 7.4 1.6 76.0   Sodium Potassium Calcium Magnesium Iron Copper Zinc   mg mg mg mg mg mg mg Brown raw 3 250 10 112 1.4 0.85 1.8 Long grain polished, raw 6 110 4 13 0.5 0.06 1.3 Parboiled raw 2 150 7 N 1.2 N N Red raw 2 195 18 N 1.2 N N  Vitamins Thiamin(B1) Riboflavin (B2) Niacin (B3) Folacin (Folic Acid)   mg mg mg ug Brown raw 0.59 0.07 5.3 49 Long grain polished, raw 0.08 0.03 3.0 29 Parboiled, raw 0.20 0.08 2.6 N Red, raw 0.30 0.10 4.2 N 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.