Fear Not Rice: It Built a Civilization

If you spent time in the low-carb world, rice is about as welcome as a toxic waste dump. It is part of those dreaded whites: white flour, white sugar, and white rice. All a part of the reason we are fat, diabetic, and have every disease one can think of.

But then, if you get out and see the world, you will realize that people eat rice daily, are thin as a rail, relatively healthy, and have some of the longest lives on the planet.

Today, we will make sense of the madness of rice.

While people in the Mediterranean were mostly illiterate, in Asia, they had developed writing, laws, philosophy, governments with elaborate testing for civil servants, and gunpowder. In addition, the evidence shows they circumnavigated the oceans, found a larva that could make silk cloth, and developed fine porcelain. They did this while we were drawing crude paintings in caves. Some of our ancestors looked east and even wrote about this “strange” but highly advanced civilization.

This was all possible with grass, we call rice.

Along the basin of the Yangtze River, and elsewhere, was an edible grass that ultimately became rice. You can imagine it was simply gathered until someone learned how to plant it.

Wild rice, then, would drop the edible seed as it matured. Replanting those that kept their seed on the plant longer meant the rice was easier to gather. Planting and gathering meant staying in one area, then, with abundance, one had to build storage, and eventually a civilization around rice. Weights, measures, laws, buildings. Once people can exchange for rice, you develop professions, art, philosophy.

River basins have great soil, but the unpredictability of floods, so management of the river, canals, and all because of a simple grain.

I realize carnivores like to hunt large game as their primal food, but chasing mammals doesn’t lead to a civilization or a brain beyond hunting. Also true today, although the hunting is reserved for determining which type of beef is better, and which store has better prices. Modern carnivore hunters prefer Costco beef, gyms, testosterone, and making fun of people who take statins. One needs a granary to build a civilization.

The ability to grow rice led to the first trade routes, as rice and the dishes that accompany it. From Bryani, to Pilaf and Risotto, to Paella Rice, made its way through trade routes around the world. And with each region, their dishes were accompanied by rice. Spice roads developed on the trails originally made by rice traders, and one might think the spices were there to make the rice even better.

Today, we all have our favorite rice dishes. Mine vary between sushi and paella. Every culture accepted rice and made its own dish.

Some regions even claim their rice came not from the east, but locally.

The first peer-reviewed diet for a chronic disease was the Rice and Fruit Diet, popularized by Walter Kempner out of Duke University. He developed the diet for malignant hypertension, the disease that President Roosevelt died of. This disease was almost uniformly fatal within six months of diagnosis. Kempner developed this low-sodium diet of white rice and fruit. In trials, it not only lowered blood pressure but also improved survival.

In the 1960’s, the diet became popular for weight loss, and throughout the United States, “Rice Houses” became a place for weight loss. Many Hollywood celebrities swore by them.

Vitamin B1 was arguably the first vitamin

Today, we know that thiamine deficiency leads to Beriberi, which was a common and often fatal disease in the Japanese Navy. Kanehiro Takaki noticed sailors who preferred polished white rice, almost exclusively for food, developed beriberi. While officers eating a more varied diet generally did not. Hanehro Takati is credited with saving the Navy by changing its diet. Polished rice removes the husk and endosperm of the rice, which is the main source of fiber and nutrients.

Vitamin A is also unavailable in polished white rice. Vitamin A deficiency remains a preventable cause of childhood blindness. The World Health Organization estimates that 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin-A-deficient children become blind every year, and about half die within twelve months of losing their sight.

To overcome this, rice was genetically modified to produce a precursor of vitamin A. The rice takes on a deep yellow color, hence the name “golden rice.” Unfortunately, the objection to a genetically modified organism was brought to court and stopped golden rice from being used. While this sits in litigation, these children are still going blind and dying.

Why not use brown rice? White rice is shelf-stable for years. Brown rice will quickly become rancid, so it has a limited shelf life.

When writing about rice, there is a lot of heat and not much light. Influencers warn about blood sugar levels, arsenic, while some claim brown rice is perfect and white rice is evil.

Others, in an attempt to sound like they know science, refrigerate rice overnight and claim it is now transformed into perfection. Let’s go through those claims, as well as the fancy rice cookers I see on the market.