RICE : SOME INTERESTING FACTS

They say it is a bad habit to read while one is eating. So said my strict mom and dad .From the earliest ages of my formative years of upbringing, I was stuck with this bad habit, sometimes it may seem useful though. Having persisted with the same still as an adult, I recently found some interesting facts about rice on the back of a packet of rice based breakfast( RICIES) . The facts are amazing and I reckon even for a second you will not imagine how interesting these facts are. In particular, if you are brought up in an environment where rice plays an integral part of your life, these facts may appear very thought provoking. My roots go back to rice cultivators and during our childhood, say three four decades back, as kids we were involved in rice farming to the maximum. We joined manual tillers in tilling the muddy, dark, sulphur smelling at times earth, harvest collectors in collecting plants with a sickle and the funny part of it was leading animals( Buffaloes) over the spread of collected, rice plants with the crop to separate seeds from the plant. This was the era well before tractors and harvesting machines were not in use. Many of the kids who grow up today do not know what these experiences were like. For us , it was sheer fun doing all these stuffs. Like elders, we loved simulating their acts of lying on discarded dried paddy plants after seeds had been separated. Even to a minute, we did not contemplate on the terrible itching that occurs in our skins. Today, whenever, I see paddy fields, my earliest nostalgic memories keep flowing to my mind.

Here are those interesting facts about rice:

In China they typically greet with “ Have you had your rice today”

Almost half of the world’s population eats rice (about three billion)
Ground boiled rice can be made into glue
Rice farming is older than the great grand mother of your great great grand father – about 10000 years
After a framer plants rice, it takes 105 days before he can harvest it
Some time rice is planted by dropping from air
Rice is a source of carbohydrates to feed one’s brain
Did you know your favourite car Toyota means BOUNTIFUL RICE FIELD, and Honda means “ THE MAIN RICE FIELD
If a rice plant is cared for properly, it can live 20 years
It takes 5000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of rice
Rices are packed with B vitamins that help release energy from food intake