Agrofacts Rice:What you need to know

We often consume rice, isn’t it amazing to know more about this cereal? Today on my blog, I assure you that by the end of reading this piece you will know more about one of the most consumed and highly demanded food crop in the world.
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Virtually, everyone eats rice daily; in fact, some people eat this food twice daily. This is why it is termed a staple food. Before rice gets into the plates, rice seeds pass through a number of value adding stages until finally being bagged sold and cooked. Rice often takes several months in the field from sowing to harvesting depending on variety of rice sown. The variety of rice are often classified as either long, medium or short grained. Rice is a good source of energy and protein.()

In Nigeria, rice is popularly called Iresi in Yoruba, Shimkafa in Hausa and Osikapa in Igbo, is one of the most consumed crop in the world. Rice is a cereal crop like wheat but is gluten free and thus can be consumed by people on a gluten diet. It belongs to the grass family –Poaceae and has the botanical name Oryza sativa.
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At harvest, the rice grain is enclosed in its husk and often called dry paddy (unmilled rice). This dry paddy is often processed into rice grain however; some of the many things you don’t know about rice are;
Polished rice is initially brown in colour: Normally, A rice grain consists of an outside husk layer, a bran layer and endosperm. The husk layer accounts for 20% of the weight of paddy and protects the grain kernel from insect and fungal attack. When the husk is removed usually with a rice huller, the product is called brown rice this process is often termed milling. Brown rice contains the bran layer and the endosperm. The bran layer is made up of the pericarp, testa, the aluerone layer and the embryo. Brown rice often contains nutrients than polished rice and helps to prevent beri-beri (a disease associated with deficiency of vitamin B1). In developed countries, brown rice is often packaged as a health food.
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Polishing gives the grain its whitish colour: after the product (brown rice) is produced, the milling is usually continued to make the rice whitish. This white rice is believed to last longer. During polishing (turning the rice to white) there is usually the lost of some nutrients including the aleurone layer (protein). This therefore shows that white rice contains large amount of starch and fewer nutrients than brown rice. However in most rice processing industries, rice is often enriched by adding nutrients especially those lost as a result of the milling process. After this, the rice is bagged and ready for distribution.
Processed rice is often consumed boiled or steamed. In some countries, raw rice can also be grounded into flour and used in making horchata, rice milk and rice wine.
Brown rice is nutritious and contains more nutrients than white rice, while white rice can now be enriched artificially. But anything natural still keeps its value in its purest sense. Another important point to note about highly polished rice (white rice) is that sometimes during washing before the rice is cooked, the nutrients (additive) are washed away.
Its by-products
One of the amazing features of rice is that all its by-products are very useful.
The bran can be grounded to make animal feed either in pelleted form or powder form and used to meet the energy requirements for farm animals (poultry and ruminant animals).
In northern part of Nigeria, rice brokens are used for making tuwon rice, cous cous while in other countries, it is used to make breakfast cereals, baby foods and for making several food items with rice flour base, such as noodles, rice cakes and rice delicacies. The husk which is usually the first material to be removed during the milling is often used in making bedding materials in the livestock and poultry industry, ash cement or component for making light weight cement blocks for partition walls, in tile industry, oil absorbent, washing powder, and mulch.
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Don’t you see that rice can be used for many things? Based on what you have read from this piece, which do you think is preferable white or brown rice?
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