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 We all drank milk in childhood, some continue to drink even now, but if you draw up a table of the most common food products, then, oddly enough, milk will not come out on top in it. What will come of it?
I cannot deny myself the pleasure of asking this question to you. And I'm pretty sure that you haven't thought about it, and therefore you will answer incorrectly. You say bread. Or potatoes. Well, also - meat or butter. And all this is inaccurate. Of course, there will be some truth in all these answers, but on the scale of our country, and even more so in Belarus, these answers will be absolutely correct. But if we talk about the nutrition of the world's population - no. Because at least 80% of the world's population eats ... rice. Day after day, from morning to evening. And he does not bother them and does not become boring.
Rice is not only a daily dish, but also the main, and often the only, source of protein for the inhabitants of China and India, Vietnam and Indonesia, Japan and the African continent, the Polynesian islands and all of South America. And although the content of proteins (proteins) in rice grains is less than in some other plant foods (not to mention soybeans and other legumes, mushrooms, even in comparison with buckwheat, oats, wheat), it is balanced there in terms of amino acid composition and includes all the irreplaceable ingredients, thanks to which it allows you to do without animal protein for a long time or even your whole life.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of dishes are prepared from rice! At least not less than locusts. And if we also take into account that by the word "rice" we, Europeans, understand one thing, and those who eat it, another, then the number of finished products can be tripled, because rice is known to them in at least 20 types, 150 varieties and many thousands of agricultural varieties. As V. Pokhlebkin argued, rice is distinguished primarily by its shape and size (long and thin - Indian, roundish short - Japanese), by color (except green, all the colors of the rainbow, plus black and streaked), by the presence or absence of stickiness etc.
True, the fact that it does not bother and does not bore itself, apparently, does not depend on a great variety of species and varieties (after all, in a particular area, as a rule, no more than 2-3 varieties are cultivated, and it will not be possible to diversify this menu), and from some of its internal qualities - digestibility, influence on the whole body and on the gastrointestinal tract, perhaps taste. We don't get bored of bread, and not at all because today you can choose what you like best, from 5-8 different options. It did not become boring even 30 and 300 years ago, although then there was no such choice.
And the fact that in our country, for example, rice is much less popular than potatoes, depends not only on national habits and characteristics, but also on the inability to cook it. It turns out that rice most of all "does not tolerate" the template. Each of its 150 varieties requires an individual approach. Some need to be washed in cold water, some in warm water, cook one type without salt, the other after frying, etc., etc.
 Since this is not a cookbook, I do not quote recipes, but I cannot resist and quote V. Pokhlebkin: “The use of rice in cooking is extremely diverse ... It goes well with salty and sweet foods, with sour and delicate, with spicy and aromatic , with milk-cream, "velvet" in consistency and sharp, burning. It is indispensable for meat dishes, for vegetables and fruits, for dairy dishes. It can also be used with fish (in fish salads), in mushroom and flour dishes. Most suitable for rice onion, garlic, tomato paste and juice, red pepper, vegetable and animal oil, eggs, sugar, milk, cream, cinnamon, apples, prunes, raisins, lemon, orange, all kinds of zest, vanilla, chocolate».
I don’t know about you, reader, but I was already salivating. And it is undoubtedly correct that in recent years in our country a lot of attention has been paid to expanding the sowing of rice and increasing its yield. Already in the mid-70s, 1.76 million tons were collected. Let me remind you once again that it is not only the gastronomic and culinary richness of rice groats, but also the high protein nutritional value of rice. If we take into account that, along with balanced proteins, rice contains a rather modest amount of fiber, it becomes clear why rice is so popular with doctors as a diet food and why there are so few obese people among those who constantly eat rice.
True, there is one shady side to the problem of eating rice. The fact is that although today it is already quite well known what rice should be on our table - not polished and not polished, since together with the shell and the germ of the cereal it loses all vitamins and many other valuable things, and brown, basically only rice is sold polished.
Why? Maybe because white smooth grains look more beautiful than brown ones, more familiar? May be. Indeed, there is a reasonable fear that brown rice "will not work", that the majority of the population, not knowing about the advantages of brown rice and the disadvantages of white, but getting used to assessing the quality in rubles, will consider brown rice a product of the lowest grade, or even some kind of surrogate. And it will indeed be cheaper, since it is faster and easier to produce - you just need to interrupt the process before cleaning, the most time-consuming operation.
Of course, selling brown rice is still worth it. For there is no better advertisement than your own experience. But it will not hurt to start a campaign to organize the demand for brown rice.
Brown rice is quite rare on the table not only in our country, but also in Central Asia. Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, Urgench and Khiva, and I specifically asked about him in several stores - the sellers had never heard of brown rice. Together with the problem of yellow sugar and whole grain flour, the problem of brown rice is probably one of the eternal ones, which in principle is not so difficult to solve, but which no one wants to solve - why create additional difficulties for yourself in life?
Vladislavsky V. - About your food, man
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