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The funny thing is that eating rice isn't even that old of a tradition, and neither is eating it in polished, white form. White rice only became ubiquitous when
by dnhz 6y ago
The funny thing is that eating rice isn't even that old of a tradition, and neither is eating it in polished, white form. White rice only became ubiquitous when milling technology improved, and spoilage of the oils in brown rice became a concern for storage.
> Despite its long history in Japan rice was, for a long time, a food reserved for the warriors and the nobility. It was consumed by the majority of the population only from the seventeenth century onwards, not becoming the basis of Japanese food until the early twentieth century
https://www.japan-experience.com/to-know/chopsticks-at-the-ready/rice-in-japan https://www.japan-experience.com/to-know/chopsticks-at-the-r...
> A disproportionate share of the rice crop was therefore consumed in the cities and by the political and economic elite, while the diet of much of the rural population continued to depend on the availability of a range of other grains – wheat, millet, barley, etc. – together with vegetables, fruit, pulses and occasional fish or game, grown at home or collected in the locality.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09555800701330030 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0955580070133003...
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y agoI currently work for a company that makes glucose monitors for people with diabetes, but we (non-diabetic) employees sometimes get to try the products out. As far as I'm aware, all the current medical literature states to avoid simple carbs (like white rice) to prevent insulin spikes, and to eat things like whole grain breads instead. But, we noticed that this seems to only be true for people of European descent - my Asian co-workers were able to process white rice just fine. Which kind of makes sense - East Asian people eat a ton of rice, and yet they're thin. This is all purely anecdotal of course, and I'm not a doctor, but we do know that different ethnicities process food differently (e.g. lactose), and it's not so hard to imagine that our current dietary recommendations might be a bit skewed, because the people in the datasets are mostly of European ancestry.
- fudged71 6y agoGenetic nutrition optimization is a really interesting topic related to this. There are many other differences related to our genetics that impact how we process food.
- dnhz 6y agoI've read elsewhere that East Asians are more prone to diabetes than are other ethnicities. A quick google search for "east asian diabetes" yields links for higher risk, with diabetes occurring at lower BMI values. Also, the nature of diabetes type II appears to be different [2]. 1. https://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/2018/11/30/how-diabetes-differs-in-the-east-asian-patient-implications-for-diagnosis-and-treatment/ https://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/2018/11/30/how-diabetes... 2. https://asiandiabetesprevention.org/what-is-diabetes/why-are-asians-higher-risk https://asiandiabetesprevention.org/what-is-diabetes/why-are...
- yutopia 6y agoThat's a good point, I cook my rice with all kinds of millet, barley, and seeds mixed in. My grandparents would probably think that's backwards, why would I eat barley when I could afford white rice. But it's supposedly healthier (there's a famous story about how eating too much white rice crippled the Japanese navy [1]), and personally I think it tastes better too. [1] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-edo-tokyo-navy-beriberi https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-e...