Types Of Rice
Rice is a tasty and nutritious meal, and there are many types of rice to choose from when making your favorite rice recipes or trying out new ones. You can find a plethora of rice on your supermarket shelves, and even more varieties in health food markets, specialty markets and online. Choose from brown rice, jasmine rice, basmati rice, short grain rice, long grain, medium grain rice, black rice, wild rice, white rice, and mixed. There are over 100 different varieties grown throughout the world, each lends itself handsomely to the cuisine of the culture it represents. We show you how to cook rice with many of the various types of rice available.
In many parts of the world, rice is revered as a sacred and holy gift from the Gods. There are temples to support healthy rice crops in Asia and Africa, as well as other parts of the world. There are even rice gods with their own names in myriad forms and manifestations to watch over the rice paddies and to bless the farmers who grow them with abundant crops. The gods must have listened, because there are so many types of rice, more than one fifth of the entire planet gets its daily caloric needs from rice.
If you were to fly over the terraced rice fields of, say, the Yuan yang, Yunnan Province in China, you would be in awe of the landscape, providing an abundant food resource of the people of the world; just one twelve mile section of the terraced paddies can grow enough food to feed thousands of people, and it matures from its first planting in as little as 17 weeks. With 1/7 of an acre, you could grow enough rice to feed one person for an entire year. In addition to rice’s ability to grow quickly and abundantly, it is enormously nutritious, so it is no surprise that there are so many types of rice grown all over the world, including Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, Europe and India.
Aside from rice in its raw form, other types of rice include grain that has been made into flour, puffed, soaked, milked, and made into rice wine, or sake. Rice can be soaked to form sprouts, pickled, or roasted. It does not contain gluten, so it is healthy for many people who have difficulty digesting other flours made from wheat. Although it is not a complete protein, it contains almost all the required amino acids the body needs and when combined with fruits, vegetables and small amounts of meat or fish, it is a delicious way to sustain the body and mind.
Another type of rice, called germinated brown rice, or GABA, uses small amounts of water and very low heat to germinate sprouts that include a more complete amino acid chain, and increases the nutrition of the grain. Rice also contains many trace minerals, such as iron and phosphorous which are important for a healthy body. No matter what types of rice you choose to include in your diet, its addition will surely make it a healthier one.