Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1918-06-06
RICE IMPORTANT FOOD
IN NATIONS DIET

Rice should have a more important
place in the diet, says the United
States department or agriculture in
one of a series of statements review
ing the agricultural situation for
1918. Increased production and con-
sumption of rice not only would ex-
pend a profitable industry, but the
seating of more rice in the place Of
wheat would release a greater guam
tity of the bread grain for shipment
TO the allies.
The average per capita consump-
tion of pounds per year in the L..
S. is smaller than that of many Eu-
ropean countries where rice is not
even produced. Norway and Sweden
consume over pounds per capita,
Russia over II, England 81, and Ger
many more than SO. But even these
European countries do not begin to
eat as much rice as Japan and China.
In these eastern countries rice IS
the most important article of diet.
Every man, woman and child in ia
pan, on the average, consumes 147
pounds of rice each year and those
in China 15S pounds.
| The importance of the place rice
holds in the diets of foreign coun-
tries as a staple food, says recent
statement of the department, would
prove beyond doubt that it is highly
nutritious; an analysis of rice sup
plies this proof. Pound for pound
rice is about as nutritious as wheat.
Every hundred pounds of cleaned rice
contain S7.7 pounds of nutriment,
while every hundred pounds of wheat
contain ST. pounds. Wheat has the
advantage in protein and rice in car
bohydrates.
Most of the American per capita
consumption of 6 pounds per year is
used in the southern states, in some
of which it is on the table with at
least one meal daily. In these states
it holds the same place in the dietary
that the potato does in the northern
states.
Rice is sold by most American gro
GERS is pretty grain, with a smooth
and shiny surface, attractive to the
eye, but it lacks the palatableness
that makes foods popular. This rice
has been so highly milled that it has
been robbed of much of its food value
and of most of its oily flavoring mat,
ter, leaving a product known to the
trade as polished rice which to many
persons is tasteless. Unpublished rice
is offered and accepted as a product
superior to the polished, but in real
ity its food value is only better in
hardly perceptible degree.
II the American housewife coult
be induced to demand brown rice in
stead of taking the polished produce
there would be a marked increas'
in the consumption of this cereal II
short time, the department says
The superiority Of the brown ric'
and its pleasing flavor, compared t;
both the polished and the unpolishet
lie in the fact that the entire seed
as nature produced it. is used. onl!
the inclosing chaff or hulls being re
moved.
In the preparation of rice, TIL
housewife is advised to take care tina
it does not become an uninvitinl
glutinous mass. which has been it
common table form in this country
in certain sections of the southern
states rice is served with each grail
distinct and separate, making TEN
pting and appetizing dish.
In seeking information on the ar
of cooking rice, says the department
no mistake is made in referring t
South Carolina, where the true value
of this cereal has been appreciated
for over two centuries. A Carolini
housewife would advise the using o.
l pint Of rice, after thorough wash