Let them eat healthier rootcrops

Dahli Aspillera

‘Presidents are re-elected or voted out on their ability to maintain the artificially low, taxpayer-subsidized cost of white rice.’

NEWSPAPER headline: P-NOY WARNS OF RICE CRISIS. "The most watched commodity is rice because any increase in the cost of vital commodities, such as rice, will be politically critical to any administration."--Nica report, which was tagged as confidential. President Aquino wants the Agriculture Department to check on rice availability because if there suddenly is a shortage, this will certainly have a deleterious effect on consumers.

Rice, the unfortunate staple of Filipinos. Rice is a most impractical, fastidious grain -- temperature and water sensitive, labor intensive more than any other grains (wheat, millet, sorghum, corn, oat, etc.) The people who eat white rice, even the very impoverished, have no idea that rice is a luxury food as the Japanese believe; the pains of rice production and its scarcity. Rice farmers profits allow them to eat twice a day–they subsidize this luxury of rice. We sing that ditty, "Planting Rice is Never Fun" and never really know the pain that goes into rice production. And this grain is most devoid of nutrition, the way the Filipinos like it--the whiter, the better; all nutrients removed.

That is the slave-labor of planting and harvesting the rice grain. Then, the millers scrape away all the nutrition and leave nothing but the white starch. Impoverished Filipinos boil this white rice, devoid of nutrients of concern, and over this snow-white kanin, they pour boiled white wheat ramen, flavored with MSG. That is the poor family’s meal almost everyday. No wonder their kids are of low resistance, susceptible to illnesses.

Filipinos got in the habit of eating snow-white rice, and like all food habits, it is difficult to change. Your mother put white rice in front of you as an infant, and it’s become a habit. If the DOH people and nutritionists would prohibit the rice millers from scraping all the brown off the rice grain, the Filipinos will have no choice but to eat brown rice and will be healthier for it. The browner, the healthier and more nutritious because the brown bran which has the B-Vitamins, roughage/fiber, oil-rich germ from where the plant sprouts.

If the rice bran is not scraped , there is an additional 20 percent recovery. and the Filipinos eat a much healthier brown rice. With this additional recovery in milling, there is no reason why brown rice is priced at P60 a kilo, while white rice is P30. Shelf-life should be no problem if the turnover is fast.

Rootcrop is an excellent carbohydrate substitute as staple food. Sweet potato/kamote is far more nutritious carbo than white rice, and cheaper; more fiber for roughage, vitamins from the yellow, orange and purple varieties. An avocado-size kamote can be sliced in half lengthwise, and laid on its skin with a small amount of water. Covered well, it takes less than four minutes to steam. Half a camote this size is far healthier than one cup of white rice. And cheaper.

Because of the sensitivity of rice against flooding or drought, rice-producing countries, without any exception experienced overall reductions in production. These are Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, China, Cambodia and the Philippines.

FAO warns of a worldwide food crisis as a result of sharp declines in international food production. Did FAO know that the Philippines can produce rootcrops like sweet potato enough to feed the population even without rice? It is as easy and plentiful to produce kamote, as it is problematic and a pain to produce rice.