A MEXICAN cook back at the International House, my dorm in New York City, was perplexed: “Why would anyone want to eat rice for breakfast?”
Back in his native Mexico, people normally eat a huge spread featuring “huevos rancheros” (corn tortillas filled with fried eggs and a sauce of chili, tomato, and onion).
In this age of price hikes of the Filipino staple rice, we might have to eat huevos tortillas for breakfast too as an alternative.
In fact, DA Secretary Emmanuel Piñol recently recommended a diet of blended rice and corn to counter the increasing incidence of diabetes among Filipinos. Not to mention the fact that Piñol aims to make rice shortages less visible.
He might have a point. The first few times I rice-less meals in Vancouver, Canada, I felt like an addict. I have to eat rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for my fix. Otherwise, I’ll go nuts. The solution was to eat at Chinese restaurants.
Another alternative is to adjust my palate to a rice-less meal altogether. Eat yogurt, cereals, fruits, bread mixed with butter or cheese, or bacon, sausages mixed with eggs. No rice, thank you.
But I’m a Filipino. My parents raised us to eat rice—polished white rice to be exact.
Bacolod’s Sanggunian Panlungsod has recently approved an alternative to white rice. It passed a resolution urging food establishments in Bacolod City to offer brown rice as part of their regular menu.
Well, why not? Penned by Councilor Sonya Verdeflor, the resolution aims to improve the nutritional value of rice as a staple food.
Brown or unpolished rice, being a whole grain form of rice, is nutritionally superior to white rice in terms of protein, dietary fiber, B1, B2, and B9 vitamins, and Vitamin E, minerals, and antioxidants, it said.
The resolution also said that researches have shown that brown rice or unpolished rice can help reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, and could lower blood pressure.
According to the website LiveScience, brown rice’s health benefits are partially due to the way it is prepared, citing the George Mateljan Foundation for the World’s Healthiest Foods, which promotes the benefits of healthy eating.
With brown rice, only the hull of the rice kernel is removed during preparation. This leaves most of the rice kernel’s nutrition value intact.
When brown rice becomes white rice, large quantities of B vitamins—including 90 percent of the B6—half the manganese and phosphorus, more than half the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids are lost.
Congratulations to Councilor Verdeflor for this resolution.
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)