Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 116, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1918 — Eat More Rice [ARTICLE]

Eat More Rice

Nutritious Food That is a Good Substitute for Wheat

(Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Here in the United States it is difficult to realise that there is no other edible product, except perhaps meat, upon which more people in the world are dependent for food than rice, and that we might advantageously consume much greater quantities of this nutritious food and grow the increase in our own rice fields. An increased production and consumption not only would expand a profitable Industry, but the eating of more rice in the place of wheat would release a greater quantity of the bread grain for Shipment to the allies. The average per capita consumption pf rice for food in this country is scarcely 6 pounds a year, and most of this is consumed in the Southern states. The high esteem in which rice is held in other countries is indicated by their per capita consumption. Norway and Sweden consume over 9 pounds per capita; Russia over 11 pounds; England, 27 pounds; France, 34 pounds; Italy, over 101 pounds, and Germany more than 93 pounds. But even these European countries do not begin to eat as much rice as Japan and China. There, rice is the most important article of diet. Each man, woman and child in Japan, on the average, consumes 147 pounds of rice each year, and those in China, 158 pounds. The placing of such dependence upon rice as a staple food certainly proves beyond a doubt that it is highly nutritious; analysis of rice supports this proof. Pound for pound rice is about as nutritious as wheat. Every 100 pounds of cleaned rice contains 87.7 pounds of nutriment, of. which 8 pounds are protein, 0.3 pound fat, 79 pounds carbohydrates, and 0.4 pound ash. The analysis of wheat flour shows that it contains 87.1 pounds of nutriment in each 100 pounds, of which 10.8 pounds are protein, 1.1 pounds fat, 74.8 pounds carbohydrates, and 0.4 pound ash. Thus the total nutriment in rice is a trifle greater than in wheat. Wheat has the advantage in protein and rice in carbohydrates. Although rice is the great foodstuff of the Orient, it is not used there in making a raised bread. In this country dieticians have made excellent bread by substituting as high as 25 per cent of rice for wheat flour, and have obtained a white yeast bread of excellent flavor.