Discover the Grain of Wonders: Top 11 Fun Facts About Rice You Never Knew!

1. LCD Screens & Rice Krispies

Imagine if your morning bowl of Rice Krispies accidentally discovered a revolutionary technology: Voilà, it was Austrian scientist Friedrich Reinitzer who stumbled upon liquid crystals in 1888 while playing with cholesterol derivatives and birthed the fancy LCD screens we can't live without today!
Source => en.wikipedia.org

2. Bali's Rice Chronicles

If rice were a dime store novel, it would be titled "The Curious Chronicles of Divine Deliverance and the Untold Secrets of Island Fertility": In Bali, rice is revered as a sacred symbol of fertility, gifted by the gods Wisnu and Dewi Sri, and its cultivation is practiced in the ecological marvel, the subak system, which has earned the island a UNESCO World Heritage Site recognition.
Source => villabodhibali.com

Did you know that Ancient Egyptians paid workers with beer? 🍺 Discover the unique flavors and names of their low-alcohol brews that fueled the laborers building the Great Pyramids. Cheers to history! 🍻

=> Fun Facts about Grains

3. Rice Fuel Revolution

Move over, rice wine—it's time for rice fuel to take the wheel: In Japan, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. has successfully developed and tested bioethanol fuel made from rice straw and husk that can power automobiles without competing with food production or driving up costs.
Source => global.kawasaki.com

4. Taiwanese Wedding Dumplings

When love is in the air, nothing says "sticky situation" quite like a gooey Taiwanese dumpling: In Taiwanese wedding and engagement festivities, families and friends come together to craft sweet, glutinous rice balls filled with black sugar, symbolizing romance, happiness, and a bountiful married life, all neatly served in a sweet soup to wish the newlyweds sugary success.
Source => kitchen.j321.com

5. Ancient Rice Farming

Before the Rice Dynasty conquered our pantries and established its rule in our stir-fries, it underwent some serious training in ancient China: In fact, people were dedicated rice farmers more than 7,700 years ago, constructing dams, burning trees in coastal marshes to create rice paddies, and using pig manure to fertilize them for a warrior-worthy grain yield.
Source => latimes.com

6. Antioxidant-Packed Black Rice

Blueberries, step aside – there's a new antioxidant sheriff in town and this one's packing purple power: Black rice boasts a higher antioxidant level with its anthocyanins, not only giving it its unique hue but also providing protection for your cells, eyes, skin, and immune system, along with a healthy dose of protein, fiber, calcium, potassium, and amino acids.
Source => health.clevelandclinic.org

7. The Golden Rice Controversy

Rice, rice, baby: the Golden Rice Project aimed to spice up the staple grain by biofortifying it with beta-carotene, hoping to address vitamin A deficiencies in developing countries - but objections from anti-GMO activists keep it from simmering to perfection on the world's nutritional stovetop.
Source => med.nyu.edu

8. Rabbit Pregnancy Tests

Before the phrase "bun in the oven" became a popular way to announce an impending arrival, it was "the rabbit died" that screamed, "You're expecting!": In 1931, scientists found that injecting a young female rabbit with the urine of a pregnant woman would cause the rabbit's ovaries to mature and ovulate due to the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), leading to this bizarre pregnancy euphemism. Luckily, we've since hopped to more humane methods of detecting hCG in urine tests, leaving rabbits to nibble on carrots in peace.
Source => mcgill.ca

9. House Bricks Made from Rice Husks

Who needs bricks when you've got rice, am I right? When life gives you rice husks, make... house bricks? Surprise, surprise: Rice husks can be transformed into lightweight cellular clay bricks, an eco-friendly building material with great heat insulation properties, thanks to foamed silicate filler, which hardly compromises their mechanical strength.
Source => sciencedirect.com

10. International Rice Gene Bank

If the world of rice had its own mega-library, it would be overflowing with rice-spionage, romance between Indica and Japonica, and wild grain adventures: The International Rice Gene Bank houses over 90,000 samples of cultivated and wild rice species, with Indica being long-grained and Japonica having medium or short grains, providing researchers a trove of rice possibilities to explore and discover new varieties from.
Source => riceassociation.org.uk

11. Powerhouse Heirloom Rice Varieties

Next time you're hosting a rice-tastic dinner party, swap out your Uncle Ben's for some ancient powerhouses: Heirloom rice varieties from the Philippines not only boast exceptional cooking quality, flavor, aroma, and color, but also have greater nutritional value than regular white rice, and contain antioxidants, phenolics, flavonoids, and vitamins, with black rice even packing a punch with anthocyanin antioxidants to potentially prevent heart attacks, cancer, and other diseases.
Source => sustainability.colostate.edu