White Rice and "Stone Soup"

The other day, while remembering the children's classic, Stone Soup, I began thinking the absurd. Strangely enough, could white rice be the modern day equivalent to the stone in Stone Soup? ... 

In the fable, Stone Soup, hungry travelers arrive at a village looking for food. No one, however, wants to help. The strangers' only hope lies with a stone, a pot, and an incredible imagination. ... As the villagers watch, with curiosity and delight, they are told how much better the 'soup' would be if each person in the town would contribute something to the 'aromatic' mixture the strangers are cooking. Of course, there is no real soup until the villagers share their morsels of food, one by one, into the 'soup' pot, to the absolute joy of the hungry travelers.

In the last few years we have been told to stay away from white foods because of their harmful effects on our health. ... White foods are of no benefit, we are reminded, time and time again. They are of no nutritional value- much like the stone in Stone Soup! 

Is white rice, the current dietary focus, now a needless food, outright? There is, of course, wild rice, brown rice, calrose  rice, and red, to name a few of the many types of rice. But my attention is on white rice, the many white types available, that we buy, repeatedly. It is an affront to human dignity, however, to take aim at this much maligned yet life sustaining white food that has fed and continues to feed billions of the world's population. 

It seems to me that once the 'secret' got out that we were getting fatter and unhealthier, the detectives on the case decided to find out why and decided to place all of the blame on white foods. It would create the perfect scapegoat they were looking for. Under the guise of 'new and improved taste sensation', we also have ingenious attempts to manipulate us into buying reformulated products as if they have been made nutritionally superior. That is not always the case. We are foolish in our thinking. 

Are 'redesigned' recipes simply a ploy to house more sinister additives, preservatives, colours, chemically created flavours for us to eat more of and enjoy? Could be. Are we enticed by the exciting colourful label or the happy, smiling family in the television commercial? Is white rice a plague in our diet like these laboratory created foods? It is up to us to improve rice's health benefits through our personal 'tampering' efforts!. ... Is it a food that beckons, ''fix me". I'm ready.

Years ago, while watching a program about the food industry, the head of a Canadian regional grocery association representing this industry, commented that 10,000 new products were made every year. I thought for a moment. How could that be? There are only 5 food groups: - fruits/ vegetables/ breads/meats, fish/ dairy- more if you place beans/legumes in a separate category. Over a period of 5 years, that would be 50,000 new products. How does that happen unless we go outside of mother nature's garden for that sinister creative touch! We seem to fault white foods for ill health while allowing sinister creativity to invade the kitchen via the fun foods we buy from the grocery or frozen food aisle.

I enjoy basmati, calrose and jasmine white rice.. Painting a tale of woe if I deign to eat this 'universal' white carbohydrate staple is unfair and makes a mockery of history, its people and the food that has fed the earth. Rice is grown not factory produced. Though I have a low functioning thyroid, I am quite cognizant of this gland's unique properties. It has fed the world with a myriad of fruits and veggies steamed or fried with it.  Healthy eating is the name of the health game. including ingredients to offset the malaise inherent in white rice is waht we strive to achieve. 

My cupboard is full of spices while my left-handed brain is full of ideas. When I make cabbage rolls, I use a mixture of jasmine and basmati rices, heavily spiced with turmeric (the brain spice) in the water with 'healthy' textural taste sensations of onions, garlic, celery, as travelling companions with dill, a common addition. Experimentation should be the goal.Wow! Flavour is through the roof and I did not use a stone in making this 'white' dish. 

My father would only eat cabbage rolls made with buckwheat kasha. I never did. The only way I eat this incredible grain is with sautéed onions with butter added. It is a meal unto itself! Rumour has it that this incredible grain separates itself from others as it has both incomplete and complete protein for a balanced diet. It probably saved the life of my preemie son, born over 3 months in 1979. I was sick daily and non-stop but buckwheat kasha allowed me to reign in emissis to 'save a life'. 

It behooves all of us to take our food choices seriously, at all times. Our highly processed 'modern' diet seems to exclude 'real' spices and turmeric, in particular and many times the box in which our favourite food is contained simply lists 'spices' on the side panel of the box to mask its secrecy, perhaps? We have a right to know all of it, in detail.

Cauliflower is white. Green onions, leeks and parsnips are white, too. Onions and garlic, the super foods of our diet are also white and are considered a probiotic in their raw state! One of the newest kids in the white food neighbourhood, is white beans, considered another food superstar as it supercharges metabolism and alters carb absorption. Funny, all of these white foods were born that way yet some of them are added, many times, to increase the nutritional status of many 'colourful'  vegetables for dinnertime enjoyment! 

Though a mix of colour is the goal of a healthy diet, let us not shy away from white foods.  We can alter their nutrient status, if necessary. Though white rice might be considered taboo, let it be known it is made by mother nature as well and many times, is 'polished'  by the food industry behemoths to 'clean it up', thereby making it more appealing to us. (Also the outer leaves of lettuce, romaine and cabbage are removed to look pretty. I'm sorry but those leaves can be full of nutrients) 

In French cooking, we have the 'mother' of white foods, the béchamel sauce. The French are noted for healthy lifestyles, including red wine, artisan baguettes. Their diets are balanced and the 'white' sauce, 'white' French breads, baguettes are simply side dishes to the meal, not the meal itself! ... White foods are not to blame for our ill health. We are!

The travellers in Stone Soup might have been somewhat deceitful in their purpose, but they certainly managed to get a whole village to gather together to contribute to the  awesome wholesome goodness of their originally nutritionally devoid insipid stone soup. Well, from where I stand, white rice doesn't even come close. We just need to respect its glorious past then cook it with intention and integrity!