I’m sure you’re familiar with the phenomenon of “going down a rabbit hole.” You start an internet search on one tiny topic and before you know it you’ve clicked on a dozen or more websites as you follow the thread of information you’ve embarked on.
This happened to me earlier in the week. Arthritis has cropped up in my hands; not a happy event however you look at it. I asked my doctor, “I’ve heard about anti-inflammatory diets. Do they work for arthritis?”
“Oh, yes,” she said.
I went home, opened my laptop, typed “anti-inflammatory diet” into the search field and was rewarded with about a zillion sites to choose from. The lists of foods that tend to cause inflammation were all pretty much the same, with “white” foods — white bread, white rice, regular pasta, sugar, salt — at the top of them. The good news is that I’d already reduced my consumption of foods in this category: years ago I gave up sugar, switched to gluten-free bread, and often use leaf lettuce as a sandwich wrap.
But rice has long been my go-to substitute for pasta or noodles. Would I have to give that up, too?
I had the idea to see if brown rice is better than white rice when it comes to inflammation. Happily, it is. But in looking for more information on brown rice, I came across black rice, dubbed “forbidden” because in ancient China only royalty were allowed to eat it. In a category of food that I’ve eaten my whole life, I knew that there is long-grain rice, short-grain rice, sticky rice, basmati rice, jasmine rice, arborio rice. I knew that there is brown rice and wild rice. But I’d never, ever heard of black rice. Of course I had to look it up!
With a few keystrokes, I stepped into the mysterious-sounding world of “forbidden black rice” and found this:
“Forbidden black rice refers to a type of heirloom rice that has been part of the Asian diet for thousands of years. It belongs to the species Oryza sativa, whose other varieties include Indonesian black rice, and Thai jasmine black rice.
“Black rice may be long-grain, medium or short-grain. Grown on a small scale, black rice has never been as common as other types, including white, brown, and red rice.
“Early research suggests that black rice is even more powerful than blueberries in its antioxidant effects…It may also help boost immunity and protect your body against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other conditions. (https://health.clevelandclinic.org/forbidden-rice-benefits)
I learned that when it comes to inflammation, black rice is an even better option than brown rice. And then I wanted to know if organic rice was a real thing and in the process was led to a site that described how rice is grown organically. And here’s where I decided that I had to share this with you. Because ducklings. And because Easter ducks and chicks.
Weeds invade rice paddies as well as non-watery fields. But what do you do when you’re farming using organic methods? You do rice-duck farming. After rice seedlings are planted in the flooded paddy fields, farmers release ducklings into the fields, where they eat both weeds and insect pests. (Rice plants contain silica and ducks don’t like the feel of the plants on their bills, so the rice plants are safe from their foraging.) I love this!
For years, we’ve been encouraged to “eat the rainbow,” to be sure to get the most nutrition from our diet. In a bit of a reversal, it looks like black is the new orange.
Note: It’s not considered wise to eat rice every day as all rice contains some arsenic. Cooking rice in excess water apparently reduces the arsenic content. (https://tinyurl.com/54v7yhsm)
Pam Baxter is an avid organic vegetable gardener who lives in Kimberton. Direct e-mail to pamelacbaxter@gmail.com, or send mail to P.O. Box 80, Kimberton, PA 19442. Pam’s nature-related books for children and families are available on Amazon, at Amazon.com/author/pamelabaxter.
