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Tag: rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa (Asian rice) or Oryza glaberrima (African rice). As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world’s human population, especially in Asia and the West Indies. It is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production, after maize (corn), according to data for 2010. Since a large portion of maize crops are grown for purposes other than human consumption, rice is the most important grain with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake, providing more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by the human species. There are many varieties of rice and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally. For example in India, there is a saying that “grains of rice should be like two brothers, close but not stuck together”, while in the Far East there is a preference for softer, stickier varieties. Because of its importance as a staple food, rice has considerable cultural importance. For example,…