Photos

.

Two months ago, I still have the misconcept that American eats bread, and they only grow wheat; they have nothing to do with Rice. Then a map fell to my hands with marks as “rice fields” that prompted me to see how far I was ignorant on the grain being planted here that fed me nearly 60 years.

This is the photo of rice field irrigation in Stuttgart — a town of Arkansas state founded at coordinations 34°30'N / 91°33'W around 1880 by a German from Swabia in southern Germany and named after the Swabian capital — now a centre for rice growing and poultry farming.

“The duck and rice capital of the world” — that's how Stuttgart is known. The town is surrounded by the Arkansas Grand Prairie where the commercial production of rice was pioneered in 1904 and led to Arkansas’s status as the top rice producing state in the U.S. rice fields and irrigation reservoirs.



Did You Know?

1. Rice is the staple food for two-thirds of the world's population. The simple grain has been a popular life-sustaining food for thousands of years because it is nutritious, versatile, economical, easy to prepare and tastes good!

2. Rice is a complex carbohydrate. Humans need complex carbohydrates in their diet because they fuel the body. Complex carbohydrates are stored in muscles and released as energy as needed.

3. Rice protein, when compared to that of other grains, is considered one of the highest quality proteins. It has all eight of the essential amino acids, necessary building blocks for strong muscles. Rice is also a good source of other essential nutrients — thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, phosphorus, iron and potassium. ice contains no fat, no cholesterol and no sodium. This along with being nonallergenic and gluten free, makes rice especially well suited for persons with special dietary needs.

4. Rice offers versatility unsurpassed by an other food. It can be made part of any meal in recipes for soups, salads, main dishes and desserts.

5. In Asia rice is considered sacred. In Japan there are shrines to the god of rice.

6. Honda means "main rice field." Toyota means "bountiful rice field."

7. Arkansas is the largest rice producing state in the U. S.

8. Rice can be indefinitely cropped in irrigated fields. Some rice fields are believed to have been continuously cropped for more than 2,000 years.

9. There are over 29,000 grains of rice in one pound (based on long grain white rice).

10. In Japan, rice grains are affectionately called "little buddhas," to encourage children to eat rice for the rest of their lives.

11. The Greek poet, Sophocles, in 495 BC mentioned rice in the Tragedies.

12. Louis Armstrong signed his autograph "Red Beans and Ricely Yours..."

13. In China, the typical greeting is "Have you had your rice today?" The typical answer is "Yes."

14. In India, it is said the grains of rice should be like two brothers: close but not stuck together.

15. In Thailand when you call your family to a meal you say, "Eat Rice."

16. The Japan word for cooked rice is the same as the word for meal.
(Source)

.