Deep down beneath the granite mountains of Colorado, where you might expect to find a secret US Defense Department stockpile of missiles awaiting the end of the thaw from some awful nuclear winter, lies another kind of reserve. It is a dark, clinically sterile cold room, kept meticulously at 42 degrees and a relative humidity between 25 and 30. This is not the vault for a lethal chemical gas antidote or a vaccine for some exotic virus. These chambers, maintained by the United States Department of Agriculture, hold one of the strategic guarantors of human survival--16,474 varieties of rice. If that sounds like a lot, it's a mere fraction of the planet's diversity. India alone (where rice is said to have originated) had 50,000 varieties under cultivation over the centuries. Today most of India's rice comes from fewer than ten varieties.
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Dr. Charles Balach, the Texas-based guru of America's rice breeding program, now retired ... observes, "Rice has been cultivated for at least 7,000 years in China. Farmers spent generations selectively getting the Ôbad' genes out of a strain, and it's very easy for us to introduce those back inadvertently as we try to improve a strain."
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Rice history: Although it is still unknown exactly when and how people started growing rice, archaeologists have uncovered evidence that rice was present in Indian civilizations 8,000 bce, according to Tuk-Tuk Kumar, author of The History of Rice in India. She argues that rice husks used to temper clay pottery at Koldihawa and Mahagara sites indicate that a domesticated rice was grown at that time. Other researchers document a slender, wild strain called Indica growing on Himalayan slopes about 4,000 years ago. Extraordinary in yield, nutrition, resistance to disease, adaptability and savor, rice migrated around the globe with little promotion. Today, India's prized aromatic rice, Basmati, is found as far from its birthplace as Kenya and California.
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Hinduism's ancient scriptures have many references to rice. Kumar notes that the Yajur Veda describes the preparation of rice cakes as a ritual offering. In the Atharva Veda, rice, along with barley, are described as "healing balms, the sons of heaven who never die." Smritis tell how Goddess Devi Lalithambika is known to be especially fond of payasa annam, sweet rice. Indeed, husked rice is always present in even the simplest Hindu puja as one of the offerings. So revered is rice that, if mixed with turmeric powder, it can substitute if necessary for an offering of costly items for the Gods such as dress, ornaments, even flowers.
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South Indians call rice Anna Lakshmi. Anna means "food" and Lakshmi is the Goddess of Prosperity. From ancient times, Dhanya Lakshmi has been depicted holding a few sheaves of rice in her hand.
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But this reverence for rice is not restricted to India. The Angkabau of Sumatra use special rice plants to denote the Rice Mother, Indoea Padi. The people of Indochina treat ripened rice in bloom like a pregnant woman, capturing its spirit in a basket. Even the Sundanese of West Java, who consider themselves Muslims, believe rice is the personification of the rice Goddess Dewi Sri.
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Good eating: Dietetically, rice is cherished as a cholesterol-free, protein and calorie cornucopia. Most people in Asia obtain 60 to 80 percent of their calories from rice. Rice becomes a "complete protein" when eaten with beans or lentils because the enzymes in rice help to process the proteins in the lentil. As a result, rice is rarely served in India without some kind of lentil or dal.
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And now there are attempts to genetically engineer an improved rice, attempts being embraced in India while being rejected out of hand in Europe and attracting ever-increasing opposition in America. Perhaps the saying, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" should be applied to this already miraculous plant.
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