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Brown rice: To eat or not to eat
F we did not have rice, our deepest comfort food, we would probably feel less Filipino,” the late food columnist Doreen Fernandez once said. From 1980s to 1990s, a Filipino consumed an average of 92 kilograms. The consumption went up to 111 kilograms from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, it even increased to 119 kilograms. “A lost health food” -- that is how some people think of brown rice. “Before the advent of the rice mills, Filipinos ate rice with only the hull removed, leaving the nutrient-rich brown coating of the resulting grain intact. The unpolished brown rice or pinawa contains more vitamins and minerals than its polished white counterpart,” said a news report. Actually, brown rice and white rice have similar amounts of calories and carbohydrates. The main differences between the two forms of rice lie in processing and nutritional contents. “Ang white rice na kinakain natin, walang sustansya iyan. Kapag pinoproseso ang white rice, lahat ng sustansya, natatanggal na,” explained film and television actor Mikael Daez, a brown rice ambassador. “Brown rice is unpolished rice, so ibig sabihin nun, buong-buo pa ang grain. Naririnig naman siguro natin, whole grains are better than normal, processed grains.” During the polishing process, several vitamins and dietary minerals are lost. A part of these missing nutrients, such as vitamin B1, vitamin B3, and iron are sometimes added back into the white rice making it “enriched,” as food suppliers in the United States are required to do by the Food and Drug Administration. But one mineral not added back into white rice is magnesium; one cup (195 grams) of cooked long grain brown rice contains 84 milligrams of magnesium while one cup of white rice contains 19 milligrams. Shereen Jegtvig in an article which appeared in about.com shares this information: “Since brown rice still has the bran intact, it has more fiber than white rice. One cup of brown rice has 3.5 grams of
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VANTAGE POINTS
VOL. 9 ISSUE 142 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 - 12, 2016
SIDE from Hispanic legacy, the United States and Japan also left behind their own linguistic footprints. For instance, boondocks, a westernized loan-word, came from the Tagalog bundok. Historically, US inheritance can still be found in some parts of Davao City. For instance, Trading, near Bucana, was a commercial district where the early American port of Davao was found. It is no wonder then that an area adjacent to it was named Washington, after the first US president, and later a street was named in honor of American Edward R. Bolton, the military-civilian governor of Davao assassinated in 1906. Going east of the city, the Mason district, at the fringe of Santa Ana pier, was so called because it was the original location of the original Masonic Temple, which was built with American help. A stone’s throw from the area is Frank Carpenter Street (now Leon Ma. Garcia Sr.), named after a former American governor of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu. The area has since become a permanent home of informal settlers. And who would be forgetful enough to overlook Salmonan, after the fish known as salmon or the rainbow runner (Elagatis bipinnulata), which was in turn named after the popular Atlantic salmon. Filipinos, in avoiding Japanese persecution, used the word bakwet (from English ‘to evacuate’) instead of the local terms layas (escape), balhin (transfer) or biya (leave). The Japanese, despite a brief colonial rule, also left behind their own imprints, many of them dating to the second decade of the 20th century when abaca plantations in Davao employed
fiber while the same amount THINK ON THESE! of white rice has less than one gram of fiber.” Nutritionists said that all of us need from 25 to 38 grams of fiber in our diet each day. Fiber is beneficial Henrylito D. Tacio for digestive system health henrytacio@gmail.com and following a high-fiber diet may help a person lose weight. “White rice is still the usual rice found in restaurants, so you will probably have to get most of your brown rice at home,” Jegtvig said. “Brown rice takes longer than white rice to cook, so increase the amount of water slightly. Brown rice doesn’t have the fluffy texture of white rice, but its nutty flavor and chewy texture makes brown rice a tasty way to get fiber into your diet.” By switching to brown rice, Filipinos would become healthier and less sickly. A National Nutrition Survey done in 2008 showed that 26 out of every 100 pre-schoolers were malnourished. Twenty-five percent of children ages 6 to 10 years old were underweight. “While Filipinos have been conditioned to eating rice, the required nourishment that the body needs to arrest malnutrition is inadequate because of the loss or reduction of important nutrients in the milling process,” observed a policy advocacy, which appeared in The PCARRD Monitor. Brown rice is, indeed, healthier than white rice. The health-promoting properties of brown rice can even more enhanced by a simple germination process. It is very simple: The raw brown rice is soaked in water for 12 hours, drained, and then wrapped in cheesecloth for 24 hours. The resulting germinated
brown rice (GBR) is cooked and can then be used as alternative to white rice or as an ingredient in food products. The finding was based from the study, “Development and Evaluation of Functional Beverage with Germinated Brown Rice as Base Ingredient,” conducted by Rodel Bulatao, Jody Chaves, and Dr. Marissa Romero from the Rice Chemistry and Food Science Division of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice). “We know that brown rice is nutritionally superior than white or milled rice. Yet, drawbacks on its cooking time and texture discourage the public to consume it. And so we thought of germinating it to help address these concerns,” Bulatao said. Previous studies confirmed that germination improves the cooking, eating, and nutritional qualities of brown rice. “We found out that GBR from pigmented rice has better phytochemical, antioxidant, and functional properties than GBR from white rice varieties. It also has higher protein (8.5-9.5%), fiber (0.7-1.0%), fat (3.0-3.1%), and ash (1.5-2.1%),” Romero said. Aside from being nutritious, brown rice has several health benefits. For instance, eating a serving of brown rice at least 6 times each week is an especially good idea for postmenopausal women with high cholesterol, high blood pressure or other signs of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A 3-year prospective study of over 200 postmenopausal women with CVD, published in the American Heart Journal, shows that those eating at least 6 servings of whole grains each week experienced both: slowed progression of atherosclerosis (the build-up of plaque that narrows the vessels through which blood flows) and less progression in stenosis (the narrowing of the diameter of arterial passageways). A Harvard University study found out that brown rice can lower the risk of developing diabetes. Researchers drew on data from over 200,000 subjects and found that those who ate five or more servings of white rice a week had a 17 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes com-
pared with those who rarely ate white rice. What’s more, they found that those who ate brown rice regularly were overall less likely to develop diabetes. “When we refine rice, we strip away the majority of many of the nutrients,” says Dr. Walter Willet, a co-author on the study, “including magnesium, chromium and other minerals and vitamins. You’re left with a form of starch that is rapidly broken down, leads to greater spikes in blood sugar, and increases the demand for insulin. Over time this exhausts the pancreas and leads to diabetes.” Eating foods high in insoluble fiber, such as brown rice, can help women avoid gallstones, shows a study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Studying the overall fiber intake and types of fiber consumed over a 16 year period by over 69,000 women in the study, researchers found that those consuming the most fiber overall (both soluble and insoluble) had a 13% lower risk of developing gallstones compared to women consuming the fewest fiber-rich foods. Those eating the most foods rich in insoluble fiber gained even more protection against gallstones: a 17% lower risk compared to women eating the least. And the protection was dose-related; a 5-gram increase in insoluble fiber intake dropped risk dropped 10%. Brown rice helps protect women from breast cancer. A cohort study conducted in United Kingdom hosted 35,972 women who were pre-menopausal. These women ate a diet rich in fiber and fruit. The fiber came from brown rice and other whole grains. The pre-menopausal women that consumed the most fiber reduced their risk of breast cancer by about 52 percent compared to women who consumed a diet with the least fiber. Women who had high-fiber diets supplied mostly by whole grains had the most protection against breast cancer. “Fruit source fiber also offered women protection from breast cancer,” wrote R. Elizabeth C. Kitchen in an article. “This gave women about a 29 percent reduced risk. So, brown rice and other whole grain sources still win out.”
Japanese manFAST BACKWARD power. Many of these linguistic trails, though, were first introduced in Manila. The famous halo-halo, for instance, has its origin in the Japanese kakigori, which goes back over 1,000 Antonio V. Figueroa years. During the Heian period, the Japanese nobles harvested ice during winter and stored them in special ice caves for use the following summer. The Japanese also specialized in preserving beans like mongo (mung beans), garbanzos (chickpeas), and kidney beans in thick syrup, then adding crushed ice, which evolved into the indigenized Filipino halo-halo. Kiyoshi Osawa, in “A Japanese in the Philippines” (1981), wrote that before the war Davao had the largest Japanese population outside the mainland, mostly Okinawans, wh controlled the business of halo-halo, known as the mongo-ya, from the Tagalog ‘red beans.’ They were also into refreshment. The Bureau of Insular Affairs (BIA) reported in 1934 that they controlled 100% of the soft drinks in the city, 80% of the refreshment parlors, and 50% of all ice plants. The Davao noodle known as odong, on the
other hand, was inspired by the Japanese udon, which was prepared from wheat and processed into thin strips for use in soup and other epicurean preparations. Noodles, though, are Chinese in origin, and their taste, aside from the meat that is added, depend on the condiments and spices used in cooking. The odong is yellowish in color like those noodles served fresh or packaged as instant food, and resembles in size to the graphite of a pencil, which is long, thin, and square, like an elongated stem. Locally, it is prepared with a mixture of oil, spices, soy sauce or toyo (shōyu in Japanese), and canned sardines cooked in a generous serving of broth. In pre-Commonwealth years, the Japanese controlled 60% of the odong produced in Davao. Although the Japanese tofu (soybean curd), known as tokwa, is Chinese in origin (from doufu, or bean), there is an oral tradition that it was the Japanese traders, in catering the needs of Japanese migrant workers, who first introduced the soya food in Davao. The deep-friend tokwa, eaten as a side dish, is traditionally mixed with onions, pork, vinegar and spices. It is made from coagulated soy milk produced by soaking, grinding, boiling and straining the curds produced. Normally, households use salts and acids as coagulants and sold its byproduct as taho. Another Japanese legacy is the loanword katol, Japanese for ‘mosquito coil,’ from katorisenko. Introduced in the country during the first quarter of the 20th century, the article was a brand name manufactured by Azumi & Co., Ltd. of Osaka, Japan. It was exclusively sold by the Manila-based
Osaka Bazar, which had a branch in Davao. Other Japanese loanwords that have found their way into Visayan and Tagalog vocabularies include kaban (sack of rice, bag, satchel), toto (younger brother, from ototo), karaoke (empty orchestra), jack-en-poy (rock-paper-scissors or janken-pon), dahan-dahan (slowly, dandan), haba (width or breadth, haba), and tamang-tama (coincidentally, tama). The soft drink bottle cap locally known as tansan originated from Tansan, a brand of bottled carbonated water introduced in the country in the early decades of American occupation. And what else do we know? Last year, numerous Filipino slangs found their way into the authoritative Oxford Dictionary, officially integrating them in the expanding Philippine English vocabulary. Among the proud Pinoy terms adopted, as reported, are: Carnap (to steal a vehicle); gimmick (a night out with friends); presidentiable (a person who is a likely or confirmed candidate for president); balikbayan (a Filipino returning to or visiting the Philippines from overseas; halo-halo (a shaved ice dessert), KKB or kaniya-kaniyang bayad (each one pays their own), utang na loob (a sense of obligation to return a favor owed to someone); despidida (a going-away party); baon (food or money one brings to work or school); barkada (friends one hangs out with); estafa (fraud); kikay (vain girl); kuya (older brother); mabuhay (long live); pasalubong (souvenirs brought back home from another country or place); suki (regular customer or seller) and kilig (the tingly feeling associated with romance).
US, Japan linguistic legacies