Panic over rising global rice prices

We have not seen panic over the shortage of food in developed countries for a long time. With the rising rice prices in different countries and the consumers' fear of the shortage of supply of rice, many businesses and households have been stacking up bags and bags of rice.

One of the Chinese restaurants in town told me that their usual supplier has increased the price of rice by threefolds. Walmart is out of supply and they went to Sam's Club in El Paso to stock up. However, due to the panic buying by the consumers, the retailer is restricting the purchase by a few bags of rice per customer.

Rice is a main staple of most Asian countries and the soaring prices of rice have affected many negatively. In Philippines, people are asked not to throw away leftover rice and fast-food restaurants are advised to give half a cup of rice instead of what they normally give to customers with the meals.

The rising price of rice is driven by many factors, including climate and fuel cost. We really need to do something about the fuel cost and how we treat the environment. We are not only killing the earth, we are also driving ourselves nuts.

When do Asians eat rice?

Yesterday I talked about rice being the main staple for Chinese. In fact, other Asians such as Japanese, Filipino and Korean also treat rice as a major part of their meal. Most of them have rice as their breakfast as well. I visited one of my Japanese friends in Tokyo two years ago. She made breakfast for me and my husband and surely rice was one of the items.

When I was a kid, I grew up eating rice and meat for my breakfast during winter. My mother said it would help keep me warm...considering that there was no heating in the classroom and we were on public transportation a lot, rice did help give me energy and warmth. I still have the habit of eating rice almost every day. Bread is considered a snack for me. If I don't have rice for a particular meal, somehow I feel that I didn't quite feed myself well.!

The main staple of Chinese

Most American and European have their meals with bread or dinner rolls. For Chinese, rice or noodles are the main staple depending on which part of China you are from. For Chinese who are from the north, they prefer noodles and dumplings. For the rest of China, rice always accompanies the main meal.

There is a Chinese saying "no rice, no energy; no money, no courage!" It shows how important rice is to their culture.