Unpolished Rice, the Staple Food of the Orient (1905)

AUTHOR: Clubb, Henry Stephen

KEYWORDS: food, race

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

This published lecture is largely an account of the nutritional merits of unpolished rice, including correspondence between Clubb and the Department of Agriculture and other food scientists who conducted analyses of unpolished, Japanese rice and polished, South Carolinian rice. At the beginning of the lecture, Clubb comments on the overall better health, resilience to disease, and physical strength in the amassed Japanese army and the lack of violence in Japanese society, except where abundant meat-eating has been introduced by other nations. Clubb makes mention of Japanese moral qualities due to their semi-vegetarianism and heavy consumption of rice: “The fact that the Japanese people are the most artistic, humane, vivacious, and happy people on the face of the earth; and that their chief food is rice, is, on its face, a strong argument in favor of the more extensive use of that cereal” (2).

Last updated on May 31st, 2024

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