Rice is consumed at all meals, during breakfast it is eaten as a porridge called congee. Congee may be eaten as a savory dish or as a sweet dish, but most often it accompanies savory side dishes. Often it is served with such delicacies as thousand year old eggs (eggs that have been cured in lye), dried fish or pork, and pickled vegetables.
Modern scientists have not ignored the fact that rice is such a staple for some of the largest and poorest peoples of the world. Although starving people may have two or three bowls of rice per day, the can be significantly malnourished because the popular style of preparation involves polishing the rice grain until the husk is completely removed. This process causes most of the nutrients in the grain of rice to be removed. Genetic engineers have created rice into which has been inserted two genes from dandelions. These genes are responsible for vitamin B production, a vitamin whose deficiency can cause serious medical problems such as dementia, insomnia, heart palpitations, shaking and weakness in limbs and extremities, and chronic fatigue. This manipulation of the grain has been extremely controversial, with many people refusing to consume the genetically modified food preferring to try to rectify vitamin deficiencies in other ways.
Woman eating rice for lunch in a local Sichuan market.
Bins of rice available for purchase in bulk at a market.
Sizzling rice soup.