Why doesn't every Japanese
person eat unmilled rice?
Before polished rice was
introduced, people ate unmilled rice. Although the skill was introduced, the
common people still used to cook and eat unmilled rice, but nobles ate polished
rice. Therefore, dietary habits of eating polished rice spread to the common
people in the Muromachi Period about 640 years ago. The unmilled rice is a
little bit harder than polished rice. Therefore, it is sometimes hard for older
people to chew the cooked unmilled rice. Also, the image of unmilled rice is
"the taste of rice is not good." Those are some reasons why people do not want
to eat only unmilled rice in their everyday diet. However, unmilled rice
attracts a great deal of attention these days because of the effects on human
health mentioned above. Of course, everyone wants to be healthy and have
beautiful skin but they do not want to eat food that tastes bad. Because it is
not necessary to eat only unmilled rice, people usually mix the unmilled rice
with polished rice when they cook. A ratio of unmilled rice and polished rice
is 1 : 2 or 3.