SIRA-SIRA STORE. Bouncing rice balls
The latest food story that made me stand up was the news about artificial or fake rice. Reports indicated that the suspicious product was produced in China. Many of my friends were suddenly reluctant to buy rice at their favorite retail store for fear they would be buying fake rice (said to be a combination of starch and plastic). Adding to the paranoia were videos of people making rice balls and bouncing them on the table or floor to prove that what they had was not real rice.
I didn’t have the heart to make rice balls just to test the rice my aunt Tita Blitte bought at a neighborhood sari-sari or retail store. With so many people starving in war-torn Marawi and many evacuation centers, I think it’s a crime playing with rice.
Rice “witch hunters” need only research about artificial or fake rice to understand the product better. People can buy rice-making machines, which convert broken rice or other ingredients to be shaped into rice-shaped pellets. Producers sometimes add other cereals, and may fortify the mock rice with micronutrients and minerals such as iron, zinc, vitamins A and B, and other vitamins.
Technically, it’s rice. But given the choice between natural rice and the man-made one, I’d choose God’s rice anytime.
What some people found scary, and had them make rice balls for bouncing, is the idea that the fake rice in their pot might contain plastic. That becomes a health concern, so that recently the National Food Authority (NFA) made scientific tests in their laboratory on rice samples given by people who thought they had fake rice.
One of the tests was boiling a sample batch, which the NFA techinician ate for verification. The sample passed this simple test. Another one measured the starch content of the rice sample, and this needed a calibrating machine. Again the sample passed the test.
According to NFA administrator Jason Aquino they did not find any fake or adulterated rice in any local market.
He added, “If the grains are uniformly-sized, there’s a chance they were made by a machine. Consumers should also be aware of the smell of rice. If it smells anything like plastic or any synthetic material, it should be subjected to laboratory analysis to ascertain its composition.”
Aquino also urged the public to avoid paniccausing activities and instead report to the NFA for any questions.
The website Buzz Nigeria shared a few homebased ways to find out if what you have is real or fake rice.
1. Water test. Drop a tablespoon of raw rice in a glass of water. Fake rice will float; real rice will sink.
2. Fire test. Set a handful of rice to fire. If what you have is real rice, it will have the aroma of burnt rice, while fake rice will have the smell of plastic.
3. Boiling test. While the grains are boiling, real rice forms lanut or gruel at the top of the pot. Fake rice will not produce lanut.
4. Hot oil test. Drop a few grains of rice in very hot oil. Real rice will fry, but fake rice will melt and clump together at the bottom of the skillet.