42 



The World's Commercial Products 



water-power, man or, perhaps more frequently, woman was released from all the drudgery, and 

 the whole process carried out by a self-acting machine. Such water-power rice mills are very 

 •common in Japan, but in the .towns steam power is employed, the process, however, 

 remaining essentially the same as in the more primitive methods. 



Crude as these methods may seem, the rice is not very much broken or damaged by the 

 pounding, and the grain is more nutritious and of much better flavour than the more elaborately 

 prepared, but beautifully white product, which alone finds favour in European markets. 

 This is due to the fact that the rice amongst native races does not go through the subsequent 

 process of polishing referred to in the next paragraph under commercial milling. 



Commercial Milling. The commercial milling of rice is quite complicated in comparison 



with the simple methods 

 employed in the East. All 

 impurities being removed, 

 the paddy is passed under 

 closely set millstones. Blow- 

 ers separate the grain from 

 the chaff. The grain is now 

 pounded in huge mortars or 

 passed through an iron 

 " huller " containing a re- 

 volving shaft with projec- 

 tions, where the inner skin 

 is removed. The waste 

 material from this process 

 is rice bran. Finally the 

 grain is polished by friction 

 against cylinders covered 

 with very soft sheep or other 

 skin. At times foreign sub- 

 stances appear to be added 

 to improve the appearance 

 of the grain, because, as has 

 quite recently been pointed 

 out in The Analyst, the ex- 

 amination of a large number 

 of samples of rice showed 

 that polished rices contained 

 " ash," ranging from about 

 v 5 to" about 2*25 per cent. This ash appears to be due to the employment of talc, French 

 chalk, etc., in the polishing. No harm need arise from its presence as it is removed 

 during the process of cooking. Another way to get rid of it is to soak and wash the 

 rice well in water before use. During the: process of polishing the outer part of the grain is 

 removed, and is known as rice polish. It is unfortunate that custom or fashion demands a 

 beautifully smooth, pearly white rice, because this outer portion contains the fats and other 

 highly nutritious parts of the rice. Indeed, it is estimated that the rice polish is nearly twice as 

 nutritious as polished rice itself. Native rice as obtained in the East, although not so white as 

 polished rice, has much greater food value, and moreover is of better flavour. At present rice 

 is classified" in the market and its price assessed on its appearance, and, as has been well remarked 

 by Dr. S. A. Knapp in his interesting paper on The Present Status of Rice Culture in the United 

 States, " if rice is to enter largely into the list of economic foods for the use of the masses, 

 grades must be established based on the food values and not on the shine of the surface. It 



PREPARING RICE IX THE PHILIPPINES 



