CHAPTER V 
CONSUMPTION 
NUTRITION 
Of the various authors quoted in this memoir not one has spoken 
disparagingly of wild rice as a food. A few have observed that it is 
nearly as good as the white rice of commerce; a great many have said 
that it is fully as good, while still many others have said that it is 
better. A few of these observations will be presented later, when the 
yarious ways of preparing the grain for food are considered. 
In 1862 Mr Ed. Peters made a chemical test of the composition of 
the grain (Zizania aquatica), and Prof. F. W. Woll, chemist of the 
Agricultural Experiment Station at Madison, Wisconsin, made a simi- 
lar test for this memoir in 1899. These are the only tests which have 
been reported, and it is upon them that the positive statements of the 
nutritive qualities of wild rice are made. The following table (D), 
column /, shows that wild rice is more nutritious than the other native 
foods to which the wild rice producing Indians had access, viz, maize, 
green corn, corn meal, white hominy (substitute for Indian hominy), 
strawberries, whortleberries, cranberries, sturgeon, brook trout, and 
dried beef (substitute for dried or jerked buffalo meat). It shows also 
that it is more nutritious than any of our common cereals, as oats. 
barley, wheat, rye, rice, and maize. 
It is noticed that the wild rice is very rich in nitrogen-free extract; 
that is, carbohydrates, such as starch, sugar, etc., which are heat pro- 
ducers. In the economy of the animal body they are transformed 
into fat. They thus produce both heat and fat. Indeed, wild rice is 
seen to be richer in carbohydrates than any other of the foods here 
mentioned, with the exception of white hominy—the hominy of com- 
merce. 
The last two specimens of wild rice mentioned in Table D were pro- 
duced by Indians and came from Lae Courte Oreille reservation, Wis- 
consin, while the first specimen probably was not, as the Indians do not 
consume the grain in the ‘‘original substance,” and the ‘‘ dried sub- 
stance,” by Peters, is drier than the Indians prepared it—the water 
having been entirely removed. It is also noticed that the Indian-pro- 
duced wild rice is very rich in crude protein, or the albuminoids, 
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