THE NUTRITIVE PROPERTIES OP WILD RICE {ZIZANIA 
AQUATIC A ) 1 
By Cornelia Kennedy 
Assistant Chemist , Division of Agricultural Biochemistry, Minnesota Agricultural 
Experiment Station 
INTRODUCTION 
Wild rice, a cereal which is distantly related to the cultivated rice, is 
an annual grass growing in shallow lakes and sluggish streams over a 
widely extended territory in North America. It is used rather exten¬ 
sively as a food by some of the Indian tribes of the upper Mississippi 
Valley and, to a more limited extent, in hotels and in private homes 
during the game seasons. It also serves as an important source of food 
for wild water fowl. 
Eight years ago the Division of Agricultural Biochemistry undertook 
an investigation of wild rice, both because the cereal grows quite exten¬ 
sively in Minnesota and because it was desirable to ascertain its food 
value in order to determine whether it was advisable to improve the 
methods of its cultivation, harvesting, curing, and marketing, so that it 
could become of agricultural importance. At that time, as at the present, 
practically no means were employed to preserve the natural rice beds or 
to plant the rice in new localities, and the methods of harvesting and 
curing were very crude and wasteful. 
Wild rice usually matures in the latter part of August or in September 
after the first frost. Shortly before this time the Indian harvesters go 
into the rice beds and tie the standing stalks into small bunches; then, 
when the grain is sufficiently matured, they return in their canoes and, 
holding the bunches over their boats, knock the ripened kernels into the 
bottoms of the boats. Only about 50 per cent of the ripe grains fall into 
the boats, the rest being lost in the mud of the lake. 
Since the rice is gathered before it is fully ripened, it must be cured or 
artificially ripened. This process also aids in removing the tenacious hull. 
The grain is cured, (1) by the sun, (2) by smoke and heat from a slow fire 
under the rice, which is spread on a framework above, and (3) by parch¬ 
ing or popping in a metal vessel. After drying, the hulls are threshed 
off either by treading or by striking with paddles. The hulls are finally 
blown off by the wind or with a fan. Such is the primitive method used 
by both the Indian and the white man to gather and cure the rice. 2 
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF WILD RICE 
When this investigation was begun, in 1915, the biological method 
for the analysis of a foodstuff was unknown. Later, when this method 
of appraising the value of foods had developed, the investigation was 
1 Accepted for publication July n, 1923. Published with the approval of the Director as paper No. 398, 
Journal Series, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. 
2 A general description of wild rice, its habitat, production, etc., is given in Jenks, A. E., the wild rice 
gatherers of the upper lakes. In 19th Ann. Rpt. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. (1897-98), pt. 2, p. 1013-1137, 
illus., 1900. A brief account of the plant, its culture, etc., is found in Chambliss, C. E-, wild rice- 
U. S. Dept. Agr. Circ. 229, 16 p., illus., 1922. 
Journal of Agricultural Research, Vol. XXVII, No. 4 
Washington, D. C. Jan. 26, 1924 
Key No. Minn.-48 
73433—24 
4 
(219) 
