It may be the major as aspect of a diet, or incorporated into the main dish, side dish, or dessert and is commonly used in the preparation of ready to eat breakfast cereals.
Rice is especially important to persons with wheat allergies and is commonly eaten as a first food by infants, as it offers the least cereal allergy.
Rice may be eaten as the whole grain, or polished shedding the bran. Generally, rice is polished during milling in order to remove the brown hull, which also removes some of the protein, vitamins and minerals. (The once-prevalent deadly disease beri-beri resulted from eating polished rice (thiamin removed in the milling process) as a staple food.)
Today, most white rice is enriched with vitamins and minerals, to add back nutrients lost in milling.
Unpolished, whole rice is more subject to flavor deterioration and insect infestation than polished, white rice.
Rice
