“Once upon a time, unpolished rice—that is, brown rice—was the only rice that Filipinos knew, back when pounding and winnowing were the only means our ancestors had for milling rice,” writes Prof. Ted Mendoza, crop scientist at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. “People across Asia ate unpolished rice in great quantities a century and a half ago,” add Robin Broad and John Cavanagh of American University and Institute of Policy Studies, respectively. “When Westerners brought rice mills to the country a century ago, Filipinos found the taste of the new white rice strange, and it took a while [for them] to get used to it.”
The milling machines may have made life somewhat easier, but they also altered the end product altogether, removing the bran from the rice and turning it white. Through time, white rice consumption dominated brown rice, and the latter became associated with poverty, even considered an inferior, “dirty” product. White rice, on the other hand, was considered modern and sophisticated.
