= Killer rice? =

Rice plays a big role in washoku presentation to make the world believe the Japanese always had a widespread traditional food culture based on rice.

The washoku myth has its roots in Meiji Japan.

Japanese culture was invented during Meiji Japan, but before then, rice consumption was too irregular to even become a common part of Japanese culture.

In the past, the Japanese as a whole never really had a food culture centered on rice as a regular staple. The proof? Once acquired, they did not know how to eat rice properly and suffered horrendously.

Koreans as a whole ate 3.5 times more food in variety and intake than the Japanese and rice was never a problem in the Korean diet.

In the past, Koreans always cultivated and ate mixed grains since Gojoseon times. In the Joseon times, even the king was served the best 오곡밥 five grain rice daily to benefit his health.

One of the most peculiar historical food related stories is how an overindulgence of pure white rice nearly destroyed Meiji Japan as a belligerent nation.

How Killer Rice Crippled Tokyo and the Japanese Navy
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/r … y-beriberi

IN 1877, JAPAN’S MEIJI EMPEROR watched his aunt, the princess Kazu, die of a common malady: kakke. If her condition was typical, her legs would have swollen, and her speech slowed. Numbness and paralysis might have come next, along with twitching and vomiting. Death often resulted from heart failure.

While most diseases ravage the poor and vulnerable, kakke afflicted the wealthy and powerful, especially city dwellers. This curious fact gave kakke its other name: Edo wazurai, the affliction of Edo (Edo being the old name for Tokyo). But for centuries, the culprit of kakke went unnoticed: fine, polished, white rice.

Gleaming white rice was a status symbol — it was expensive and laborious to husk, hull, polish, and wash. In Japan, the poor ate brown rice, or other carbohydrates such as sweet potatoes or barley. The rich ate polished white rice, often to the exclusion of other foods.

This was a problem. Removing the outer layers of a grain of rice also removes one vital nutrient: thiamine, or vitamin B-1. Without thiamine, animals and humans develop kakke, now known in English as beriberi. But for too long, the cause of the condition remained unknown.

A common suspect was dampness and damp ground. One doctor administered herbal medicines and a fasting regimen to a samurai, who died within months. Other doctors burned dried mugwort on patients’ bodies to stimulate qi and blood flow.

By 1877, Japan’s beriberi problem was getting really serious.

Machine-milling made polished rice available to the masses, and as the government invested in an army and navy, it fed soldiers with white rice.

Inevitably, soldiers and sailors got beriberi.

Plus, recruits were enticed into the army by promises of as much white rice as they could eat.

The result was deadly. During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, beriberi killed 27,000 soldiers, compared to 47,000 men killed by actual war wounds. Finally, barley became a vital battlefield ration. The source of a disease that had ravaged Japan’s leadership and kneecapped the military was identified. It was the country’s staple crop, everyday meal, and cultural touchstone: simple white rice.

Vitamins had yet to be discovered, and the debate over the true cause of beriberi lingered for decades. But few could deny that Takaki had uncovered white rice’s deadly secret. Takaki, for his efforts, was made a member of the nobility in 1905. Charmingly, he was given the nickname “the Barley Baron.”