Rice is Nice

25:35Weird. And then we talked about, you know, some rice even goes through the enriching process. Would you like to go over those three ways again? Oh, that's right. Okay. But, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about the downside of rice, because anytime you're talking about like these major crops or farm situations, it's not always the greatest for the environment. And it takes a lot of water to grow rice. Like you said, if it's not done in a patty, just tons and tons of irrigation, which makes it surprising that California, which suffers a lot of drought, has about half a million acres of rice.

26:08Yeah. If you listen to our salt and sea episode, that should be an eye popping number to you. Yeah. That said, though, rice production still requires less water than any kind of meat production, any kind of nut production from what I understand. And a lot of vegetables still use more water than rice cultivation, I guess, worldwide. So water use is a thing. Land use is another thing, too. But greenhouse gases seem to be probably the biggest problem with rice production. Yeah, this kind of is something that I would not have considered. Again, I was just sort of naive to that. I usually think of like factory farming of animals and stuff as being big methane contributors.

26:51But when you have a big flooded rice field, you're also going to have a lot of microbes in there feeding off of decaying plant matter. And that's going to create a lot of methane. I didn't realize it was that big of a problem, but apparently it is. It must be because so much rice is cultivated worldwide that that all combined makes it a problem. One of the things you can do to reduce methane emissions is to drain the patties when the rice is at a growing stage where it doesn't need to be flooded. And then when it needs it again, you can reintroduce the water and then you dry it again for harvesting.

27:30The problem is this. And I love stuff like this, even though it's terrible. I love it when you solve one problem and it creates an equal and opposite problem. That's exactly what happens with rice cultivation. When you dry out that patty, it exposes the soil and a bunch of nitrous oxide, which is another greenhouse gas, gets emitted. And so if you just grow it just with soil, it's going to emit nitrous oxide. It's going to be covered up with the water in the patty. And then when you dry it again, it's going to release more nitrous oxide. So they're trying to figure out like the balance of which one's worse.

28:08You know, would it be better to just leave it flooded all the time? Would it be better to dry it? Because you can take care of the methane, nitrous oxide goes up. Take care of the nitrous oxide, the methane goes up. But did you see that thing about rice fish farming? Is that like the seawater farming? No, this is, it's a little different. It's where you actually, you grow fish. You like farm fish in your rice paddy. And they actually help take care of the methane problem by eating a lot of the algae that would otherwise decompose. So the methane goes down. The nitrous oxide emissions go down because the paddy's always flooded because, you know, the fish need the water.

28:49And I saw that it increases yields by 10 to 15 percent because the fish are pooping. And so the nitrogen cycle is going a lot more frequently. You don't need to add as much fertilizer, if any. and they're eating a lot of the pests. So there's a 50 % reduction in pests. And I think in some, if you do it right, you don't even need to use pesticides in rice production. So growing fish with your rice is like the way to save the planet. What kind of fish? Do you know? I don't think it matters. Probably a smallish fish because there's only a few inches of water that you need for rice paddies. So it wouldn't be like a giant carp.

29:28You'd be up the creek, I think, or the carp would be if you tried to grow carp in a fish paddy. Right. It wouldn't be, say, a marlin or great white shark. No. No, but it would be something to see. I did mention seawater rice. There are people efforting to do that kind of thing, to grow it in seawater. Obviously, it's got to be a situation where they can get a rice variety that can tolerate that salt content in the alkaline soil. But it's something that they're looking into that has got a little bit of promise, I think. Yeah, because it reduces the land use, right? Because you're not using really valuable land for cultivating rice.

30:10Yeah. There's also the matter of toxins, too. I didn't realize rice was such a downer, did you? I did not. I didn't know about the toxins. And I think specifically arsenic is one of the, I think like lead and cadmium also. But arsenic seems to be the major offender. Yeah, and the reason why it's such a deal with rice is rice absorbs it more than most crops for some reason. The big downer about the whole thing is that arsenic is most present in the germ and the bran. So the type of rice that's most beneficial for you health-wise, brown rice, is also the ones that have the most arsenic. Aha! I found an article that asks if the benefits outweigh the risk as far as arsenic and brown rice is concerned.

30:58It was in 2023 edition of Frontiers in Nutrition. And they basically said, I don't know, we should do more study on it. Said eat what you want, bub. Yeah, I guess. But basically, they were like, we don't know. Why would you even read this article, chump?

31:19If you're seeking out safer rice, you know, there are people have done studies, Consumer Reports, I think, did some testing for arsenic specifically. They found white basmati in California, India, and Pakistan. And sushi rice from the United States, maybe not intuitively, has the least amount of arsenic if you get rice from Arkansas, Louisiana, or Texas. it's going to have higher levels of arsenic. Yeah. If your soil is more likely to be contaminated by industrial metals, that rice is going to suck it up. And apparently, California's soil is less contaminated by industrial metals than some other states.

32:02So from what I could tell, your best bet is California rice as far as arsenic is concerned. Yeah. And, you know, rinsing the rice helps before you cook it, So cooking it in the water and then draining and even rinsing afterward can reduce the arsenic count even more. But it's not like it's apparently it's not enough arsenic to really do a ton of damage to you. But the problem is, is children that eat like a lot of times, you know, you'll have like the processed rice meal and baby food. And I think that stuff, you can't ever tell how much that has been rinsed or not. as my orthodontist Dr. Blake used to say.

32:45So yeah, it can be problematic for little babies and toddlers. It can be problematic for you too, like as a grownup. And yeah, it's not like you would have to eat a lot of rice to hurt yourself with say arsenic. But if you eat rice every day, which a lot of people do, you can. And arsenic is associated with multiple kinds of cancer, diabetes, cardio issues, and obesity. So you don't really want a lot of arsenic. So that It is an issue with rice, everybody. Let's face it. Should we take a second break? Yeah. All right, we'll take another break, go over some lists of countries who eat rice a lot.

33:22Probably not a very surprising list, but add another stuff right after this.

33:38New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

34:12Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits.

34:54He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting January 20th. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff.

35:32I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

36:07Listen to Shell Game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

36:26Okay, Chuck, I'll give you 10 guesses what continent produces the most rice. Is this production? Yes, production. My guess is China. No, continent. Oh, Asia. Yes, you got it. Right out of the gate. Within that, I would say China. Yeah, you'd be right. China is the number one rice producing country in Asia, followed by India. But that makes sense because they both have a lot of land mass. Bangladesh is a big eye popper because it's not very big, but it's the third highest producing rice country in the world. Yeah, that's impressive. But all 10, top 10 are Asian, whether Southeast Asian, South Asian or Asian proper, I guess.

37:16Yeah. I mentioned those states, California, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas produce the almost all the rice in the U.S., which is about 20 billion pounds a year. More than I thought, obviously nowhere close to being a top 10 producer. But as far as eating rice in the United States, you're probably eating American rice unless you're going to like a specialty store because about 80 percent of the rice sold and eaten in the U.S. and 95 percent of sushi rice eaten in the U.S. comes from U.S. farms. That's why when you go to an izakaya in America, you'll frequently see somebody with a mouthful of rice chanting USA.

37:54That's right. OK. What about the countries that eat the most rice? that eat the most. What continent would those be on? All 10. Well, I'm going to say Asia, but I'm also going to drill down and say China just because of the sheer amount of people. Okay, yep. China's number one. India is number two, both because they have a lot of people there. Bangladesh is number three. Again, they really love the rice. Yeah. But in the top 10 list, Nigeria is number 10 of the countries that eat the most rice. And there's something about eating a lot of rice. It's impressive, number one. Bangladesh is number one for eating rice.

38:33The per capita rice consumption per year equals 592 pounds of rice per person, which is almost two pounds of rice a day. And that's dry, uncooked rice that they're counting. This isn't like the wet stuff. Yeah. And like I said, it's impressive. But it also goes to point out or underscore the developing status of a country like Bangladesh. Because if you eat tons of rice and you're getting a lot of your calories from rice, it's because a lot of other foods aren't available to you because your country is lower income. So that's why Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, they all eat the most rice. In part because it's widely available, but also in part because their economies are still developing.

39:19or aren't as developed as countries that eat less rice. Yeah. And that's, again, those are per capita numbers for that last list. Yeah. That reminds me, though, of when I was a kid in like first, second, third grade, maybe. We would, once a year at school, the school lunch would be a cup of white rice with a little pat of butter on it. So that it drove home like what other kids around the world were eating for lunch that day. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I thought it was kind of nice in principle, but there were always at least one or two kids who ate that and then also ate their lunch that they brought from home to like little bastards.

40:03Yeah, and I would say that pad of butter is a bit of a cheat. Probably, probably, but still, I mean, I definitely, it gave me pause. Yeah, I mean, I like a little butter and some rice. I mean, not when I'm cooking any kind of like, you know, Asian style foods and stuff like that. I'm not going to put butter on sushi rice. But if you give me a, you know, a steak and a big old glob of Carolina gold, you can bet your bibi I'm going to throw a little butter on that. All right. A little salt and pepper. Yeah, I never got into, this was definitely not Carolina gold rice that they were feeding us in styrofoam cups in first grade.

40:40Yeah. It's probably, what's the stuff in the bag, the minute rice or whatever? Yeah. like uncle Ben's or something. Yeah. I mean, the only time we see that in our house, we keep a stash for when the dogs are tummy sick and you have to boil chicken and just have chicken and plain rice. And so we have those, those bags that in like camping when I was a kid is, is that evokes those memories. All right. Like, would you just have your pockets full of loose rice? Isn't that how you'd hike it in? That's how I'd hike it in. Um, let's see what else, anything else about this? Oh, I want to point something out.

41:18There is a study in 2005. Remember I talked about how people eating rice, the countries that eat the most rice also tend to be developing. Well, there was a study from Tatori University. And the reason that stood out to me is because Yumi taught English in Tatori at a high school. Yeah. Oh, cool. It's a very rural area. She taught it at like a technical school, technical high school. But she loved it. She went over there for a year as part of this program. But this Tutori University study basically found that rice consumption is dropping off in Asian countries because wealth is expanding in Asian countries.

41:54And they're saying, hey, we love rice, but we also want that steak, like Chuck said. You know, every time you throw a little another Yumi tidbit out, she becomes that much more interesting. Yes, she's very interesting. And I realize how much more interesting both Yumi and Emily are than either one of us. Yes, it's true. I'm kind of a schlub compared to Yumi for sure. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Congratulations to both of us because they're both wonderful, interesting women. I mean, Yumi had her graffiti tag was apothecary, for God's sake. Pretty great. That's amazing. We already took a second break, right?

42:38This is the third act we're in. Yeah, we're in the third act, so we can have a little fun with some of these rice dishes if you want. Okay. Go ahead and fire that gun. Well, rice obviously in a lot of dishes worldwide is going to be like a base layer for something. Maybe a curry, maybe a stewed meat or vegetable. Maybe you're going to stir fry something and throw it on top of that rice. That's a great way to eat rice, not just as a regular old plain side dish, even though that's fine too. But I've had quite a few of these. I have had jollof rice. Oh, yeah? At African restaurants. Yeah, it's got it's, you know, got like stewed tomatoes, onions, you know, peppers.

43:16A lot of these are kind of similar around the world because it's, you know, it's meager, honest ingredients like, you know, garlic and thyme and ginger and rice and tomatoes and onions, like stuff you get from the ground. Sometimes you can add meat and vegetables, but jollof rice is good on its own. Yeah, I looked up a recipe of that and I'm like, that is something I'm going to try. Yeah. There's also biryani. Love it. I am not more, I'm more of a curry guy, so I don't get biryani when I go to Indian restaurants because it's a little drier. Yeah. But it's got some nice flavors to it for sure when I have had it.

43:55But it's a rice dish. It's got rice spices, some vegetables, usually some kind of meat in there. Yeah, it's good. You're a red curry guy? Green. Red. Green, maybe if I'm at a Thai place, but I'm a tikka masala and butter chicken person. Oh, man. God. I could eat that all day long every day. Yeah. No, I mean, I've said it before, and I think it was our Chinese food episode. I could subsist entirely on Asian cuisine 100 % of the time and be as happy as I've ever been. For real. I don't need the other foods. Also, shout out sog. Sog paneer is fine, but chicken sog is the best. Yeah. I did mention paella earlier.

44:39I love it. Yeah. If you aren't familiar, it is a Spanish dish. I think the Moors brought it over. The moops. And it is. That's right. Oh, my God. What was that? That was from Seinfeld when George played Trivial Pursuit with the Bubble Boy. That's right. That's right. The moops. No, I'm sorry. The moops. A paella is delicious, though. You cook it in a very specific flat-bottom round pan. If you don't have one, like I've cooked it in just cast iron. Skillets. It's got that clam juice. That's where a lot of that seafood-y flavor comes from. Depending on what kind of seafood you want in there, it could be clams, could be shrimp, could be scallops, could be all that stuff.

45:20Some saffron, some tomatoes that stew up nicely. It's just delicious. I love a paella. It's usually not the kind of thing you can just get a serving of. you get like a larger paella for a table. That clam juice thing, that reminded me, didn't you used to make or maybe still do make Bloody Marys with Clamato? Yeah, that's the only way for me. And that's a Canadian thing and I can't remember what they call it. Oh, really? A bloody Caesar. That's what it is. Oh, I've heard of that. I didn't know it was Canadian. There's something, there's another rice dish that I've had before. I don't know if you've ever had it.

45:56It's called sushi. Yeah. and it's made with that short grain rice seasoned with some vinegar, like I said. But it actually, and I know we talked about this in the sushi episode, it grew out of a way of preserving fish in vinegar. They would jam some uncooked rice in there with it too, pack it in there. That's right. And I guess somebody said, there's a better way to do this. And that's where sushi came from. But you can still get that original version called a nare zushi, which I really want to try. I like pickled anything, man. You could pickle an old shoe and I'd be like, I'll eat a little of that.

46:31Sure. We're not going to go down the list of rice noodle dishes, but we should point out that rice noodles are a thing. We should mention a few rice desserts because a really, really nice rice pudding to me is one of the more delicious things you can eat. Yeah. I'm more of a bread pudding guy, but yeah, I'll eat rice pudding as well. That's when you cook the rice with the milk and sugar. And usually there's like vanilla or cinnamon or something like that in there. I would eat just about anything with condensed milk. Yeah, that's good stuff. Oh, I have a little tip for you, Chuck. Yumi found this stuff.

47:05It's ube, condensed milk. It is the greatest flavor you will ever put in your mouth. It's insane how good it tastes. Do I have to go to like an Asian mart to get it? You can probably order it online, but yeah, you're going to find it at an Asian store more than maybe Target. Okay. There's also mango sticky rice, which uses that sticky glutinous rice, which, by the way, it doesn't have gluten. It's just glutinous, meaning sticky, starchy. Gluten with an I. Yeah. Have you heard of Polish rice cake or Polish rice cake? I'm not sure. I had not until this. It's basically rice and condensed milk and some other stuff, but it's a cake with rice.

47:48It looks pretty good. Well, we should talk about mochi, at least, because mochi is a cake, and that is made from the glutinous rice as well. and if you've ever had mochi in the U.S., it's probably a little different from Japan because it's not always a sweet thing there, but in the U.S., it's usually wrapped around ice cream. As most things are. Yeah, and you can buy the little mochi ice cream balls or whatever here. Yeah, they're good. A lot of times in Japan, they'll have sweet red bean paste inside. That's a traditional mochi there, too. But apparently, it references the rabbit in the moon.

48:23In Japan, it's a rabbit in the moon rather than a man in the moon. But he's making mochi up there. Oh, I never knew that. Yep. And we can't not mention horchata real quick, okay? Yeah. I had a horchata flight in Mexico City one time on a food tour. Oh, nice. And it was my first kind of real exposure to it that I think maybe my first real exposure. And, man, it was so different and delicious. Yeah. It's rice soaked in evaporated milk, so you know I'd like it. add some cinnamon, some vanilla, and then you eventually, after it's mush, you strain it so that it gets any of the grit out. So it's kind of a thickish, milky-ish drink that's amazing on its own.

49:07But if you're into things like rum or bourbon, they mix really well with horchata. Really? Especially in wintertime. Very interesting. Oh, yeah. You'll thank me later. Okay. Okay. I'll pre-thank you now because, yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. Oh. I mean, where do you get horchata here? You can buy horchata. People make it and sell it here in the United States, meaning companies or whatever. But it's actually not that hard to make. You might be better off making it yourself. All right. I'll give it a shot. I know that the stuff we had in Mexico City was, like, really, really authentic and great.

49:44Yep. There's plenty of recipes. There's, like, five or six ingredients, all of them easily obtainable. So I say make your own, Chuck. All right. I'll give it a try. That reminds me, what did you think of cherry Pop-Tarts, cherry Frosted Pop-Tarts? Ah, yes. Follow up. I texted Josh photos. I immediately went to the store. I bought the cherry Frosted Pop-Tarts. And, of course, I had to get the cinnamon, brown sugar cinnamon. Of course. Boy, those cherries are beeping delicious. Yeah. I told you they're way better than strawberry, aren't they? Yeah. I mean, they are. They're way better. I did my butter trick.

50:21Believe it or not, I think there were four packs in each. So eight total packs, 16 total Pop-Tarts. And I've only eaten six total Pop-Tarts. So three packs since then. You just can't go in there and house those things in two days. You can pretty easily, but I think you're showing a lot of restraint here. I feel like I'm showing restraint. Yeah, way to go, man. And are you enjoying them more than if you just ate them all at once? Nah, they're the same. That's awesome. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Grow rice. Yeah, go grow some rice. Make your own horchata. Make some sushi. Make some sticky rice.

51:08Make some curries. Just do all that stuff. Some jollof rice. Get to it. And while you're making all that, we'll just go ahead and read some listener mail. Well, this is from Ted. Ted wrote in because Ted, I'll just read it. You've responded to Ted. You're going to send Ted something, which is very nice of you. Nice. Hey, guys, I recently finished listening to the full Stuff You Should Know catalog. Eh, big deal. For the fifth time. That's a big deal, Ted. For sure. I think it's a big deal if you listen to it all once. Uh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you're doing your new thing? Yeah, I'm a new thing. Okay, I like it.

51:49see us attach screenshot for proof. Ted, we didn't need proof. We take you at your word. At least I finished my most recent listen, guys. Thanks for all the wonderful hours. As an appreciation, here are the five things I most like about stuff you should know. Number one, Josh and Chuck have character arcs as their lives have changed over the 17 years and they're not afraid to share some of that personal stuff. I'd say big time character arcs. Yeah. I mean, 17 years. Yeah. Like, think about what's happened to anyone over the last 17 years. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah. Number two, Josh and Chuck don't talk over each other like many other podcasters do.

52:29We don't often. Sometimes we do. But, yeah, we usually let each other go, right? Yeah, we try to. I mean, every once in a while there's a stumble here or there. But, no, we're pretty good about that. We always have been. Yeah, but, boy, some podcasts, even some of my favorite ones, at times I'm like, what is going on? There's like three or four people talking. Oh, you can't do that. I can't do that. Number three, I've learned more about movies and popular music by listening to Stuff You Should Know than actually by watching movies or listening to music. Yeah, I like to think that we have imparted some pretty cool recommendations over the years.

53:05Yeah, I just noticed Ted said he'd send in five things he loved the most. There's only four, so I guess, you know. Oh, Ted, this is beautiful because I know what the last one is. Oh, I bet that's why he did it. Duh. Number four, Josh and Chuck never make it all the way through a list. Of course, Ted, I'm so dense I didn't even get the joke. That was a great arcane in-joke for Stuff You Should Know, Ted. Bravo on listening to the entire catalog five times, and we are trying to figure out something special to get you for it. So thank you for letting us know. That's right. Thanks, Ted. Thanks, Ted.

53:36If you want to be like Ted and talk about how much you like Stuff You Should Know or how many times you listen to Stuff You Should Know or whatever you want to say, you can send it in an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

53:53Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

54:08Hey, it's Joel. And Matt from How To Money. if your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape. We've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Each week, we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

54:45Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, starting January 20th. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan?

55:24Just one page, as a Google Doc, and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.