MANILA, Philippines—Grass-eaters. That's what we are. The rice plant is a member of the grass family and what we eat are, technically, the seeds. In a way, we're like the birds pecking away.

Lowly as it may sound, rice feeds much of humanity. Not only that, it has become part of the core of many cultures, shaping languages, insinuating itself into religious beliefs and practices, inspiring art forms, pushing science and technology. Rice, too, as the current administration is well aware, has become eminently political, sometimes even contributing to the fall of rulers.

Although rice is grown throughout the world, it is most valued in East and Southeast Asia.

Archaeologists have found rice dating back several thousand years. Not content with domesticating some wild predecessor of rice, we've developed all kinds of cultivated varieties. Wherever I go in the Philippines and neighboring countries, I ask where the market is and take my time strolling around, like I do in a museum, appreciating local products. I always look for the rice section, just to marvel at the varieties they have-long-grained and short-grained, dry and sticky, whites and reds and browns and purples and black-each adapted to local soil, terrain and weather.

We don't just eat rice, we think rice. Damiana Eugenio's "The Riddles" has dozens of riddles from different parts of the Philippines, focusing on rice and, as riddles go, with an element of the naughty. Here's a sample: "Naupo si Itim, sinulot ni Pula, nang lumao'y kumarakara." [“The Dark One sat down, the Red touched her. She reappears, noisily.”] The riddle refers to how uncooked rice, stoked by fire and water, is transformed.

In Thai, "kao" means both rice and the color white. In Tagalog, we have all kinds of names for rice, from “palay” to “bigas,” “kanin” to “tutong,” and we haven't gone into the types of rice varieties and the many ways we transform rice to other foods, from various “kakanin” [rice cakes] to rice wine.

Rice, too, has gone beyond the domain of food. There's rice paper. Next month there's the Pahiyas festival in Quezon province, with their colorful “kiping”—decorations made out of glutinous rice paste.

The core of our complicated rice cultures is still the cooking and eating of rice. "Kanin" [cooked rice] is an obvious cognate or related word to "kain" [to eat]. To eat rice is to have a meal, quite similar to Chinese, where you greet friends by asking, "Have you eaten rice?" and even if what they ate was a hamburger, they'll answer, yes.

Rice is incorporated into our religious beliefs. We have rice gods to guard the granaries, and rice rituals for rain and a good harvest. And we give many meanings to rice: Across the region, sticky rice is eaten on special occasions partly with the idea of keeping kin and friends together. Rice is so iconic it is incorporated into art forms. Our region's folk dances, with its synchronized steps, often replicate the planting and winnowing of rice.

Staple

Our ancestors needed fuel to go through often strenuous physical activities. Hunting produced protein, but for day to day activities, humans needed calories, lots of it. Some cultures domesticated root crops like cassava and “camote” [purple yam]; others turned to grasses, which produced a variety of cereals. Rice was one of those cereals, now a staple for about two billion people in the region.

The demand for rice has grown through time, mainly because of the increase in population, particularly in the 20th century when advances in public health brought down death rates. At the turn of the 20th century, we had seven million people. Now we have to feed more than 80 million people, 12 million in Metro Manila alone.

We're plagued by production problems. Traditional rice varieties, while adapted to local conditions, were low-yielding. The Green Revolution, begun in the 1960s, resulted in high-yield varieties, but the harvests depended on higher and more expensive inputs in terms of water, fertilizer and pesticides. Besides the problems of choosing varieties to grow, we're running out of land. Rice farmers have remained impoverished through the centuries and many have left agriculture. We're also seeing rice lands being sold to real estate developers, or being shifted to other higher-value cash crops. (I worry about the biofuels craze, which could be another column topic in itself.)

Governments dread rice shortages because the rice on one's plate has become such an important symbol of governance. Ancient rulers invested in elaborate technologies to ensure irrigation, and they often incorporated the irrigation into other megalithic symbols of power. Angkor Wat, for example, was not just a temple complex but also a system for hydraulics that brought in and conserved water for agriculture, all blended into architecture that reminded people that their rice harvests were dependent on their god-kings.

Moderating greed

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has no Angkor Wat, but notice how often she appears in the media, visiting rice warehouses, or presiding at meetings to discuss rice. On top of all her other political problems, rising rice prices (sorry for the tongue-twister) and shortages can further bring down her popularity ratings.

Reflecting her dwindling political capital, Filipinos reacted negatively to the call to conserve rice, mainly because they see this as a tactic to obscure government incompetence around rice production and distribution. The poor, especially, grumble about the "half-rice" proposition of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, since many have been using half servings of rice for years. Note that these are the more fortunate among the poor since many of the poorest have given up on rice, shifting to instant noodles as their staple.

In fairness to the hapless Yap, there is some sense to the “half-rice” calls. Our craving for rice is often more cultural than physiological or nutritional. We don't feel full when we don't have rice in a meal, but that's really a mix of culture and psychology at work. We also tend to over-indulge with rice servings, partly because heaping mounds of rice served at a meal (especially at a party) suggest prosperity. Much too much unconsumed rice is thrown out.

We don't really need that much rice; in fact, rice can become dangerous, given that we now have much more sedentary lifestyles than our hunting-gathering and farming ancestors, which means the calories from eating too much rice ("carbo-loading," nutritionists call it) can contribute to obesity and other metabolic problems. Many of my friends, even before Yap's call, have been eating half servings of rice for health reasons.

Let's moderate our greed for rice. Okinawans, said to be one of the healthiest and long-lived people on Earth, have this adage: "Hara hachi bu" [“Eat till you're 80-percent full”]. We might want to start that habit with rice. Eating less rice just might make us appreciate it more.

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Email comments to mtan@inquirer.com.ph.