Day 4 on the Farm

Geez, I can't believe its February--where has the time gone? Today was day 4 on the farm and I now have a new found appreciation for rice. What a labor intensive crop! Wilat has probably 10, 50-pound bags of rice that has been harvested from his field, and our task today, since it was pouring rain all day, was to husk a single bag. I figured this would be a fairly easy task considering he has a machine that does most of the work for you. But it took Chicka and I the entire day to get through those 50 pounds of rice. I don't want to even begin going through the details of the process, but I will say that the tedious amount of sorting of individual rice grains has left me never looking at rice the same again. My biggest question of the day is this: Why do we polish rice? All rice, regardless of its variety comes out of the ground as brown rice--in its most nutritious, nutrient-dense form. But the vast majority of the rice that is consumed around the world is white. White rice is simply polished brown rice. What's the point of taking this extra step to polish all of this perfectly good, far healthier brown rice into an empty carb, no nutritional value white rice? Maybe there'd be fewer children with nutrient deficiencies in developing countries if this last step was obliterated from practice.

In the midst of a downpour this morning, I made banana bread. Granted, I had no recipe and no measuring cups, the only oil I had access to was sesame, and had to substitute baking powder for baking soda! I have yet to taste it, as it is being reserved for tomorrow's breakfast, but Chicka and Wilat have never tried banana bread before, so I guess if its gross, they'll have nothing to compare it to! I can't imagine though that is going to be much good, but maybe with enough butter and honey on top, it will at least be edible.