ABSTRACT
Ei c e is one of the world’s most important cereals for human consumption. In the densely populated countries of Asia, especially China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, rice is an important staple food. As much as 80-90% of the daily caloric intake of people in these Asiatic countries are derived from rice. It is also consumed in the form of noodles, puffed rice, breakfast cereals, rice cakes, fermented sweet rice, and snack foods made by extrusion cooking (Mercier et al., 1989). Rice is also used in making beer, wine, and vinegar. Some oriental foods require the use of glutinous rice (sweet rice), which consists largely of amylopectin in the starch fraction, in con trast to nonglutinous rice that contains both amylopectin and amylose. When the actual extraction rates of the cereals are considered, rice is calculated to produce more food energy per hectare of land than other cereals. Total food protein pro duction per hectare is also high for rice, second only to that for wheat. China con tributes 38% of the world’s rice production on 24% of the world’s growing area (Herdt and Palacpac, 1983). There are many forms of rice products that are pro duced as alternatives for nutritive values and special sensory attraction. Litera ture on rice research and development has been published by Houston (1972), Juliano (1985), Luh (1991), and Marshall and Wadsworth (1994).
