The rice family
By Olonam
@Olonam (870)
Philippines
August 4, 2012 3:06am CST
Hey there everyone.
So we all know that there are different types of foods. Examples of these are the fruits, meats and vegetables. But I have a question. What type of food is rice?
I'm sure it's not a fruit, not a meat and not a vegetable. So what type of food is rice? Is it related to wheat, barley, rye, grain, oats and corn?
So if they are related. What type of food are they called?
8 responses
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Aug 12
Rice is a cereal grain (specifically a member of the Graminaea family, like wheat, barley, oats, maize, millet and so on). There are hundreds of different cultivars but they are all classified as being of one of two species: Oryza sativa (Asian rice) or Oryza glaberrima (African rice).
Botanically, rice is a fruit but in culinary terms it is called a cereal.
Nearly all cereals are members of the huge family of grasses (Graminaea) but a few notable exceptions are Buckwheat (Polygonacea and related to dock and rhubarb) and Quinoa (Chenopodium, a member of the Goosefoot family).
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Aug 12
I notice that many people here are calling it a 'grain' but the proper terminology (in nutritional terms and as opposed to 'meat', 'fruit', 'vegetable', 'pulse' &c.) is 'cereal'.
@jaiho2009 (39142)
• Philippines
4 Aug 12
Like the other mylotter wrote...it belongs to grain category.
I like eating rice as well, it's our staple food here.
@jaiho2009 (39142)
• Philippines
4 Aug 12
Well, thanks for this topic..
I did my own research and you can do your own as well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa (Asian rice) or Oryza glaberrima (African rice). As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in Asia and the West Indies. It is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production, after maize (corn), according to data for 2010.[1]
@jaiho2009 (39142)
• Philippines
4 Aug 12
Cereals are grasses (members of the monocot family Poaceae, also known as Gramineae)[1] cultivated for the edible components of their grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop[citation needed]; they are therefore staple crops.
The word cereal derives from Ceres, the name of the Roman goddess of harvest and agriculture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal
@ravisivan (14079)
• India
4 Aug 12
People from South India -- we eat rice more than wheat. rice is a grain--it can be cooked as it is after washing. Also it can be made into small pieces and upma can be made out of it--with chatni, sambar upma will taste very good. also it can be cut into tiny pieces and 'kanji' (soup0 can be made out of it.
Rice can be made into a powder and can be used for making dosai mixed with other dhall items.
Rice is the king of grains --from the point of view of South Indians. Thailand is known for rice cultivation. it is grown in china also.
@mrswhitfield (2044)
• Indonesia
4 Aug 12
Word VEGETABLE is term of culinary, not botanical term so the asnwer is No,, rice is not kind of vegetable. In culinary rice called as staple food (including maize and oats). In botanical vegetable can include leaves, stems, roots, flowers, bulbs, seeds (pea and bean), and bitanical fruits (cucumber, squash, pumpkins, and cupsicums). Rice is kind grain, not seeds.
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Aug 12
Botanically rice IS a seed (as are all cereal grains). You can plant it and it will sprout and grow, so it is a seed, just like beans, peas, sesame, millet and so on. Actually, botanically, it is called a fruit but in the kitchen and in nutrition it is called a cereal.
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Aug 12
'Grain' refers to the seed or fruit of any plant, particularly of the family Graminaea, which is used as food. It can be used as a generic, collective noun ("The prairie regions of the United States are predominantly used to grow grain.") or as a specific description for any small particle, as in "grains of wheat", "a grain of sand".
Because the weight of grains of barley was so constant and the crop so common (barley was a much commoner crop in the Bronze Age of Europe), the weight of a single grain of barley was used as a measure (though grain crops themselves were often measured by volume quoted in bushels). It was defined in 1959 as precisely 64.79891 milligrams. A grain of wheat is approximately one and a half times the weight of a grain of barley.
When the word is used figuratively, as in "He hasn't a grain of sense", it is probably being used with the meaning of 'the smallest weight imaginable': a similar common expression is "He hasn't an ounce of sense".
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Aug 12
To be clear, the word 'grain' is used mostly by farmers and geographers to describe the crop or the bulk product and also when referring to animal feed. In the kitchen and in nutrition, when one is talking about its processed form as a human food, it is called 'cereal'.
@mrswhitfield (2044)
• Indonesia
4 Aug 12
Word VEGETABLE is term of culinary, not botanical term so the asnwer is No,, rice is not kind of vegetable. In culinary rice called as staple food (including maize and oats). In botanical vegetable can include leaves, stems, roots, flowers, bulbs, seeds (pea and bean), and bitanical fruits (cucumber, squash, pumpkins, and cupsicums). Rice is kind of grain, not seeds. 
