Rice Isn’t Rice, Noodles Aren’t Noodles: Are Today’s Staples Still Healthy?
1. Staples and Nutritional Products within Industrial Food Production Systems
In terms of texture, refined flour offered a superior taste, but it was also more expensive and far harder to obtain. Without your ration book quota, you simply couldn’t buy it. Back then, using refined flour for steamed
buns would have been considered a flagrant waste; it was strictly reserved for making dumplings. My childhood dream was to eat refined flour buns to my heart’s content. My mother, on the other hand, longed for “dumplings every day”; as a child, she only had them once a year for the New Year feast.
Thanks to the progress of the times and economic development, we have come to live in an era like this.
It wasn’t until later that I discovered this supposedly premium and sophisticated ‘wheat germ powder’ was nothing more than the ‘bran’ sifted out during flour milling.
A few years later, I spent two years farming in Yilan, Taiwan, where I made fast friends with a whole host of local growers. As the village brewer and keeper of a European-style black kiln, our household frequently hosted communal meals. For these farmers, food is paramount. Whenever a gathering was planned, they would invariably appear at the first whiff of cooking. In the face of a good meal, almost any other obligation could be politely declined—save for one ironclad reason for pulling out: ‘dry-roasting rice bran’. Rice germ is highly prone to oxidation and spoilage, so it is best freshly milled and roasted on the spot. Dry-roasting rice bran is no small feat; it requires a slow, gentle heat and can sometimes take an entire day. The roasted rice bran tasted exactly like the wheat germ powder I had gone out of my way to purchase all those years ago. In truth, they amount to the same thing; rice germ and wheat germ are remarkably alike.
When I brought up my past adventures with them, they laughed at me for being such a gullible dupe. The wheat germ powder sold on Dihua Street was, in fact, mainland produce simply repackaged for resale. Although Taiwan does cultivate some wheat, the quantities are negligible, and there is virtually no local wheat germ industry. The sole ‘contribution’ of ‘Taiwanese wheat germ powder’ was the packaging itself—and I don’t merely mean the varied box designs. It successfully packaged the very concept, delivering it straight to the minds of unsuspecting buyers.
While farming in Taiwan, I also ran food workshops and dove deep into a stack of relevant books. I realised the greatest folly wasn’t flying to Taiwan to buy repackaged mainland goods, but rather the modern wellness habit of pairing ‘refined flour steamed buns with wheat germ powder’.
Part Two: Today’s ‘Rice, Flour and Oil’ Are No Longer What They Once Were
A small-scale mill could never produce refined flour. Refined flour is a product of the industrial age, manufactured on heavy machinery that grinds grain to a finer consistency while sifting out the unseen ‘inedible’ portions. Thanks to the march of progress and economic development, refined flour mantou has become something we can eat freely at every meal, three times a day, without a second thought.
Our species evolved over tens of thousands of years, subsisting on whole grains since the dawn of the hunter-gatherer era. Evolution hardwired our nutritional needs directly into our genes. In the agrarian age, Europe turned to wind- and water-powered mills, while we relied on human labour and draught donkeys. Across the centuries, the rice of the East and the flour of the West remained largely unchanged.
If human evolution were compressed into a 24-hour clock, the Industrial Revolution would occupy merely the final minute, and refined flour’s rise to dominance would take just a few seconds of that minute. Finer milling delivers an unprecedentedly delicate texture, yet our bodies, shaped by millennia of natural selection, struggle to adapt, giving rise to a growing array of modern ailments. Thus, ‘wheat germ flour’ arrives on the tide of the information age. A single wheat kernel dropped into the modern processing line undergoes two rounds of value-added treatment: first, the bran is stripped away to yield refined flour; then, that very same bran is roasted for aroma and convenience, finely milled to adjust its mouthfeel, and packaged to command a premium price.
Take wheat, for instance. A quick online search yields the following: “Wheat germ flour is the essential extract of the wheat kernel, a high-protein, high-vitamin E, low-calorie, low-fat, and low-cholesterol nutritional supplement. It contains B vitamins, vitamin D, unsaturated fatty acids, nucleic acids, folic acid, tetracosanol, and more than ten minerals, including calcium, iron, zinc (23.4 mg per 100 g), and selenium…”
A further look at its purported benefits reveals: “The finest natural, nutrient-dense food for a balanced diet and strengthening the constitution. Wheat germ offers therapeutic properties for cardiovascular conditions, combats radiation and ageing, guards against tumours, detoxifies the gut, relieves constipation, and lowers blood sugar and lipid levels; its dietary fibre helps reduce serum cholesterol and prevent diabetes. Furthermore, wheat germ actively promotes the development of beneficial gut flora…” Every packaged wheat germ flour on the market proudly proclaims it contains ‘essential nutrients for the human body’. Yet if it is truly so vital, why did we originally go to the trouble of discarding this very essence during milling?
3. Rice and Flour as Ultra-Processed Foods
As modern consumers grow increasingly conscious of food safety, they are becoming wary of ‘ultra-processed foods’ in their everyday diets. Not long ago, Foodthink published an article outlining the classification system proposed by Brazilian nutritionist Carlos Monteiro, which categorises rice and flour under ‘unprocessed and minimally processed’ foods. And indeed, rice and flour in their literal sense—the staple foods of humanity’s agrarian past—were once minimally processed. Yet the rice and flour we buy in supermarkets today have, for all intents and purposes, become ultra-processed foods.
Tracking the industrialised food chain, Michael Pollan published The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006, urging readers to steer clear of ‘ultra-processed foods’: “If your grandmother wouldn’t recognise it as food, or it contains more than five ingredients including substances you cannot pronounce, it is almost certainly ultra-processed.”
A search for “legal additives in flour processing” reveals that these are chemical substances used to improve flour characteristics, enhance processing efficiency and food quality. They mainly include dough strengtheners, bleaching agents and preservatives, and their use is strictly governed by national standards (such as GB 2760-2024). A search for “legal additives in rice processing” indicates that rice additives refer to specific compounds permitted during milling, including sodium starch phosphate (a thickener), sodium diacetate (a preservative) and deacetylated chitosan (a thickener/film-forming agent).
In the agricultural era, stored grain consisted of husked rice or whole wheat berries. The intact bran layer was not merely an outer covering; it acted as a natural armour, shielding the grain from damage and preventing oxidation and spoilage. Once processed, this inherent protection is stripped away, leaving the grain vulnerable to moisture, oxidation, and decay. In the age of industrial production and global distribution, adding ingredients has become standard practice. Consequently, the journey from rice paddy and wheat stalk to “rice” and “flour” involves excessive extraction and heavy fortification. The characters remain the same as they have been for centuries, but rice is no longer rice, and flour is no longer flour.
In fact, even when measured against Carlos Monteiro’s classification system, which defines ultra-processed foods as “foods with complex formulations that undergo extensive industrial processing, often containing industrial ingredients such as emulsifiers, flavour enhancers, and artificial flavourings; they boast long shelf lives and are convenient to eat, but are worlds away from their original food ingredients”, modern rice and flour in our processing and sales systems tick almost all those boxes. The only exception is the final criterion: they retain a superficial resemblance to their raw counterparts.
According to China’s national standard for wheat flour (GB/T1355-2021), which came into effect in 2023, the standard explicitly states that wheat flour must not contain food additives or supplementary ingredients; any flour with additives is classified as special-purpose flour. This is undoubtedly welcome news, but since the standard is not mandatory, I still refrain from buying commercial steamed buns, noodles, or store-bought bread and pastries. I cannot be sure whether they are made with special-purpose flour, nor whether substances like borax are added during cooking. More importantly, I can make these items myself, and the appearance and taste of what I make differ quite a bit from store-bought alternatives. Whether or not to treat rice and flour as ultra-processed foods is entirely up to individual choice. I’ve already made my choice; you’re free to decide for yourself. If someone chooses to believe in the magic of flour and flour products, well, alright then, God bless those with faith.
I must state clearly: I hold no resentment towards modernity, nor do I blindly romanticise the past. Global average life expectancy was 37 years in 1800 and 63.9 years in 2000. Progress is a boon for all of humanity, and one could fairly say that my reaching my sixties is itself a product of that progress.
Moreover, I must also declare: if I were a large-scale grain processor required to transport products over long distances and store them for extended periods, I would add them too.
IV. Having It All
Yet there will always be people like me, with big appetites and bigger hopes, who insist on having it all: convenience, health, and flavour. Is it even possible?
Given our modern ingenuity, we can always find a way to secure convenience, health, great taste, and even happiness along the way.
Reaching this age, we can thank the times; staying healthy, we can thank ourselves. In my forties, I was plagued by a host of ‘sub-health’ ailments; by sixty, things had turned around. Those physical complaints were once nearly standard kit for urban dwellers. I owe my turnaround to two years spent farming in Taiwan in my fifties. It came down to nothing more than eating the right foods and doing the right things.
In Hsinchu, Taiwan, there is a little-known eatery called ‘Maixixin’ (麦瑞欣), which specialises in homemade sourdough bread. They grind their own organic wheat and rely on cool, slow fermentation. In essence, it’s the modern equivalent of the bread ovens once found beside windmills or watermills at medieval European farms. One of the founders studied in Europe. Our relationship blurred the lines between teacher and student: he taught me the art of bread-making, and I taught him brewing.
Maixixin’s primary mission isn’t to sell meals or bread, but to champion homemade baking. All you need is a fridge, an oven, and a domestic grain mill. If you’d rather skip the kneading, a stand mixer does the job. The only requirement for ingredients is organic wheat.
A kilogram of flour yields one wholewheat loaf. You can pick up a domestic grain mill for just a few hundred yuan on Taobao or Pinduoduo. Because the grinding isn’t particularly fine and the bran affects the texture, a long, slow, cool fermentation is necessary: twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the fridge. The resulting loaf has a slightly coarse crumb, but it’s wonderfully chewy and develops richer flavour the longer you chew.
I’ve long forgotten the names of the folks who run Maixixin, but their words remain etched in my memory: perhaps one day Maixixin itself will close its doors, but the practice of baking at home will undoubtedly endure.
Maixixin keeps its bread-making methods entirely open. By 2019, several hundred people were baking using their techniques. Only the core team runs the shop; the rest are largely office workers keen on improving their health. Hsinchu is a major tech hub in Taiwan. The local corporate elite, dubbed the ‘new aristocracy of the Hsinchu Science Park’, typically bake once a weekend to last the week. Baking one loaf or several takes roughly the same time, so various ‘bread-sharing circles’ have sprung up, fostering community as much as sharing loaves.
If following the Maixixin approach still feels like too much effort, there’s an even simpler route: steer clear of foods you can’t pronounce, and stop buying blindly.
City dwellers who must rely on bought food can, if resources allow, shop through trusted platforms such as Bei Organic, or visit supermarkets and online retailers. Aim for products with simple ingredient lists where you can actually name the raw materials. Opt for plain steamed buns over custard-filled ones, and skip the packaged breads and cakes. Several traditional regional staples in China align better with whole, unrefined grains and are highly recommended: the coarse-ground corn porridge of the Northeast, the millet porridge of the Northwest, and the traditional wheat pancakes of my native Shandong.
I have always held that ‘additive-free’ is far more important than ‘organic’. As Michael Pollan advises, prioritise whole, unprocessed foods with names you can easily recognise: peanuts, edamame, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and potatoes themselves. I strongly recommend buying a variety of whole grains and pulses to simmer with brown rice. Prepare a large batch at once, freeze it, and simply thaw portions as needed. I previously covered this on Foodthink: 《If You Can’t Cook a Pot of Bean Porridge, What Hope Is There of Reaching High Office?》. This style of eating is exactly what fitness influencers now promote as ‘bean and rice bowls’. Swapping refined flour buns, noodles, and white rice for this alternative offers numerous benefits—the research speaks for itself. That article brought an unexpected bonus: a friend’s wife, who suffered terrible morning sickness in early pregnancy, relied on this bean porridge to get her through the most difficult days.
*Editor’s note: Grandma Kouzi’s next piece will be about oil.
