Rice Is a Staple Food
Written on May 17, 2026
More than half of the world's human population eats rice on a daily basis. Why is it then that there many people, especially in the United States, who've never consumed a single serving of rice?
Me, my parents, and my siblings started eating rice regularly when we moved to Hawaii in 1974. There are many Asian-Americans in Hawaii, along with native-born citizens with Asian ancestry.
We weren't strangers to rice when we moved there. One product was marketed heavily in the 1960s as "the San Francisco treat", a side dish.
A Brief History
I don't remember what we ate rice with when we lived in Hawaii; I only remember that we did. We ate it regularly, but probably no more than once a week at the most. It wasn't until I married my wife, Josie, that I ate it more often than that.
Although I spent time in the Far East during a Western Pacific deployment aboard a Navy ship in 1983, I didn't eat any rice. I ate other things, and I really don't remember what they were except for a few of the food choices in the Philippines.
Rice Seems to Go With Almost Anything
Rice can be made to go without almost anything, even things you probably wouldn't think about. I used to eat it with chili, corned beef, beef stew, fried chicken, and pork chops. I no longer eat rice like that due to my prediabetes diagnosis.
Even if a dish already has a starch food in it, like potatoes, it can still be served with rice. The only time I definitely wouldn't use it is when there is another pasta involved. I wouldn't eat it with any spaghetti or macaroni dishes, for example.
Specific Dishes
There are some dishes that seem to be made with rice as the main ingredient. Here's a short list:
I've had variations of all of them at one time or another. Because I avoid sugar, I now avoid the Filipino dishes that contain it. That is, unless I've had too much liquor to drink. In that case, I really can't control my mouth..
Meals Without Rice
Josie told me, more than once over the years, that a meal isn't a meal without rice. Well, she's seen the error of her ways as she's gotten older. Both of us now eat most of our meals without any rice at all.
Our children and our children's families don't seem to have a problem with it. Although they have Filipino ancestry, they're not rigidly Filipino food-oriented. They don't seem to care if rice is involved in anything they eat.
Image by Mamoru Masumoto from Pixabay