When there is shortage of staple

In the early 1970s, there was a shortage of rice in our country. Rice is the staple of the majority of population so you can imagine the panic. The local community called barangay handled the rationing of rice so everybody can buy. And to augment the shortage of rice, the government also sold corn. We had to cook a mix of rice and corn because the ration of rice is not really enough.

My father innovated to overcome the shortage. He used root crops as alternate. There are times we have boiled cassava for lunch or boiled sweet potato for dinner. In a week, we would be eating rice for 2 days and the remaining 7 days we would have root crop food. And we ably survived the shortage, didn't go hungry even for a minute unlike most of our neighbors.

 

One thing I notice about the Philippines is that they are passionate about their rice. Ask any Filipino about not eating it, and majority of the time they will say "I can't live without rice".

It's called making end meet. Sometimes you have to supplement your meals with a replacement in the meantime. If we didn't have rice in the house, you would eat a potato or green salad, it's not a big deal, or a deal breaker.

There was also a study done recently on the how insulin elevated foods affected the brain. I found it amusing that it is comparable to a drug addict. Most drug users at one point would say that they can't live without drugs and it is part of their lives. I make the same joke to rice eaters, as some of them can't live without rice.

 

If rice was your staple food and there is a shortage it is true that you can replace eating foods like corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and other root crops that can help you survive for the meantime during the period of staple shortage.

 

The problem is, especially in countries in Southeast Asia, is that the climate is very unforgiving for several of the well known staple crops. The heat and persistent rainfall is extremely good for growing rice but the climate is not good for growing potatoes or wheat and, given that corn draws a lot of the nitrogen out of the soil (and the climate is somewhat unfriendly for corn), it would not be very viable there either. With that being said, rice is an extremely valuable staple crop since it is calorie/energy-dense and meshes well with a variety of vegetables, meat and fish and it is not easy to replace those calories in its absence with another dense energy source as the best alternatives are more suited for a temperate climate.