Rice is arguably the world’s most important food. It is the second most widely cultivated cereal in the world, after wheat, and is a staple food of over half the world’s population. In much of Asia, rice is so central to the culture that the word is almost synonymous with food. In Chinese the line in the Lord’s Prayer is translated as "give us this day our daily rice," and a Japanese proverb states that "A meal without rice is no meal."