With environmental problems becoming more pressing, the impact of our daily consumption receives more and more attention.
As a result, new fields of study have emerged; industrial ecology is one of them. Industrial ecologists have used a new concept called "carbon footprint" to calculate greenhouse gases emitted from our consumption and are working on deeper analyses.
While they are doing that, Thais should start substituting part of their daily consumption of rice with other staples, for doing so will not only reduce their impact on the environment but also have other benefits. Besides, it may help Thai rice farmers, who are among the country's poorest citizens, raise their incomes.
Starchy food items that can replace rice include sweet corn, sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, cassava, plantains, bananas, taro and pumpkins, all of which can be grown in Thailand. To start with, consumption of these staples requires less energy. It is obvious that consumption of ripe bananas requires no energy for cooking.
As for other items, after harvest, they require energy to process only once - be it for boiling, steaming, frying or microwaving - before they can be consumed. Frying should be avoided by those who wish to reduce their consumption of cooking oil.
We know that after harvest, rice must be milled and cooked to be consumed as brown rice. But most Thais consume white rice, which needs polishing. Rice, therefore, requires at least two steps of processing, all of which require energy. Thais also consume a lot of noodles. To become noodles, rice must be processed further and then cooked once more before consumption.
While detailed calculations of energy usage in the processing and cooking of these staples are not yet available, it seems obvious that consumption of rice uses more energy.
Bread and pasta should be excluded from potential substitutes for rice because they also require many processing steps that use energy; besides, wheat flour must be imported, requiring energy for transport.
Another consideration involves the use of water for growing these crops. In his book When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce provides some data showing that to grow one pound of rice requires 250-650 gallons of water while one pound of potatoes requires only 65 gallons. Data provided by the Water Footprint Network show that growing the same amount of corn requires about 110 gallons of water. While calculations of water requirements for growing other crops are not yet available, it should be obvious that they require less water than rice since only rice needs flooded fields.
Having a lot of rain during the monsoon season, Thais may not realise that water scarcity is a global crisis. While growing rice during the rainy season is appropriate, attempting it during the dry season makes no sense. But farmers will not grow more of other crops unless demand for them increases significantly.
We also know that crop rotation is good for the soil and reduces the risk of plant deaths. It, therefore, makes more sense to use paddy fields during the dry season to grow other crops such as potatoes, yams, taro and pumpkins, which require only a few months to mature.
Should demand for other crops increase significantly, farmers who cannot grow rice during the dry season because they lack access to irrigation water provided by the government may grow them using pond water, which requires less investment. As a result, their incomes will rise. Their incomes will also rise if they eat more of the other staples, leaving more rice for sale.
The incomes of rice farmers, in general, may also rise if Thais consume much less rice. This is because rice has played such a large role in the Thai diet that successive governments have either implicitly or explicitly tried to keep the price of rice low.
At one point, the "rice premium" export tax was imposed precisely for that purpose.
As for other benefits, we know that these food items contain different amounts of various vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
Consuming all of them, therefore, increases the chance of meeting our nutritional requirements more completely. For those who watch their weight, it should be noted that studies available show that many of these items have fewer calories than rice.
Lastly, for those who watch their salt intake, most of these rice substitutes taste good by themselves and thus require no or little salt to make them enjoyable.
If this is not a win-win-win proposal, what is?