Going against the grain

Rice is taking over India, even the wheat-loving north. It's viewed as the smarter Indian's staple too. Here's what gut, gluten and grain selection have to do with it all

- VIR SANGHVI

It wasn't until I went to boarding school in north India that I realised that many people thought of rice as a soft or flabby food that made people fat. Wheat was hailed as the food of champions and strongmen. (It was a boys-only school so we had no idea what made women strong.)

Rice was served at the school dining hall only on certain days of the week. Wheat, three times a day. At breakfast, not only did we get wheat toast but cereal made from cracked wheat.

I found this very odd. I am a Gujarati, so at home we ate both wheat and rice with every meal (along with besan and other flours) without thinking too much about it. In Gujarat, the wheat comes first (as chapatis, puris, or whatever) but rice is usually the second course.

I knew already, because I had grown up in Mumbai, that many rice eating communities flourished: South Indians, Goans, Bengalis and many coastal communities. The north Indians believed that these people had suffered as a consequence of their love for rice.

North Indians were in no doubt that one reason they were so much stronger than south Indians was because they were macho wheat-eaters, compared to the namby-pamby rice eaters in the south. Bengalis were not in the same league as brave north Indians and as for Gujaratis, the less said the better.