Comment by TurdF3rguson
15 hours ago
That suitcase of rice story though, I'm finding it problematic lol.
- First of all a 95% increase in the price of rice means it less than doubled which is no big deal.
- I think maybe you meant it 20x'ed ? If so I will just eat corn until it comes down (my house eats 100kg of rice in a month)
- Can a suitcase of rice even get through customs?
Indeed it's a roughly 2x increase (5kg supermarket bag from 2000 jpy to 4000).
Whether that's a big deal or not depends on the person, their finances, how much rice the family eats, etc etc.
> Whether that's a big deal or not depends on the person, their finances, how much rice the family eats, etc etc.
There's a nasty interaction among those concerns: as the basic staple food of the diet, rice is consumed in larger amounts by poorer people who can't afford real food, like meat.
Which means that a spike in the price of rice is effectively targeted at people who can't afford to substitute other foods.
Wait. Dod I read this right? Are you saying rice isn't real food but meat is?
I understand most cultures over-appreciate meat, but treating a premium carb source like rice lowly is a surprise.
I think Japanese rice-centric framing of meals is also of note, it's not universal across East Asia - I mean, allegedly, bowl of rice next to ramen is meme worthy to people from China, but it's just a menu item in Japan.
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Corn is still cheaper. If you're really poor in Asia you're eating corn (and complaining about it).
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>rice is consumed in larger amounts by poorer people who can't afford real food
Um, rice is real food too, right?
> my house eats 100kg of rice in a month
What’s the maths on that? A cup of rice would seem a fair bit for a person for a meal. A cup is about 200g.
That’s 500 portions a month. 5.5 people for 3 meals a day?
A lot of Asian households are multi-generational, so the maths definitely checks out there.
I'm putting my money on more people (8-10) but eating less than 200g per meal (1/2 cup uncooked, ~100g for most people)
EDIT, just saw sibling, that's impressive for 5 people, unless the dogs eat a lot of rice too.
It fluctuates but on average maybe 5 humans and 10 dogs.
You give rice to the dogs, too?
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That’s an amazing volume.