Transecting the fall and rise of brown rice — the historic encounters of the global food system, nutrition science, and malnutrition in the Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn recent years, brown rice has been promoted as a healthy food in rice-consuming Asia following the global trend of consuming a diet rich in whole grains. Building on recent scholarly works that examine the nexus between the global food system and dietary health, this paper uses brown rice as an empirical case to illustrate how the global food system interacts with the international nutrition community in different historical moments. I identified four moments from the 1870s to the present that characterize the disappearance of brown rice as the main staple and three major attempts aiming to bring back brown rice in the Philippines. I argue that the historical formation of the globalized, industrialized food system, as well as the associated countermovements, and the knowledge production and paradigm shift within the international nutrition community are the two main driving forces behind the transformation of the status of brown rice in the Philippines. Overall, the promotion of brown rice consumption in the Philippines is not merely the result of the current global trend but a confluence of the long-term interactions between agricultural development in the country, the issue of malnutrition, and the role of nutrition science.