Growth of Rats on Supplemented Rich Diets

Rice is the most important staple cereal of the world, since it is the basic ingredient of the daily diet for more than half the human race. It forms a major source of calories as well as an important source of protein in the diet.

In a poor country like India, for nearly 240 out of the 400 million people, polished rice forms the bulk of the diet consumed in southern India, Orissa, Bihar, Bengal, Assam and Kashmir. Rice in a way is the national food, as more people in India live on it than all the other cereals put together. Except for the richer classes, the bulk of the southern and central Indian population lives almost exclusively on rice (Masani, '44).