RICE WINE:Cheers!!!! here is something everyone craves for

Rice wine is a traditional alcoholic beverage that plays a major role in the socio-cultural lives of people of North East India .Rice wine is produced by microbial fermentation of steamed rice with yeast and water.

Assam is a homeland of various local or tribal communities like Ahom ,Boro ,Karbi ,Mishing ,Rabha ,Deuri ,Tiwa ,Dimasa ,Hajong ,Garo ,Khasi ,Jaintia ,Mech ,Sonowal Kachari etc .Rice is a stable food of them .Home brewed rice beer is a must in the items of diet of almost all the tribal people of Assam .Rice wine have different names for different communities like ‘Xaj pani’ (Ahom and Tiwa), ‘Judima’ (Dimasa), ‘Hor Alank’(Karbi), ‘Jou Bishi’(Boro), ‘Sai apong’(Mishing), ‘Lao pani’(Lalung), ‘Photika’(Kachari).

Rice based traditional alcoholic beverages like ‘Sake’ from Japan, ‘Yakju’ from Korea or ‘Sato’ from Thailand are integral part of many Asian countries.

Each type have recipe ,but the brews are usually made by preparing a cake of steamed glutinous rice mixed with herbs and spices and letting it ferment for several days and consumed after mixing with water.

Health benefits

There are many documented health benefits of drinking rice wine.

• From the nutritional analysis has shown that rice wine is a highly nutritious beverage that contains an abundance of essential amino acids ,sugars and organic acids as well as vitamins and minerals.

• Anti-Cancer activity : Scientist are looking into the anticancer potential in rice wine.They discovered that using dealcoholized rice wine could cause the death of gastric cancer cells in mice .Tumors in this study reduced in size and volume when animals were injected with a dosage of 500 mg/kg of non alcoholic mixture for 7 weeks. This suggests that plants extracts used in the drink could have an anticancer effect, which needs to be examined further.

• Rice wine might have an antioxidant effect and help with the destruction of free radicals. Scientist also suggested that polysaccharides found in rice wine could be connected with the beneficial activity of the immune system.

• Antibacterial activity: Rice wine has anti bacterial effects too .By the extraction process of rice wine, scientist observed antibacterial activity against gram positive bacteria and gram negative bacteria.

• Rice wine has also been shown to help improve the skin’s protective function.

• In addition, rice wine has also been linked to better blood circulation and enhanced body metabolism.

• Citric and lactic acids in rice wine help with food digestion.

Bad effects on the body

When compared to traditional wine (made from grapes or other fruits) ,as well as beer ,wine made from rice contains more alcohol .Its alcohol content can be in the range of 18% to 25%. In comparison ,regular wine usually Rice contains 10% to 20% alcohol ,where beer ranges 4% to 8% alcohol. Therefore ,it is natural to assume that drinking too much of this wine or any other alcoholic beverage for that matter might not be beneficial for the body .Moreover, because of rice wine’s higher alcohol content ,the familiar side effects of alcohol such as nausea,blurry vision ,lost balance ,lost muscle control and a hangover.

This is some of the information about rice wine, I want to share with you .If you like my above blog, keeping following it with utmost interest and do not forget to comment if you have some suggestions regarding my future blogs and also hit on some queries if you have any .I will try my level best to clarify them.