⭐︎② Don't look if you've bought it: The Rice Riots 1127

The price of rice isn't going down.
Or rather, isn't it going up?
Donations of rice from companies and others to food banks have decreased, and support for children's cafeterias and those in need is reportedly being forced to a halt.

Even if we ask rice farmers to increase production, they won't just say, 'Yes, with pleasure!!'
In the first place, even if you ask suddenly, there are no seed rice grains, it requires manpower, and it takes effort.
From the rice farmers' perspective, the price of rice until now wasn't exactly fair, was it?

Rice seems to be a popular gift for Mother's Day this year.
Popular rice as a return gift for hometown tax payments is reportedly in a situation where orders cannot be accepted.
The business that delivers vegetables and other items to our home once a week has stopped handling rice until the new harvest arrives in the autumn.

To save rice, I have been refraining from making amazake for the past few months.
I can endure without amazake, but I cannot suppress Shu's (pseudonym, eldest son) appetite.

Food items other than rice are also rising in price almost every month, and the end of my unemployment insurance benefits is just around the corner.
The only bright news is that Shu has increased his part-time working hours.
That said, does he have any intention of contributing to living expenses or not?
I have at least requested it in writing (Shu doesn't talk to me), saying, 'Please contribute ○○ yen from July.'

Since the physical symptoms of my depression began to subside and I was finally able to eat, my diet has settled into two meals a day, lunch and dinner, with no staple food at night.
Since receiving dietary guidance, I haven't eaten bread, noodles, or flour-based products as a staple food.
However, this does not apply to eating out or gifts.


I have liked chewing for a long time, and I prefer eating grains that have more chewiness than rice.
Long before the rice shortage and price hikes, my staple food was germinated pressed barley.
I don't mix it with rice; I cook only the germinated pressed barley (I don't have a rice cooker, so I cook it in bulk in a pressure cooker) and eat it.

And then, oh my, what a surprise!!
Perhaps because it was a special price at the time (¥228/kg, very cheap), there wasn't a single bag on the shelf.
It seems more people are mixing barley with rice to cook as a countermeasure against rising rice prices.

Fine, then I'll have oatmeal.
I've been used to eating oatmeal for a long time, and it's time-saving and easy with a microwave.
……Or so I thought, but this store is also out of all types of oatmeal, and restocking is undecided.
It seems there are quite a few people here who have switched from rice as well.

If the scheduled arrival date for the germinated pressed barley is in the morning, I rush over on my 'Black Ear' (a manual mamachari bicycle), thinking it might be on the shelves by early afternoon.
The clerk has finished putting out the germinated pressed barley and is in the middle of lining up the rice.
Good timing.
I want to buy it all up, but I'll leave some for those who come after me.

Shu has no way of knowing about his mother's petty efforts.
Since he doesn't talk, there is no appreciation, but in return, he rarely (not never) complains.
Since I stopped making amazake, Shu is the only one consuming rice in our house.
Although I have been mixing in a small amount of germinated pressed barley for a while, I'll have him cooperate a little more.

From a certain day in April, I tried cooking Shu's rice with a ratio of rice to germinated pressed barley of 5:5.
The smell of the steam rising from the pressure cooker is barley, not rice.
When I open the lid, it's not white, but rather yellow or light brown, and the black stripe (the black line in the middle of the barley, also called a 'fundoshi' or loincloth) seems to stand out.

Even if he didn't complain to me, I thought he might at least grumble, but Shu ate the half-rice, half-barley meal without saying a word of complaint.
Yes! With this, I can reduce rice consumption.
It's also rich in dietary fiber.
A mother's heart caring for Shu's health.

Even if the rice shortage and price hikes are resolved in the future, I intend to continue with the half-rice, half-barley.
Because it's cheaper.It's for Shu's body, after all.
I will never go back to all-rice.
I'll just choose not to look at the past.

2025.5.7

#Essay #Blog #Column #Prose #Miscellaneous #PersonalNotes #Depression #Unemployed #Unemployment #RicePriceHike #RiceFarmer #FoodBank #ChildrensCafeteria #SupportForThoseInNeed #HometownTax #ReturnGift #GerminatedPressedBarley #BlackStripe #Fundoshi #Oatmeal