Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / December 2003

This Urban Legend is occasionally repeated:

What's the origin of this myth, which anyone on second thought should
realize is ridiculous since raw grains are the most natural of all rodent
foods.  

There is a much more widespread widespread urban legend that birds that
eat uncooked rice tossed at wedding parties die because the rice swells up
in their craw or stomach & their insides burst. This is so thorougly
believed by superstitious rubes that rice-throwing is banned by some
churches which conduct weddings, with the safety of birds in mind. But it
is entirely a myth. Rice in the wild is a favorite wild bird food -- game
birds especially prefer it -- & rice grown as crops has to be protected
from birds which seek out such easy pickings, without injury. It harms
none of them, ever. It is a grass seed such as many rodents harvest as a
matter of course; there is nothing unique or horrible about rice compared
to other grasses or grains; it is natural for birds -- & rodents -- to eat
such grains raw.

It seems the urban myth of exploding birds & raw rice causing has gotten
transferred to superstitions about pets -- so that now some people think
if a dog eats raw rice its stomach will swell up or explode, or if a pet
rat or gerbil eats raw rice it will be injured. Such nonsense doesn't seem
to be nearly as terribly widspread for rodents & dogs as it is for birds,
but here & there I've seen clueless but well meaning know-nothings put
"instructions" at their pet rat websites baldly stating with sweeping
disinterest in reality, "Never feed rats uncooked rice, it will swell up
in their stomach and hurt them."  And then some young rat owner sees this
on the web & fails to question the logic of such baseless statements.

In reality there is nothing wrong with raw grains for rodents. Raw grains
are in fact the most  natural of their food choices, the primary source of
the carbohydrates that are the major requirement for a rat's diet. Too
many fatty seeds & nuts can harm them by inducing overweight & secondarily
heart disease. Meat or meat byproducts can harm them because they have
very low protein requirements & excesses of protein cause skin disease in
rats often resulting in severe scratching, scabbing or infection, &
increasing ill health. Sugared foods can harm them by lowering the
percentage of their caloric intake that is the absolutely required
carbohydrate portion. But carbohydrate-rich raw grains including rice are
perfect for their all round good health.

Wild rats throughout Asia are the #1 cause of rice crop damage & thus of
hunger. Rice farmers in Southeast Asia take for granted that on a lucky
year, the rats will take only 15% of the crops -- that's at a minimum --
but in some places where snakes have been hunted to near extinction. Snake
blood is used medicinally as a superstitioius cure for AIDS and venereal
disease in Thailand, plus many people eat snakes, so the population has
dropped to near zero in some places, & in those places the increased rat
population can take as much as 70% of a rice crop -- to their further
increased health & happiness & injury to the human economy.

There is nothing magically ultra-expanding about rice. If this silly myth
that it swells up in the bellies of rats & birds & dogs & can even kill
them had a lick of truth to it, it'd be true also of raw pasta, & of other
grains that expand when cooked (which is all grains). In reality these are
among the best foods they could possibly eat. Hard, raw grains of all
sorts are healthy for their teeth in the way cooked grains & other soft
foods are not; & no nutrient has been cooked out of raw grains.

-paghat the ratgirl

Hi Zoe... the cooked rice and cooled down bit, does that include instant
rice? I never knew there was extra care to cooking rice, but I only use the
instant stuff...

Thanks for de-lurking Zoe!  I wondered, also, whether there would be any
chance of uncooked rice expanding in the ratties systems, that's another
reason I've never fed it.  I know about cooked rice and cooling down quickly
if you are planning on re-heating - I always put any of my left-over rice in
a container and stand it in a bowl of iced water to cool it down as quickly
as possible.  My dad and step-mum recently had a very bad bout of food
poisoning from re-heated rice that they bought as part of a Chineses
ready-meal from the local supermarket - the local environmental health
officer told them that rice is one of the worst foods for causing poisoning.
And us vegetarians think we are quite safe not eating meat!

Tracey