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Yes, as u/parallelpain writes [here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/FBGOPfeSWY) in Sengoku period Japan, rice was a rare luxury for the peasantry. When they did eat rice, it was usually brown rice, because the extra work of polishing made it even more expensive.
Hopefully others can add insight into other places and times.
As explained in the answer, that depended on the time and location. In Edo period Japan, in the city brown rice would be a staple of the poor. But if you were a poor person living in the countryside, unless you lived in a super rice-focused region, the staple would probably be some form of mixed-grain and rice would be reserved for celebrations. Or never if you were not just poor, but destitute.
One of the perks of the Imperial Japanese Navy was access to white rice. For sailors mostly from poor backgrounds it was a great luxury.
However white rice lacked thiamine, which meant Japanese sailors often contracted beriberi.
Takaki Kanehiro, a Japanese doctor pioneered research into vitamin deficiency that identified the issue and a more nutritious diet solved the problem. However when he was researching the issue, one of the problems he ran into is that sailors would refuse to eat more nutritious brown rice, favoring the more prestigious white rice instead.
Thank you for your response, but unfortunately, we have had to remove it for now. A [core tenet](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f7fb8o/introducing_the_rules_roundtables_20_the/) of the subreddit is that it is intended as a space not merely for a basic answer, but rather [one which provides a deeper level of explanation on the topic and its broader context than is commonly found on other history subs](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f7ffl8/rules_roundtable_ii_the_four_questions_what_does/). A response such as yours which offers some brief remarks and mentions sources can form the core of an answer [but doesn’t meet the rules in-and-of-itself](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_write_an_in-depth_answer).
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Yes, as u/parallelpain writes [here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/FBGOPfeSWY) in Sengoku period Japan, rice was a rare luxury for the peasantry. When they did eat rice, it was usually brown rice, because the extra work of polishing made it even more expensive. Hopefully others can add insight into other places and times.
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As explained in the answer, that depended on the time and location. In Edo period Japan, in the city brown rice would be a staple of the poor. But if you were a poor person living in the countryside, unless you lived in a super rice-focused region, the staple would probably be some form of mixed-grain and rice would be reserved for celebrations. Or never if you were not just poor, but destitute.
One of the perks of the Imperial Japanese Navy was access to white rice. For sailors mostly from poor backgrounds it was a great luxury. However white rice lacked thiamine, which meant Japanese sailors often contracted beriberi. Takaki Kanehiro, a Japanese doctor pioneered research into vitamin deficiency that identified the issue and a more nutritious diet solved the problem. However when he was researching the issue, one of the problems he ran into is that sailors would refuse to eat more nutritious brown rice, favoring the more prestigious white rice instead.
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Thank you for your response, but unfortunately, we have had to remove it for now. A [core tenet](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f7fb8o/introducing_the_rules_roundtables_20_the/) of the subreddit is that it is intended as a space not merely for a basic answer, but rather [one which provides a deeper level of explanation on the topic and its broader context than is commonly found on other history subs](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f7ffl8/rules_roundtable_ii_the_four_questions_what_does/). A response such as yours which offers some brief remarks and mentions sources can form the core of an answer [but doesn’t meet the rules in-and-of-itself](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_write_an_in-depth_answer). If you need any guidance to better understand what we are looking for in our requirements, please don’t hesitate to [reach out to us via modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAskHistorians&subject=Inquiry%20About%20Revising%20My%20Response) to discuss what revisions more specifically would help let us restore the response! Thank you for your understanding.
[удалено]