For every 100 grains of rice, the bowl contains one grain of Ultra Rice. It’s actually not rice at all, but pasta fortified with vitamins and minerals and squeezed through a rice-shaped mold. The manufactured grains are made from a mixture of rice flour, nutrients and binding agents derived from seaweed.

Originally the creation of father-and-son inventors from Bellingham, Ultra Rice is now being produced and tested around the world as a potential solution to malnutrition. Governments in Brazil and India are serving it in school-lunch programs, and the United Nations’ World Food Programme is conducting a trial in Cambodia to see if families find it acceptable.

About 2.5 billion people consume rice as their main source of food. Many of them suffer from deficiencies of iron, folic acid, vitamin A and other essential nutrients. In India, for example, a national study last year found that more than half of women and 70 percent of children under 5 were anemic. Iron deficiencies can harm brain development and increase the risk of hemorrhaging and death in childbirth.

Adding nutrients to rice can reach millions of people without asking them to change basic shopping, cooking or eating habits, says Dipika Matthias, who directs the Ultra Rice project at PATH in Seattle. In the U.S., products such as flour, milk and salt come fortified with vitamins and minerals.  The challenge: making pasta that smells, tastes and looks like rice, but packs a powerful combination of calcium, zinc, folic acid, thiamin and iron inside, can withstand heat and humidity in storage, and doesn’t wash away or break down when cooked.

Customization

Ultra Rice is made by pasta makers then blended with natural rice grains by rice millers, so by the time it gets to consumers, it can be cooked and eaten as usual. The grains are customized to meet the needs of each country — in India that’s iron; in Brazil it’s a combination of micronutrients. PATH won an award from The Tech Museum in Silicon Valley last year for its work on Ultra Rice.

It may be a technological wonder, but Ultra Rice has its own set of challenges. The price is 2 to 5 percent higher than traditional rice, and the target population is among the world’s poorest, so widespread distribution depends on government support and companies’ willingness to limit their profit margins.

Seattle’s global-health nonprofit PATH hopes Ultra Rice will help malnourished communities around the world. The fortified, ricelike pasta was created by a father-son team from Bellingham.

By Kristi Heim

Seattle Times business reporter

 PREV  1 of 2  NEXT

JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The manufactured grains, shown here, are added to rice, offering a potential solution to malnutrition for millions of people.

SATVIR MALHOTRA/PATH

Rice fortified with Ultra Rice provides schoolchildren in India sorely needed iron. Governments in Brazil and India are serving it in school-lunch programs to boost nutrition.

Related

A simple bowl of white rice sits on a conference table inside the Seattle headquarters of global-health nonprofit PATH.

What looks and tastes like ordinary rice is actually the product of two decades of research and development.

For every 100 grains of rice, the bowl contains one grain of Ultra Rice. It’s actually not rice at all, but pasta fortified with vitamins and minerals and squeezed through a rice-shaped mold. The manufactured grains are made from a mixture of rice flour, nutrients and binding agents derived from seaweed.

Originally the creation of father-and-son inventors from Bellingham, Ultra Rice is now being produced and tested around the world as a potential solution to malnutrition. Governments in Brazil and India are serving it in school-lunch programs, and the United Nations’ World Food Programme is conducting a trial in Cambodia to see if families find it acceptable.

About 2.5 billion people consume rice as their main source of food. Many of them suffer from deficiencies of iron, folic acid, vitamin A and other essential nutrients.

In India, for example, a national study last year found that more than half of women and 70 percent of children under 5 were anemic. Iron deficiencies can harm brain development and increase the risk of hemorrhaging and death in childbirth.

Adding nutrients to rice can reach millions of people without asking them to change basic shopping, cooking or eating habits, says Dipika Matthias, who directs the Ultra Rice project at PATH in Seattle. In the U.S., products such as flour, milk and salt come fortified with vitamins and minerals.

The challenge: making pasta that smells, tastes and looks like rice, but packs a powerful combination of calcium, zinc, folic acid, thiamin and iron inside, can withstand heat and humidity in storage, and doesn’t wash away or break down when cooked.

Customization

Ultra Rice is made by pasta makers then blended with natural rice grains by rice millers, so by the time it gets to consumers, it can be cooked and eaten as usual. The grains are customized to meet the needs of each country — in India that’s iron; in Brazil it’s a combination of micronutrients.

PATH won an award from The Tech Museum in Silicon Valley last year for its work on Ultra Rice.

It may be a technological wonder, but Ultra Rice has its own set of challenges. The price is 2 to 5 percent higher than traditional rice, and the target population is among the world’s poorest, so widespread distribution depends on government support and companies’ willingness to limit their profit margins