Yao people’s colorful rice combines romance and wisdom

Colorful rice is a traditional main food of Yao people living in SW China’s Yunnan Province. It appears in red, purple, black, white and yellow colors and is the combination of romance and wisdom.

The making of colorful rice is special. After preparing dried fine sticky rice and washing them clean, Yao people decoct edible plants picked in mountains into dyes of red, yellow, blue, orange and black colors. Then they soak the rice into different vegetable dyes and the color of the rice will change to what they want. The last step is to steam the colorful rice and eat them.

The colorful rice not only is beautiful, but also has effects of food therapy. And the secret lies in the edible vegetable dyes. According to the “Compendium of Materia Medica”, a Chinese classic pharmacopeia, the Fengyexiang, which is used to blacken the rice, boasts the function of strengthening bones and improving gastrointestinal system. The Ranfanhua, which contains the “yellow dyes”, can clear heat. Honglancao, where the red color is from, has hematopoietic efficacy. And the Lanzicao, the material used to purple the rice, can help treat diabetes, high blood pressure and dizziness.

Editor: John Li