Wedding Rice: The Dark Side

Many people think rice hurts birds. They're wrong.

Throwing rice on the newlywed couple was a well-loved traditionfor many years in the United States. What happened? The common consensus is: Birds. Nature-Lovers the world over were shocked and appalled to discover that the uncooked rice kernels were causing the stomachs of our little feathered friends to explode.

What really happened, and the real reason so many people believe this bizarre urban myth, was Ann Landers, Martha Stewart and the network of rumor mills entrenched in our culture spread it like wildfire. In fact, rice is perfectly harmless, even nutritious for birds to eat. Birds eat rice in the fields when it is growing without any problem whatsoever and have done so probably ever since time immemorial.

There have been numerous debunkings of this myth over the years but for some reason it is still with us. If you attend a wedding these days you're very likely to see wedding bubbles, rose petals, confetti and with startling irony: birdseed. Our society has actually gotten to the point where our priorities during this part of the wedding have shifted from showering the couple with a symbol of good luck to making sure the birds are well-fed. It is of apparent comparative unimportance if the bride has to spend six hours in the shower getting birdseed out of her hair.

Perhaps contributing to its persistence is that it truly is a bad idea to throw rice at a wedding, just not for the reason most people think: Wedding rice is a bad idea for the same reason we don't throw road-stars at the Indy 500. With all of the tiny, tubular grains carpeting the ground the chances that someone is going to start rolling and take a nasty spill are exponentially increased.

But don't go thinking that everyone's been right all along and it doesn't matter. You never know when new bits of knowledge are going to come in handy. I at least hope you found this one interesting.

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