Throwing rice at weddings is a tradition that dates back centuries, possibly as far as the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians. In Ancient Rome, wedding guests threw sheaves of wheat over the bride and groom as they were said to symbolise a good harvest and fertility, while the Celts tossed rice, millet, and other grains in the hope that the couple would prosper and have many children.
Nowadays, confetti is a more popular choice, as are dried flower petals, seed bombs, lavender, and herbs, for those looking for an eco-friendly alternative.
But rice has fallen out of favour partly due to a claim that if birds eat any of the fallen grains, they will die. The theory goes that the rice will swell in their stomachs eventually causing them to explode.
We’re not sure when this idea started, but it’s been around for a long time, and became so pervasive that in 1985, a state legislator proposed a bill that would ban throwing uncooked rice at newlyweds in Connecticut.
“An Act Prohibiting The Use Of Uncooked Rice At Nuptial Affairs”, put forward by Mae Schmidle, the Republican state representative, provided that “no person shall throw, fling, cast or hurl any uncooked rice at any time during the celebration of any marriage”.
The reason for the bill was to “prevent injury and death of birds as a result of ingesting raw rice thrown at weddings.”
Mrs Schmidle claimed to have heard from several ministers that they had seen birds topple over the morning after a wedding due to apparent poisoning from ingesting rice. She said “Unfortunately, when the birds eat the raw rice, they cannot digest it. When it gets in their stomachs, it expands and causes them to have violent deaths.” She also claimed to have been in touch with members of the Audubon Society who said it was a “wonderful idea”.
However, at the time, the Associated Press contacted the Audubon Society, who said they had no evidence that what Mrs Schmidle stated was correct.
A few years later, in the Chicago Sun-Times’ advice column, Ask Ann Landers, Ann Landers received a letter from a bride-to-be worried about guests throwing rice at her because she was concerned about the harm it could do to birds.
In her reply, Ann Landers informed the letter writer that she wasn’t crazy and that she should tell her guests to avoid throwing rice at weddings in case birds ate it and exploded.
Three months later though, she had to retract the advice when Steven Sibley, an ornithologist at Cornell, got in touch to say that rice does not pose a threat to birds.
He said, “It must be boiled before it will expand. Furthermore, all the food that birds swallow is ground up by powerful muscles and grit in their gizzards. Many birds love rice, as any frustrated rice farmer will tell you.”
The USA Rice Federation also got involved stating that, “This silly myth pops up periodically, and it is absolutely unfounded. Many migrating ducks and geese depend on winter-flooded rice fields each year to fatten up and build strength for their return trek to northern nesting grounds.”
In response to Sibley, Ann Landers wrote, “Your letter proves once again that if a story is repeated often enough, people will believe it, even though it is false and defies logic.
“We checked with an authority in the Bird House at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, and she verified your statement. Shame on me for going along with that crock. I feel like a birdbrain.”
In 2002, James Krupa, Professor of Biology at the University of Kentucky, set out to prove once and for all whether birds could explode from eating uncooked rice.
He and his students conducted a number of experiments looking at how different types of grains were processed by birds’ digestive systems. They even tested an all-rice diet on the professor’s pet pigeons and doves.
The results were published in a paper entitled “A Classroom Exercise for Testing Urban Myth: Does Wedding Rice Cause Birds to Explode or Were Ann Landers, Martha Stewart & Bart Simpson Wrong?” in the journal The American Biology Teacher.
First, they measured how much various grains expand when they are soaked in water. They found that soaked white rice expanded in volume by 33%. This may sound a lot, but they also found that regular bird seed expanded by 40%. So if uncooked rice really is responsible for blowing up birds, then bird seed should have an even more devastating effect.
They also experimented with instant brown and white rice and found that both varieties expanded to much greater volumes, more than doubling in size. Although instant rice isn’t something usually given to birds, the scientists wanted to push the expanding rice theory to its limit.
They constructed small pouches from plastic and paper to simulate a bird’s crop and filled them with instant rice. None of the model crops exploded even when they were filled with instant rice, although a paper bag split in about 15 minutes.
Krupa also tested the theory on real birds. He was so confident in the results of his experiments that he fed 60 of the pigeons and doves he kept at home with nothing but instant rice and water for 24 hours. He was happy to report that none of the birds suffered from any side effects. They were not in any pain, none of them was ill, and none of them exploded.
When we cook rice, it swells to many times its original size. It is the heating process that enables this to happen. The heat softens the starch in the rice which allows it to absorb water quickly and swell. When rice is left to soak in cold water, it will soften a little, but it would take a very long time to significantly increase in volume.
It’s very likely the misunderstanding around exploding birds came about because people assumed that what was going on inside their saucepan would also happen inside a bird.
But birds have a body temperature of about 40° C, well below that of boiling water, so their stomach isn’t hot enough to ‘cook’ the rice to make it expand. Birds digest food fairly quickly, usually in a matter of hours, so any uncooked rice will be digested or excreted long before it has a chance to absorb enough water to swell to a size that could cause injury.
For those responsible for cleaning up after weddings, it was very useful for the rumour to spread, as tiny grains of rice are notoriously hard to clean up. Rice can also be a hazard when scattered on hard surfaces, so banning it from weddings mitigated the risk of someone slipping and sustaining a nasty injury. Instead, guests were encouraged to bring bird seed instead.
It’s fine to feed birds cooked rice. It acts as a fast energy boost for birds, so is ideal in winter to help them keep warm. Rice contains Vitamin B which helps with forming and maintaining cells, and vitamin E which protects cells due to its antioxidant properties.
It also contains iron which is essential for helping transport oxygen through the blood, and calcium and magnesium, which are important for strong bones and beaks.
Plenty of garden birds will enjoy eating cooked rice, although uncooked rice is unlikely to attract many species except pigeons, doves, and pheasants.
