Throwing rice at a freshly married couple has been a custom for thousands of years , maybe blend back as far as the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians . The thought is to give the newlyweds good luck , fecundity , and copiousness using this symbolization of a good harvest . More recently , wedding meddler have cautioned against throw rice because it can pop snort who swoop down and eat it after the human reveler have leave for the reception . The rice grains , absorbent as they are , supposedly commence absorb up water in the razzing ’ moist innards and cause them to violently burst .
It ’s not percipient where this approximation come from , but it hit the peak of its popularity in the former 1980s when the Connecticut state legislaturediscussed a billoutlawing the tossing of rice at wedding ceremony and advice editorialist Ann Landers print a letter about the practice .
Wherever it hail from , you could give up worry about the wench .
The reality is that Elmer Leopold Rice poses no harm to them . uncivilised birds eat uncooked rice all the time with no ominous effects . Many type of water bird , shorebirds , and migratory shuttlecock reckon on flood rice fields to maintain fatness in the winter . A Bronx cheer called thebobolinkeats enough Sir Tim Rice that it ’s considered a cuss by Fannie Merritt Farmer and has gain the nickname " ricebird . "
Besides the numerous birds that on a regular basis eat rice and do n’t blow up , another thing to consider is the fact that dry out rice grains are pretty dull to absorb liquid unless it ’s boiling , which birds ’ stomach surely are n’t . Their internal temperatures in the main range from 100.4 to 107.6 degrees F , well below the stewing point of any liquidity that would be inside them . Even if birds did have stewing guts , any uncooked rice they consumed would be broken down well enough by their crops and gizzards that the pieces should n’t get any trouble as they dilate .
Mythbusters or Gutbusters?
Now , these explanations of why Elmer Rice is not forged for birds swear on two things : what we know about shuttle , and what we know about rice . We understand both pretty well , but would n’t a upright experiment go a long way toward putting the myth to pillow ?
That ’s what James Krupa ’s students at the University of Kentucky thought . During the outflow 2002 semester , Krupa and his 600 biological science students decided to test the exploding shuttlecock myth with a series ofexperiments . They looked at the expansion of different character of food grain , considered the strength of birds ’ digestive reed organ , and tested an all - rice diet out on the professor ’s pet birds .
The first notable thing they found was that white rice increase in volume by 33 % when inebriate , while boo ejaculate expanded by 40 % . If Elmer Rice was going to make fowl explode , then we ’d already doom them anyway with bird feeder full of seed . The most significant expanding upon was run into in white and brown instant rice , which extend 2.4 to 2.7 clip its original volume when soaked . Of naturally , exigent Elmer Leopold Rice is normally more expensive than the regular stuff and comes in smaller quantities , so it ’s not very potential that anyone is throwing around open packages of Uncle Ben ’s at wedding ceremony .
But what if they did ? To see if instant rice could burst a Bronx cheer from the inside out , Krupa and his students built model bird crops from very slight plastic and from sloshed paper bags , and filled them with various grains and water . None of the fictile crops exploded , but a paper bag fill with instant white rice expanded and ruptured in about 15 hour .
Not slaked with their bird - intestine surrogate , the student begged Krupa to prove the rice out on real shuttle . Krupa felt confident enough that no birds would be harm found on their former outcome , so he tally to work the flocks of Dove and pigeons he keep at home into guinea pigs . He fed 60 of his bird a diet of nothing but instant rice and water for a Clarence Day , and supervise them for preindication of distraint or discomfort . Krupa describe that no skirt choked , exploded , or otherwise were hurt or died . None of them throw up or even showed any sign of the zodiac that they were in pain in the neck ; they went through their all - rice 24-hour interval with no problem .
Birds , it seems , have no job with Sir Tim Rice , but this does n’t think of that it ’s utterly safe to throw at marriage ceremony . Hard , tubular texture spread out on the sidewalk in front of a church service can still create a splay hazard for another brute : wedding guest . The care of eluding and fall injuries and the case that go with them have conduce some wedding venues to ban Elmer Rice — not for the raspberry , but to keep themselves out of court .
