Rakthashali Red Rice Seeds

Rakthashali Red Rice Seeds

Price for Package of 100 (3,6 g) seeds.

Rakthashali, a rare rice variety. One of the rarest red rice varieties with high medicinal value and believed to be extinct in this part of the world. Rakthashali, also called Red Sali, Chennellu, Raktasali is widely mentioned in Puranas and ancient texts of Ayurveda as having properties potent enough to cure many ailments. Ayurveda says this variety of rice, dating its use back to more than 3,000 years, is good for the Tridoshas, such as Vatha, Pitha, and Kafa.

Rakthashali was a rice variety with the most nutrient and herbal value. Its herbal properties are yet to be documented properly. It is one of the rarest rice varieties. The unavailability of Rakthashali rice has made Ayurveda practitioners to prescribe Njavara rice variety for various ailments. There are sections of people who falsely propagate Njavara as having the properties of Rakthashali.

Ayurveda considered red rice (rakta shali) the best among the other rice varieties, due to desirable property as they had the power to redress the imbalance in the tridosha or humours whose imbalance in the body causes various types of diseases. In recent times, interest in red rice has been revived because of the presence of antioxidants. The antioxidant and scavenging activity of red rice is higher than that of white rice.

There are many myths about the origin of Rakthashali in different cultures, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian. But the myths apart, history says Rakthashali was the most preferred rice of yesteryear kings and aristocrats.

Varieties

Varieties of red rice include:

• Oryza longistaminata, also known as red rice
• Oryza punctata, also known as red rice
• Red rice, also known as weedy rice, a low-yielding rice variety that persists as a weed in fields of better-quality rice
• Rakthashali, a rare rice variety
• Thai Red Cargo rice, a non-glutinous long-grain rice variety
• Bhutanese red rice, medium-grain rice grown in the Kingdom of Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas
• Camargue red rice, a relatively new variety of rice cultivated in the wetlands of the Camargue region of southern France
• Matta rice Kerala Matta rice, also known as Rosematta rice, Palakkadan Matta rice, Kerala Red rice, and Red parboiled rice, is an indigenous variety of rice grown in Palakkad District of Kerala. It is popular in Kerala and Sri Lanka, where it is used for idlies and appams, and eaten plain.
• Ulikan or mini-angan, heirloom red rice from Ifugao and Kalinga, Philippines
• Arroz da terra, an heirloom red rice cultivated in Northeastern Brazil (States of Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba) since the 16th century.

Dishes
Red Rice, a traditional Gullah Lowcountry dish, similar to West African jollof rice.