On World Food Day, celebrities reveal the story behind their fave brown rice recipes

Renowned singer Bayang Barrios is no stranger to brown rice, having eaten it regularly growing up in her native Agusan del Sur. But mild autism gave her child a sensitive palate—thus, the Lumad singer sought more inventive ways of cooking brown rice.

Barrios said she forgot that “The Good Food Project” would take place last Wednesday, October 16. Subsequently, she whipped up her “Fried Brown Rice a la Bayang Style with Pinaupong Manok” in a hurry. Despite this, the crowd favored Barrios's dish, the first to be gobbled up to nothing.

It may be your basic chicken-rice meal but compared to fast food fried chicken, Bayang’s Pinaupong Manok was more flavorful from the inside out.

As for her fried rice, I could not tell if the rice used was brown or white—and apparently, neither could her kid. It tasted like Chinese Yang Chow rice complete with egg and bell pepper.

Barrios is among five other personalities who advocate brown rice with the help of “The Good Food Project” of Oxfam and Dakila. During the event, these five celebrities shared their amazing signature recipes and the story behind each.

Preventive measure

Former “Imago” vocalist and singer-composer Aia De Leon’s “Thank You Amen!” was my personal favorite. It managed to balance the saltiness of its cheese layer and the sweetness of its squash layer. It was perfect with brown rice cooked a little sticky, mixed with a chunky chicken flavor.

According to De Leon, she began eating brown rice when she became more health-conscious, noting that eating brown rice was “preventive measure.”

“I decided to make a very big change kasi nag-yoyo ‘yung weight ko. I am prone to gaining weight fast if I don’t live a healthy lifestyle, so hindi ako blessed na payat. And my mom also is diabetic, so I know I am very much at risk and I haven’t had a kid yet… so it’s my way of preparing my body for the next 30 to 40 years of my life,” she said.


Healthy coffee culture

“Did you [ever] imagine that you could turn your brown rice into coffee?” asked musician and cyclist Nityalila Saulo. She shared that in the Visayas region, rice coffee (“Sara-sara”) is the prevailing brew.

Raised as a vegetarian, Saulo grew up having rice coffee as an alternative hot morning drink.
“Later on, when I was invited to become an advocate of the brown rice campaign, I thought, teka, how about turning brown rice into coffee. So I experimented [with] it sa kusina ng bahay ko, ‘yan na siya,” she said.


Saulo’s brown rice coffee was flavor-rich, although some coffee-drinkers might mind the bits of latak or residue of milled rice floating in the drink. Her coffee was also creamier than more commercial drinks with sugar and condensed milk. I think, if introduced to a wider public, Saulo’s healthy coffee could be a hit.

Bequeathing the good food choice

For 12 years, the quirky comedian and TV host Tuesday Vargas and her family have been eating brown rice and other varieties. Vargas shared a little bit about her life before brown rice.

“Ako po ay batang Maynila tapos produkto rin po ako ng public school. Isa po ako sa mga daragis na bata na tumatakbo sa Sta. Cruz noon. Growing up, hindi naming alam kung ano ‘yung healthy na pagkain basta kung ano ‘yung meron diyan dapat hindi ka nagrereklamo,” she said.

Vargas shifted to a healthier diet, she said, because her family has a history of hypertension and diabetes.

“Hindi ako kumakain ng brown rice para maging seksi kasi napakaseksi ko na po talaga…kumakain ako ng brown rice kasi nais kong ipamana sa anak ko ‘yung pagpili ng tamang pagkain. Sa loob pa lang ng bahay, sinisumulan na namin iyon,” she explained.


Vargas’s “Garlic Lime Chicken With Mango Salsa and Brown Rice” had a Mexican tang to it, only its salsa had a subtler flavor. She boasted that most of her ingredients were harvested from her own backyard.

Celebrating flavor

Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou grew up eating brown rice. He believes in using local available ingredients like brown rice in his concoctions.

“I think the problem is that we are promoting brown rice from a medicinal perspective. We think of it in a context of poverty. But, there is pleasure in eating brown rice, if you’re able to change your paradigm from thinking of the pleasure of eating brown rice… [Then] more people will gravitate [toward] this,” Tatung shared.


“We should learn to celebrate food, we should learn to celebrate rice. If we look at the potential of brown rice, the local economy and the local agriculture is offering us, there is a lot,” he added.

Sarthou noted that introducing brown rice to kids will not only discourage them from eating commercially prepared food, but also develope more discerning palates.

“For me, let us celebrate brown rice because it is abundant in the Philippines. We have so much variety of rice: black rice, brown rice, and all those [others]. We should enjoy it because we are Filipinos. We deserve to have this variety. We deserve to have this nutrition. We deserve to have this celebration of flavor.” — VC, GMA News