Asia Is Cutting Back on Rice in Favor of Good Old Gluten

Imagine a tuna roll wrapped in a crepe instead of a seaweed-swathed bed of sushi rice, or a heap of mapo doufu presented on a couple of slices of white bread. Kind of hard to picture, isn't it? Rice is, after all, a backbone of Asian cuisine, accompanying the majority of dishes in China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and India.

But while over here in the States we're fleeing from traditional wheat-based bread in horror with our low-carb fever and claims about gluten intolerance, Asia is really starting to warm up to it.

According to Reuters, Asian consumers are losing interest in rice and embracing a doughier diet, most dramatically in South Korea, where rice consumption has reached a record low. On the flip side, the average South Korean consumed 33.6 kilograms of wheat flour last year, an uptick in demand that has increased at roughly double the rate of rice for the past seven years. Yep, they're still eating more rice than flour—a little over 65 kilograms of rice per person annually, on average—but wheat is rising up (pun intended) while rice simmers down (pun also intended).

According to SPC Group—the Korean pastry conglomerate that owns the bakery chains Paris Croissant and Paris Baguette, with more than 5,000 locations in South Korea alone—South Koreans alone spent a whopping US $5.37 billion on bread, sandwiches, bagels, and pastries last year.

So what's with the shift? Why are Asians abandoning their beloved rice for something decidedly more bready?

Professor Kang Byung-Oh, a business professor at Chung-Ang University, points out that pastries and coffee have become more popular choices for breakfast in an increasingly Westernized society, edging out traditional choices such as kimchi with rice.

Plus, packaged baked goods are convenient. Who wants to take the time to heat up a big batch of rice when they can grab a sandwich or pizza?

"You can find this trend across Asia, as Asian countries become westernized," Koh Hee-Jong, an agriculture and life science professor at Seoul National University, told Reuters. "Food products from wheat flour are quick, convenient." And with Asia's growing interest in artisanal coffee culture, it only makes sense that they'd follow suit with a penchant for pastries.

While Asia produces almost all of its own rice, most of the white stuff for noodles, pastries, rolls, and bread is imported, making Asia the largest and fastest growing market in the global wheat industry, with imports primarily coming from the US, Europe, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, and Canada. In the past decade, these regions have seen exports grow by more than 40 percent. China, Bangladesh, and India are three of the fastest-growing markets, despite India's position as the second-largest grower of wheat in the world.

While American and European grocery stores may find their shelves filling with almond-flour cranberry muffins and brown rice pasta, it sounds like you'll still have to wait in line for a knockoff cronut in Seoul.