Most Important Crops

The order varies by study, but these are generally agreed to as the top ten crops harvested, not by revenue. Cannabis is the top revenue producing crop and sugar cane is the most popular.


They are, in order, Corn, Wheat, Rice, Potatoes, Cassava, Soybeans, Sweet potatoes, Sorghum, Yams, and Plantains.

Potato Facts

China grows the most potatoes of any nation on earth, followed by Russia, India, and US in fourth place. China consumes almost half of all potatoes produced and the Europeans, per capita consume the most potatoes annually. Potatoes rank as the world's fourth most important food crop, after corn, wheat, and rice.

A fresh potato contains about 80 percent water and 20 percent dry matter. About 60 to 80 percent of the dry matter is starch. On a dry weight basis, the protein content of potato is similar to that of cereals and is very high in comparison with other roots and tubers. In addition, the potato is low in fat. Potatoes are rich in several micronutrients, especially vitamin C, if eaten with its skin. A single medium sized potato provides nearly half the daily adult requirement. The potato is a moderate source of iron, and its high vitamin C content promotes iron absorption. It is a good source of vitamins B1, B3 and B6 and minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium, and contains folate, pantothenic acid and riboflavin. Potatoes also contain dietary antioxidants and dietary fiber.

Boiling potatoes in their skins prevents loss of nutrients. Baking causes slightly higher losses of vitamin C than boiling due to the higher oven temperatures, but losses of other vitamins and minerals during baking are lower.

More than 5 000 native varieties are still grown in the Andes. While the Incas called it papa (as do modern-day Latin Americans), Spaniards called the potato patata, apparently confusing it with another New World crop, the sweet potato, known as batata. In 1797, the English herbalist Gerard referred to the sweet potato as "common potato", and for many years S. tuberosum was known as the "Virginia potato" or "Irish potato" before finally displacing batata as the potato.

Seven Uses for Lemons

Summertime always means refreshing lemonade to quench your thirst. Here are some other uses for those yellow goodies.

Realtors say a nice bowl of lemons makes a colorful and inexpensive arrangement for the table or counter top.

Finger nails looking dull and yellowed after a long period covered in dark polish? Just squeeze a lemon into a small dish, clean your nails and soak them in the lemon juice for a minute or two. Some women claim that this treatment will also make nails stronger, particularly when adding a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the dish.

Keep cut fruit and vegetables like apples, pears, avocados and potatoes from turning brown by squeezing on a little bit of lemon juice.

You can perk up droopy lettuce by soaking it for an hour in a bowl of cold water and the juice of one lemon.

Simmer lemon peel in water on the stove-top as a natural air freshener

A few drops of lemon juice added to simmering rice will keep it from sticking to the pot and make clean-up a lot easier.

Seven More Uses for Rice

Put it to work doing dishes. You can use rice to get at those hard-to-reach bottoms of narrow-necked milk bottles and flower vases. Add rice, soap, water, and then shake-shake-swirl.

Get your coffee grinder squeaky clean by wiping grinder clear of debris and add enough rice to cover the blades and grind.  The rice will absorb all the lingering oils that carry the coffee aroma.

Use rice water as a facial serum by saving the water from rinsing your cooking rice. Let it cool and use a wash cloth to rub the liquid into your face and rinse clean. Rice is high in vitamin E.

Make an easy heating pad by filling a sock with a couple cups of rice, and then tie the open end. Pop it in the microwave for a few minutes, and you have  an instant heating pad.

When finished with that heating pad, let the kids or pets play with it like a bean bag.

Bury wet electronic devices in  a bowl of rice. It extracts moisture like silica gel.

Make DIY glue by boiling down rice until it degrades and releases the starch.

Instant Rice

Also known as minute rice, is rice that has been precooked and dehydrated so that it cooks rapidly. Regular rice requires approximately 20 minutes to cook while instant rice usually needs between five and 10 minutes, or 90 seconds in a microwave. Because it has already been cooked, all that is necessary to prepare instant rice is to re-hydrate it with hot water.

Instant rice is made by using several methods. The most common is similar to home cooking. Rice is blanched in hot water, steamed, and rinsed. It is then placed in large ovens for dehydration until the moisture content reaches approximately twelve percent or less. The basic principle involves increasing moisture of the milled white rice by using steam or water to form cracks or holes in the kernels.

The fast cooking properties happen at recooking. Water quickly penetrates into the cracked grain.