Hello Reader! Let's start off with Free Rice's own answer to this question:
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| Screenshot from www.freerice.com/about |
When it comes to the website "Free Rice" it's important to know just what it IS and what it IS NOT.
What it IS, is a website (www.freerice.com) run by the United Nations' World Food Programme that
offers users trivia on various topics and uses correct answers to provide rice to starving human beings across the world.
What it IS NOT, is a fix all solution to World Hunger.
"Free Rice" is designed as a tool to help people, who may not be able to donate to the UN organization in other ways, participate in bringing much needed food to the most desperate. But it isn't some miracle tool that suddenly will end World Hunger. So, if you can't donate money to the World Food Programme, you can still donate some of your time, without ever leaving your home.
How does Free Rice work?
This is an official flyer from the WFP, and I think it explains the basic premise of "Free Rice" pretty clearly. You play trivia for a variety of topics, including Foreign Language, Human Anatomy, Multiplication Tables, Geography, Symbols of the Periodic Table, Literature & Art, etc., with each correct answer worth 10 grains of rice which are then donated through the WFP. Incorrect answers do nothing for or against you, and you're shown the correct answer and given the opportunity to answer again later.
You do not need to create an account to use "Free Rice". If you play the trivia games without signing up, rice is still donated for any correct answers you give. The difference made by signing up for a "Free Rice" account is purely for your own benefit - with an account you can keep track of your total rice donations and how well you perform in each trivia category; you can also join groups and compete with other players for higher donations.
If you do set up an account you have the option of signing up with your email address or Facebook account.
How does Free Rice work? - Mechanics
Ok, so - "Free Rice" is a trivia game website that lets you donate rice to fight world hunger by answering questions correctly... but how?
Well, the above About Page screenshot explains that each correct answer generates a small banner ad which generates a small amount of income for the site - which is then used to buy the rice which is then distributed by the UN's infrastructure across the world. So, put to bed any fears you have about the website selling your email or IP address etc.
Also, don't worry, the ads generated by answering correctly are not obtrusive or obstructive in any way. Half the time, I barely even notice them. For example, this is a screenshot from my own account on "Free Rice":
You might notice that some ads stick around if you ever get a question wrong. That's not surprising since ads are supposed to be generated by correct answers. Also, you'll notice that some of the ads will feature commercial products or companies while other ads will actually come from the UN, these ads might contain some other tools or information to help fight World Hunger, but either way they are non-obtrusive and do not obstruct game play in any way.
Sometimes you will get notifications (located beneath that wooden bowl) telling you that you've gotten a certain number of questions right in a row or have reached certain landmarks of rice donations. This lets you also compete against yourself as well to see how much you can do, without messing up.
Rice Counting
What I'm about to explain is incredibly important. One of the most crucial thing to remember is that the rice donations being counted have to measured in small amounts because of how much income is actually generated by the ad based system. So even though you can clearly see that you are donating hundreds or even thousands of grains of rice, it's important to put that quantity into perspective - and that's what I'm going to walk you through right now.
My current "Free Rice" account is pretty new, only a few days old - so it'll serve as a good example of how easy it can be to forget the scale of donations vs. the scale of real human need:
So, after off and on playing, in different categories, for a few days you can circled in red a total donation count of 5,000 grains of rice. That might sound like a lot but in the grand scheme of just how much rice the human body needs to maintain a minimum calorie diet, it really isn't all that much.
"Free Rice" itself does offer a short explanation that ultimately proves very useful to determining how much rice is needed per person as well as some of the necessary measurements we'll need:
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| http://freerice.com/content/how-much-rice-does-it-take-feed-person-day-how-many-grains-rice-gram |
48 grains of rice = 1 gram.
2 meals for 1 person = 400 grams (minimum).
Now if you're not overly familiar with how grams measure up to more common American kitchen measurements, like cups:
Grams is measurement of weight while Cups is a measurement of volume. This means that since different foods have different weights and sizes, the number of Grams per Cup will change depending on which food you're asking about in that moment. The numbers I got from Google came specifically from searching for "How many Grams of Rice in a Cup".
+/- 180 Grams = 1 Cup (uncooked rice)
This means that the UN's provision of about 400 grams of rice per person, per day roughly equals 2.2 Cups of rice per person, per day. This definitely does not sound like a lot of food and it really isn't. Most Americans would lose their minds if they were restricted to eating this little food per day. But the reality of our world is that for millions of human beings across the planet, this 2.2 Cups of rice is some of the only food they ever see.
Now, let's put my 5,000 donated grains of rice into perspective. Remember that 48 grains = 1 gram.
5,000/48 = 104.16
Or more simply, 104.
My 5,000 grains equals 104 grams.
104/180 (My grams divided by the number of grams per cup) = 0.57777 Cups
In other words, my current donation of 5,000 grains of rice equals a little more than 1/2 cups of rice which is about 1/4 the daily minimum for 1 person. And this is after correctly answering 500 questions (10 grains of rice per correct answer).
The fact that I answered 500 questions correctly and still only supplied 1 person with 1/4 their daily food is a humbling and scary situation to realize. This is why I wanted to clearly stop any and all fantasies about "Free Rice" being some kind of miracle cure for World Hunger. It is definitely a more small scale endeavor that is entirely dependent on the people who decide to interact with their program.
"Free Rice" is a great program that is perfect for its role: A single tool in a broader campaign.
Potential!
Now that I've shown you what to realistically expect from "Free Rice", and that those expectations should not be miraculously high, I want to emphasize that even though the task seems daunting, "Free Rice" has already proven invaluable over the last few years. The official UN flyer I posted earlier expressed that through "Free Rice" almost 5 MILLION people have gotten the meals we just described!
How? Because the more people who participate (and the more often they participate) the more rice gets donated.
For example, there is a group of players using the name WRICA2 that has donated 242,169,520 grains of rice so far. Most of that donation comes from player Jaysonbubel. So let's quickly calculate this:
242,169,520 grains / 48 = 5,045,198.3 grams
5,045,198.3 grams / 180 (number of grams of rice per cup) = 28,028.87 cups
Remember that the daily minimum is 2.2 cups of rice per person, per day.
28,028.87 cups / 2.2 = 12,740.39 people fed 2 meals.
12,740 PEOPLE were fed by the efforts of this one group of 13 players, with most of these donations coming from one single player. No matter how you look at this situation, that is a wonderful achievement.
Now, imagine what it would be like to have elementary school, middle school, or even high school classes, of 30+ kids in a group together practicing their multiplication tables, periodic table flash cards, geography quizzes, etc. If each student in a class (of 30 kids) answered 30 questions correctly in ONE QUIZ then we would end up with 187.5 grams of rice being donated from that quiz. Or, in other words, 1 human being would eat 1 meal per quiz done by 1 class of children. Of course this potential magnifies with every school class that gets involved.
Conclusion:
Is "Free Rice" a miracle cure for World Hunger? No. Is it a valuable resource that should be taken advantage of by as many people as possible? YES!
And by the way, if you still have concerns or questions I do have a few links for you to check out:
Also, please share this article - the more people who know about this program (which doesn't require a single cent of their own money), the better.
Please, especially pass this on to any Teachers and Homeschoolers you might know. "Free Rice" is perfectly suited to their skills and opportunities.
Thanks for reading! Now, let's go save some lives.
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