Arsenic in Rice: How to Decrease it

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Weedygarden

Awesome Friend
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Dec 3, 2017
Messages
19,386
I've heard about arsenic being found in rice, but recently, there are several people discussing how to reduce the amount of arsenic found in rice.

I searched for a current article, but found this article from 5 years ago from Scientific American.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/simple-cooking-method-flushes-arsenic-out-of-rice/

Arsenic out of Rice
Preparing rice in a coffee machine can halve levels of the naturally occurring but toxic substance
Cooking rice by repeatedly flushing it through with fresh hot water can remove much of the grain’s stored arsenic, researchers have found—a tip that could lessen levels of the toxic substance in one of the world’s most popular foods.

Billions of people eat rice daily, but it contributes more arsenic to the human diet than any other food. Conventionally grown in flooded paddies, rice takes up more arsenic (which occurs naturally in water and soil as part of an inorganic compound) than do other grains. High levels of arsenic in food have been linked to different types of cancer, and other health problems.

Andrew Meharg, a plant and soil scientist at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, wondered whether cooking the grain in a different way might help to lessen the health risk. The standard method for making rice—boiling it in a pot until it soaks up all the liquid—binds into place any arsenic contained in the rice and the cooking water.

Percolation is key

On the basis of earlier work, Meharg and his colleagues knew that arsenic levels drop when rice is thoroughly rinsed and then cooked in an excessive amount of water. The method helps even when the cooking water contains arsenic.

Meharg and colleagues found that using this method with increasing proportions of water removed progressively more arsenic—up to a 57 percent reduction with a ratio of 12 parts water to one part rice. That result confirmed that the arsenic is "mobile" in liquid water, and thus can be removed.

The team then cooked rice in an apparatus that continually condenses steam to produce a fresh supply of distilled hot water, and in an ordinary coffee percolator with a filter, which allows cooking water to drip out of the rice. Testing the rice before and after cooking showed that coffee-pot percolation removed about half the arsenic, and that the lab apparatus removed around 60–70 percent. In some cases, the technique removed as much as 85 percent of the substance, depending on the type of rice used. The findings are reported in PLoS ONE.

Short-term fix

Meharg does not expect people to start cooking rice in their coffee machines. “We just took something that’s in everybody’s kitchen and applied it to show a principle,” he says. He sees the research as a proof of concept that could feed the development of simple, inexpensive rice cookers that lower arsenic concentrations.

The risk of arsenic poisoning is greatest for consumers who eat rice several times a day. In Bangladesh, where rice is a staple and the water is also naturally high in arsenic, people are particularly vulnerable. Parboiling facilities in the country process rice by pre-cooking, drying and husking the grain. These processes offer the opportunity to intervene on a commercial scale with cookers that would reduce arsenic levels—something that Meharg plans to do.

The same technique could also help companies elsewhere to lower arsenic levels in baby cereals and other products that use pre-cooked rice. Rice-based baby foods often contain high levels of arsenic, a double-whammy for small children, who consume proportionately more of the substance for their body size.

In the long term, the best strategies for removing arsenic from rice will come from ongoing efforts to breed low-arsenic strains and alter growing techniques, says Margaret Karagas, an epidemiologist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. But, she says, “This paper is really interesting because it is offering a short-term solution to the problem. It’s giving people an opportunity to reduce the arsenic burden of their rice.”

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on July 22, 2015.
 
The levels of arsenic are so small that you would need to eat twice your weight in rice daily for a week before it would show any signs of toxicity.
You should be more worried about walking along the side of a road where you are exposed to CO, Sulfuric Acid, and Nitrous Oxides from car emissions.
 
That is like the mercury in fish scare. It all depends on the amount of selenium in the fish. He scare came from a study of people eating pilot whales. Mercury bonds to selenium. You need selenium for brain function. If the fish has a higher selenium level than mercury you are good.

Sword fish is about even. Pilot whales have a lot more mercury than selenium. Other fish are much higher in selenium than mercury.

It all boils down to who is paying for the study and/or the beliefs of the scientists. If you were a beef or pork producer would you not want people scared of fish?

If you sold potatoes would you not want people scared of rice?

Follow the science they say.lil loser
 
Weedy, I'll go with Arsenic and Old Lace for $400.
I've wondered about this too. A quick search indicates that arsenic leaves the body within 3 or 4 days through the urine. I'd think they're meaning organic arsenic. Inorganic would more likely bind to the body, wouldn't it? Lead binds to bone. Arsenic can accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract, liver, and spleen, as well as hard tissue (bone). It is suspected that Paget's Disease and arsenic have a relationship.
I would think that little ones in any 3rd world country who don't get enough to eat and subsist primarily on rice would suffer from arsenic toxicity more than any adult.
 
Parboiling is suppose to help with getting the arsenic out.

But I am thinking about using parboiling with alpha lipoic acid, to wipe all
traces of arsenic and mercury.

That is adding alpha lipoic acid to the rice to chelate the arsenic and mecury
out of the rice.
 
Arsenic was and still is a medical tool. before Penicillin or Antibiotics, arsenic was used. Its medical term is "Salvarsan". So, I would not be to freaked out about a small amount.

Learn more: Arsphenamine - Wikipedia
 
I eat rice almost every day , I wash it until the water is clear (Jasmin sweet rice in a small pressure cooker)
Must be the Chinese are immune to arsenic , they've been eating it for 9000 yrs. I never worried about it
 
This thread is old and the topic has now been seen as not as important as it was being made out to be. I don't think anyone here has any concerns about arsenic in rice now.
 
Does that mean I can't reply to it ?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top