Heather Bedard, C.H.E.
Many health experts advocate removing this grain entirely from your diet due to concerns of arsenic. Before we do such a drastic thing let’s take a minute and find out where this information came from and what there is to worry about.
Arsenic is a naturally occurring element that is present in food, water, air, and soil. It can also be produced as a result of human activities such a mining or pesticides that contain arsenic. There are three types of arsenic – organic, inorganic, and arsine gas.
Inorganic arsenic is found to be more toxic than organic because it is absorbed more rapidly. The United States' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has placed arsenic as the #1 most hazardous substance. Inorganic arsenic is found in many foods in low quantities, but is primarily found the water supply, seafood, and rice. The concern is when rice is grown in irrigated paddies where the water has been contaminated by inorganic arsenic. However, there are many places where there is low to no inorganic arsenic contamination including California, India, and Pakistan.
Despite its hazard profile, the FDA has not established a regulatory limit, but rather an “action level” for how much arsenic can be in foods that have been tested.[1] This is not the same as a rule and it seems that this is due to arsenic being found in the environment and therefore cannot be completely eradicated from the food supply. But what does this even mean for you? How do you know if the food you are consuming is toxic?
One of the ways that you can determine arsenic exposure is to evaluate toenail arsenic concentration. Researchers at Dartmouth evaluated this in a New Hampshire population that arsenic in the water and could find no relationship between the toenail arsenic level and consumption of rice.[2] There was, however, a positive association in those who consumed dark meat fish, white wine, beer and Brussels sprouts. People who ate Brussels sprouts less than once per month had arsenic levels 10.4% lower than those who ate them regularly. I guess we need to take Brussels sprouts of our diet too!
Despite what one would perceive as an extreme hazard the way many health articles talk about it, the World Health Organization’s fact sheet about arsenic does not even mention consuming rice as a risk factor for arsenic poisoning[3]
The FDA does have a 284-page risk assessment report regarding arsenic in rice.[4] When broken down here is the risk assessment:
If a child consumes parboiled rice every single day until age 7 (2,555 meals including rice), the lifetime risk of lung or bladder cancer is 36 cases per one million (0.000036%).
If an adult eats parboiled rice every single day for 51 years (18,615 meals containing rice) the lifetime risk is 149 cases of lung or bladder cancer per one million adults (0.000149%).
Children who eat long-grain white rice have a lifetime risk of 33 cases of lung or bladder cancer per one million (0.000033%); and for adults, the lifetime risk is 136 cases per one million (0.000136%).
The lowest risk is for instant/precooked white or brown rice, with lifetime risk for children of 18 and 12 cases per million, respectively (0.000018% and 0.000012%); and for adults lifetime risk of 74 cases per one million for both (0.000074%).
Assuming a U.S. population of 317 million people with an average life expectancy of 78.6 years, the estimate for Americans, based on average rice intake, is between 0 and 319 annual cases of lung or bladder cancer (between 0% and 0.0000010063%) –
Dr. Pam Popper, from Wellness Forum Health, puts It in perspective by looking at the risk of:
Driving a car 11,904 deaths per 1 million
Swimming 881 deaths per 1 million
Riding a bike 203 deaths per 1 million[5]
From this information here, I would say to purchase your rice from areas where there is known to be less arsenic in the ground or water. Bottom line in my opinion? Yes, there is arsenic in the environment around us. Yes, it is extremely hazardous in specific quantities. No, there is no way to completely get around this issue. Based on the statistics and studies mentioned here, you are far more likely to die riding a bike than get arsenic poisoning from eating rice.
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[1] https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/guidance-industry-action-level-inorganic-arsenic-rice-cereals-infants
[2] Cottingham K, Gruber J, Zens M et al. “Diet and toenail arsenic concentrations in a New Hampshire population with arsenic-containing water.” Nutr J 2013 Oct;12:49
[3] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs372/en/
[4] https://www.fda.gov/media/96071/download
[5] http://www.nsc.org/learn/safety-knowledge/Pages/injury-facts.aspx