'dangerous' Levels Of Arsenic In 10% Of Rice

[irish daveyboy]

This was a topic posted on the UK Gluten Free and DH Forum,.

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Considering we Coeliacs use more rice based products than the average person, It's Frightening!!!!

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A third of baby rice tested by the Food Standards Agency contains high levels of arsenic, one of the worst cancer causing chemicals, a leading expert has said..............................................

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Ironically, the most likely to be exposed to high arsenic levels, he said, were infants, buyers of macro-biotic healthfood, people who buy rice milk and the Bangladeshi community, who buy a lot of rice from their home country where water naturally contaminated with arsenic are used to irrigate crops........

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The EU has no standard for arsenic in food and Britain's level was set in 1959 before the cancer-causing effects of arsenic were understood. Prof Meharg says the most stringent standard is set by the Chinese, who are big eaters of rice......................................................

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Rice from the United States, France, Italy and Bangladesh had the highest levels of inorganic arsenic. About 30 per cent of American long grain rice samples tested contain levels above the Chinese standard.

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Read the whole article Open Original Shared Link

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David

[Glutenfreefamily]

Yikes thats scary! I gave up most rice and rice milk and stay with potatoes quite often for a large part of my meals and only occasionally have rice.

[irish daveyboy]

Yikes thats scary! I gave up most rice and rice milk and stay with potatoes quite often for a large part of my meals and only occasionally have rice.

Hi Glutenfreefamily,

here's another post from another forum adding to the information covered in the original issue.

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Actually, the story goes back a bit, with plenty of stuff written on it a few years ago.

The problem seems to be greatest if you are living in an area where both the rice, and the drinking water are contaminated with arsenic. Arsenic used to be a favourite poison if you wanted to solve a problematic marriage, or at least it seemed so in lots of old black and white films. I give my age away.

In the US, there is also a problem now that they are growing rice in old cotton fields.

In fact, the high levels of arsenic were poisonous to the rice, so the crops failed.

What did the farmers do? You guessed it. They bred arsenic-resistant rice crops.

The plants absorbed arsenic, but it didn't kill them.

We unsuspecting humans eat the rice, and absorb the arsenic and accumulate it.

Bladder cancer is one of the potential problems it causes, even in low doses.

Arsenic levels in US rice may be quite high.

This is all further proof of the need to grow and eat organic food. At least you are less likely to produce a time bomb for future generations if your fields are free of chemical poisons. If you eat organic, you might be less likely to consume those chemicals.

"The health effects of arsenic in food are hard to verify because the increase in cancer risk is small. Meharg estimates that if 10,000 people were exposed to the WHO limit over their lifetime, this would result in an extra 92 cases of bladder cancer."

Meharg is the expert with the concerns over arsenic in rice.

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Open Original Shared Link

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Open Original Shared Link

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And as if arsenic in rice wasn't bad enough (at least we rich westerners can pick and choose our rice) imagine the fate of possibly 500,000,000 people (Yes, half a billion people!) in Asia who drink water from insecure groundwater sources.

Bihar, India: Survey of 3000 wells showed 12 with levels 20 times the WHO limits,

and 40% of wells over the limits.

Hanoi, Vietman: arsenic levels 300 times the WHO limits!

Bangladesh: 50,000,000 people face what the WHO calls

"...the world's worst mass poisoning disaster." .

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Open Original Shared Link

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We have no idea, do we?

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David

[home-based-mom]

Let's see. We have arsenic in our rice and Open Original Shared Link. which may come from some of the same sources as the water that waters the rice ~ even organic rice.

Sheesh.

[moldlady]

Most of the rice grown in the US is gm long grain over those old cotton fields laced with arsenic. One could possibly switch to short grain brown rice to keep levels low.

It seems that more and more of our planet is toxic and we must keep a constant detox going for our bodies no matter what...

ML