[House] Arsnic in Rice

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2015 at 07:09:41PM -0800, Ruth Anne wrote:
> 
> A Consumer Reports article about arsnic in rice. It's recommended that
> children NOT consume rice milk or rice pasta. Thoughts?
> 
> 
> http://www.greenerchoices.org/pdf/CR_FSASC_Arsenic_Analysis_Nov2014.pdf

It looks like fear mongering to me.

According to the WHO, if your *drinking water* (i.e. stuff you
ingest constantly) has more than 50 mcg/liter, you'll eventually
have trouble.  Like, after 5 or more years (see
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs372/en/ ).

  In 2010, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives
  (JECFA) re-evaluated the effects of arsenic on human health,
  taking new data into account. JECFA concluded that for certain
  regions of the world where concentrations of inorganic arsenic in
  drinking-water exceed 50–100 μg/litre, there is some evidence of
  adverse effects. In other areas, where arsenic concentrations in
  water are elevated (10–50 μg/litre), JECFA concluded that while
  there is a possibility of adverse effects, these would be at a low
  incidence that would be difficult to detect in epidemiological
  studies.

The FDA's testing (
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm319948.htm )
says:

  FDA’s analysis of its approximately 1,300 samples found average
  levels of inorganic arsenic for the various rice and rice products
  of 0.1 to 7.2 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per serving. Serving
  sizes varied depending on the rice product. For example, one
  serving of non-Basmati rice is equal to one cup cooked, whereas
  one serving of a rice-based snack bar may contain only ¼ cup of
  rice.

So think about how much you'd get in 50 mcg/l of your drinking
water, and compare that to ~3 mcg per cup of rice.

I find myself unconcerned.

For a sense of scale, the LD50 of arsenic in rats ~700 mg/kg, so,
tens of thousands of times the doses we're talking about.

-- 
http://intelligence.org/ :  Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
.i ko na cpedu lo nu stidi vau loi jbopre .i dafsku lu na go'i li'u .e
lu go'i li'u .i ji'a go'i lu na'e go'i li'u .e lu go'i na'i li'u .e
lu no'e go'i li'u .e lu to'e go'i li'u .e lu lo mamta be do cu sofybakni li'u