Concerns grow about arsenic levels in rice

6th April 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

South Louisiana residents like rice with their beans and jambalaya, and consumers nationally have embraced it as they eat more Asian and Mexican food. Immigration has bolstered U.S. rice consumption, and some Americans are eating rice as they shun gluten. But rice, including varieties grown in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, can contain high levels of arsenic, a human carcinogen.

Two studies by researchers at Yonkers, N.Y.-based Consumer Reports magazine in recent years recommended that Americans limit their rice intake. Last summer, a United Nations food-standards group warned that arsenic in rice can be dangerous. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late March said it plans to release a draft report eventually, assessing the risks from arsenic in rice.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element in groundwater everywhere, Steve Linscombe, director of the LSU AgCenter Rice Research Station in Crowley, said in March. Rice is grown under flooded conditions, and its roots take up arsenic. “Rice tends to have a little higher arsenic content than other grains,” he said, and added that most foods have some level of arsenic. Linscombe feels that results in the two Consumer Reports studies are overblown, but said he might be biased.

When asked about rice grown on former cotton fields where arsenic-laden pesticides were sprayed, Linscombe said only about five percent of Louisiana’s rice is planted on previous cotton acres located in the state’s northwest.

Last summer, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a U.N. food-standards body, said that rice, a staple for millions of people, can contribute significantly to arsenic exposure, endangering health. Codex, run by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, warned about paddies irrigated with arsenic-ridden groundwater in parts of Asia. Codex had some advice for producers. “Improved irrigation and agricultural practices can help reduce arsenic contamination, by for example growing crops in raised beds instead of flooded fields,” it said.

Last July, Codex adopted a maximum, acceptable level for arsenic in rice. That standard, 200 ppb or parts per billion, was set for white rice, which typically has less arsenic than brown types. At its meeting last July, Codex said it would outline practices to help countries meet that standard.

At WHO, arsenic is one of ten chemicals that are viewed as major, public health concerns. The FDA has been looking at arsenic too. “The FDA has measured levels of arsenic in foods for decades in its Total Diet Study, and has posted data on extensive studies of rice and other foods,” FDA spokeswoman Lauren Sucher said in March. Though it hasn’t set a date yet, the FDA plans to release a draft assessment of arsenic risks in rice, she said.

The FDA has proposed an “action level” for inorganic arsenic in apple juice not to exceed 10 ppb for inorganic arsenic, Sucher said. The agency set a standard for arsenic in bottled water at 10 ppb, the same as the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for it in drinking water. “There are no set arsenic limits or standards for other foods now,” Sucher said.

Consumer Reports, a monthly magazine with testing and research facilities, released results of its arsenic-in-rice studies in November 2014 and November 2012. Researchers looked at FDA data from 2013 on inorganic arsenic in 656 processed, rice-containing products. “We found that rice cereal and rice pasta can have much more inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen, than our 2012 data showed,” Consumer Reports said last November.

Arsenic’s two chemical forms, inorganic and organic, occur in the earth’s crust, Consumer Reports said. Inorganic arsenic in groundwater and soil can be toxic. Organic arsenic is found in seafood. The researchers said “organic” is a chemistry term used in their arsenic work and shouldn’t be confused with organically sold food.

Besides its presence in groundwater and soil, arsenic is released by industrial processes, especially when used as an alloying agent, and from usage of pesticides and poultry feed.

Consumer Reports built on its 2012 results in 2014. “All types of rice—except sushi rice and quick-cooking rice—with a label indicating that they’re from Arkansas, Louisiana or Texas, or just from the United States, had the highest levels of inorganic arsenic in our tests,” Consumer Reports said last November. “White rices from California have 38 percent less inorganic arsenic than white rices from other parts of the country.”

Virtually all U.S. rice is grown in irrigated fields. Rice from Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas is mostly long and medium grains, while California produces short and medium grains. Sushi rice is short grain and translucent, and is mainly from California. Most of the rice consumed in the United States is from the southern states.

In the latest numbers from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the nation’s food, industrial and residual use of rice in the August 2013-July 2014 season was down from three years earlier. Planted acreage in the 2014-15 season is the highest in four years, however. About half of U.S. production is exported, with long grain rice sent to Mexico and Latin American nations and California’s rice shipped to the Middle East.

On average, white basmati and sushi rice from California, along with white basmati rice from India and Pakistan, have half the inorganic arsenic of most other types of rice, Consumer Reports said in November.

Brown rice isn’t as healthy as many consumers think. “Brown rice has 80 percent more inorganic arsenic on average than white rice of the same type,” Consumer Reports said. Arsenic accumulates in the grain’s outer layers, and they’re removed to make white rice. Nonetheless, brown rice has more nutrients, “so you shouldn’t switch entirely to white,” the magazine’s researchers advised.

Brown basmati rices from California, India and Pakistan have about a third-less inorganic arsenic than other brown rices, making them the best of the brown options, Consumer Reports said. The roots of rice produced without commercial fertilizers and pesticides take up arsenic to the same extent as conventional rice, the magazine’s researchers also said in November.

Consumer Reports advises that adults and children eat less rice and fewer rice products. “We discovered that some infant rice cereals, which are often a baby’s first solid food, had levels of inorganic arsenic at least five times more than has been found in alternatives such as oatmeal,” Consumer Reports said in 2012. The researchers developed a point system, released in 2014, to assess how much rice is safe to eat every week. They also advised that extra water be used to cook rice in a six-to-one ratio, and that the excess water be tossed when the rice is done. To learn more, visit the web at www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic.

Linscombe in Crowley, however, eats rice every night and hasn’t changed his cooking method. “I still use one cup of rice to one-and-a-half cups of water, and I’m not concerned,” he said.

While Codex suggested using raised growing beds, a Kansas State University agronomy professor had another idea for rice producers. “One way to manage contaminant uptake is by selection of cultivars with less contaminant-uptake patterns,” Ganga Hettiarachchi, KSU associate professor of soil and environmental chemistry, said in March. “We’ve seen this with vegetables, although arsenic uptake by garden vegetables in well-aerated soils is minimal.’ A cultivar is a plant variety.

In addition to rice, its products and apple juice, other U.S. foods on scientists’ watch list for too much arsenic are grape and pear juice; Brussels sprouts, dark-meat fish and lower-priced California wines. Beer is a worry because of the water and filtration material used in its output, a Dartmouth University study in 2013 said.

This article originally published in the April 6, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.