Better check how it's sweetened
As I mentioned in my previous post, I read the American Medical Association's recent email piece titled "Study finds high levels of arsenic in some baby formulas, cereal bars" and got interested in the topic. The issue is the use of organic brown rice syrup which is used instead of high fructose corn syrup to sweeten some organic food products, baby food especially.
I found an article in Environmental Health Perspectives titled "Food Safety: U.S. Rice Serves Up Arsenic." The background was that of arsenic-based pesticides being used for years to kill off boll weevils in the southern cotton fields. That has ceased, but apparently arsenic stays around a long time and those same fields are now being used to raise rice. An extensive study by researchers from Scotland on the results was reported in 2007 in Environmental Science & Technology.
They bought rice samples at supermarkets and ran detailed chemical tests on them, looking at arsenic levels and those of other elements found in tiny amounts (these are called "trace elements"). In all they purchased 134 samples with 80% of those from the South Central states and 20% from California. That's about the percentages of where rice is grown in this country; almost 50% is from Arkansas. They bought many varieties of rice
The reason they tested for those other elements was to be relatively sure of where the rice was actually being grown. We sometimes purchase basmati rice from India at an Asian market nearby and can get rice from other countries at any of our supermarkets, but the researchers wanted to know if the rice they bought in Californai came from there and ditto for those samples they got at food stores in Arkansas. The background composition of the soil in different places varies, as you'd expect, so checking for the other elements could solve the issue of where the rice came from.
And where does this rice come from?
The findings were striking. Rice grown in the South Central states, on average, had more arsenic, a lot more. The standard for drinking water in the US is now 10 parts per billion. That's tiny but for other cancer-causing materials the EPA assumes there's no safe level at all and sets limits that could result in anywhere from one in 10,000 to 1 in a million people exposed getting a cancer.
The current water standard for arsenic, at least according to Consumer Reports, gives an excess cancer risk of one in 500. That's calculated on drinking a liter a day. The state of New Jersey set their water standard at 5 parts per billion. But there is no EPA standard for rice or other foods, at least not for arsenic.
And the average for rice grown in the south central areas was close to 30 parts per billion, while California rice ran around 16.
And who eats more rice?
Hispanics, Asian-Americans, many who are gluten sensitive and, most worrisomely, our babies and toddlers in the form of brown rice syrup.
Tags: arsenic, baby food, food contaminants, rice