Almost exactly one year after our cohorts at Consumer Reports found arsenic in a wide range of rice products — from instant rice to baby food to rice milk to cereal — the Food and Drug Administration has released the results of its own research on the topic, effectively confirming CR’s findings and suggestion that consumers vary the types of grains they eat.
There are currently no federal limit on arsenic levels in most foods. New Jersey currently has the strictest state-level standard for arsenic in drinking water at 5 parts per billion, which would expose you to around 5 micrograms of arsenic per serving.
Of particular concern are levels of inorganic arsenic, as this form of the element is a known carcinogen tied to bladder, skin and lung cancer.
The chart below provides the average levels of arsenic for each of the 36 types of rice product tested by the FDA. The product with the lowest average level of inorganic arsenic was infant formula, at only .1 microgram per serving, while brown rice averaged the highest with 7.2 micrograms.
Other products with averages at or above the 5 microgram threshold were rice pasta (6.6 micrograms), parboiled rice (5.1), and an “other” category that includes so-called “wild rice,” which is not actually rice but an edible rice-like grain (5.6).
Long-grain white rice came close to the 5 microgram number with 4.6, as did rice cakes (4.3 micrgrograms).
Drilling down even further, this PDF shows the item-by-item breakdown for each tested product.
For example, while Basmati rice only averaged 3.5 micrograms per serving, 9 of the 53 products tested were above the 5 micrograms threshold, with two samples showing 9 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per serving.
Fifteen of the brown rice samples showed at least 9 micrograms of arsenic, with several going over 10 micrograms. Three of these samples actually had 11 micrograms per serving — the highest levels found in all of the testing. That peak level of 11 micrograms was also found in some non-dairy rice drinks and pasta.
The FDA claims that these levels of arsenic pose no risk for “immediate or short-term adverse health effects,” but this is also the agency that lets the food-packaging industry decide whether or not certain products are banned, and is okay with cigarette companies introducing new varieties of cancer-causing consumer products, so long as they’re virtually identical to what’s already on the market.
The agency say it will now conduct a risk assessment “considering how much arsenic is consumed from rice and rice products, and whether there are variations in health effects for certain segments of the population.” Given the snail-like speed of this process, don’t hold any hopes on seeing actual guidelines on arsenic in rice anytime soon.
At the same time as the FDA is telling everyone it’s cool to chow down on rice, it’s also advising consumers to vary their grains, and encouraging consumers to check ingredients lists to see which products contain rice in some form (hint: lots of them)
“Our review of the FDA’s results shows they are comparable to those in our 2012 study, and in some cases the levels found by the agency were higher than ours,” says Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director of Consumer Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports. “This was true in the case of rice beverages used as milk replacement, which underscores Consumer Reports’ advice that children under the age of 5 should not have rice drinks as part of a daily diet. Rice drinks are not a good nutritional substitute for cow’s milk, and in the United Kingdom, children younger than 4.5 years are advised against having rice milk because of arsenic concerns.”
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