Author: Victoria Aly
Time for reading: ~3
minutes
Last Updated:
February 11, 2026
Learn more information about no diet. In this article we'll discuss no diet.
What a horrible irony for the health conscious, who are looking to keep away from dairy, consume masses of whole foods, lots of brown rice—so much in order that they may no longer most effective suffer a few theoretical improved lifetime most cancers threat, however truly go through arsenic poisoning.
“diarrhea, headache, insomnia, loss of appetite, extraordinary flavor, and impaired brief-term memory and attention.” So, we, as docs, should preserve a watch out for it in folks that eat lots of rice day within and day out.
In their 2012 arsenic-in-rice exposé, Consumer Reports advocated adults consume no more than a mean of servings of rice every week, or three servings per week of rice cereal or rice pasta—though in their later analysis, it seemed like rice cereal and rice pasta had greater; so, they dropped their recommendation to like two servings every week.And, that’s if you’re now not getting arsenic from other rice sources.
So, they got here up with this sort of factor gadget, so humans may want to add up all their rice merchandise for the week, and make certain they’re staying under seven factors per week, on common. So, in case your handiest source of rice is simply rice, then they recommend no a couple of or servings, and then call it per week.But, I propose 21 servings of whole grains every week within my Daily Dozen.
Well, get to recognize quinoa, or buckwheat, or millet, or oatmeal, or barley, or any of the opposite dozen or so not unusual non-rice whole grains out there.The FDA currently tested a few dozen quinoa samples, and maximum had arsenic levels underneath the extent of detection, or just hint quantities, along with the red quinoas which can be my family’s favourite, which i was happy approximately—even though there were nonetheless a few that were up round like 1/2 that of rice.
But ordinary, quinoa averaged ten instances much less arsenic than rice (the poisonous arsenic). So, in preference to servings every week, following the Consumer Reports recommendation, you could have 20.So, that’s approach #1:
We can keep away from “processed…ingredients sweetened with brown rice syrup.” Anything else we can do at the eating room desk even as anticipating “[f]ederal corporations [to] set up [some] regulatory limits”?
What If You Eat A Lot Of Fiber-Containing Foods With Your Rice?
Might That Help Bind Some Of The Arsenic?
Apparently, no longer.
But the presence of fat did seem to have an impact—but inside the wrong path, increasing estimates of arsenic absorption, likely due to the extra bile we launch when we devour fatty ingredients. We recognize that the tannic acid in espresso, and in particular tea, can lessen iron absorption, which is why I endorse to now not drink tea with meals.But hello, might it additionally decrease arsenic absorption?
Yes, by way of perhaps 40 plus percentage.But, they used megadoses:
17 cups of tea really worth, or that located in 34 cups of coffee; so, it isn’t truely sensible.
What Do The Experts Suggest?
Another wonky, wondering outside the ricebox, idea involves an algae determined inside the warm springs of Yellowstone National Park, with an enzyme that could volatize arsenic into a gasoline.
Aha!