Author: Nia Rouseberg
Time for reading: ~3
minutes
Last Updated:
February 16, 2026
Learn more information about no water. In this article we'll discuss no water.
What a terrible irony for the fitness conscious, who are trying to avoid dairy, eat lots of whole meals, lots of brown rice—so much so that they'll no longer handiest suffer a few theoretical expanded lifetime cancer danger, however truly go through arsenic poisoning.
“diarrhea, headache, insomnia, lack of appetite, strange taste, and impaired brief-time period reminiscence and concentration.” So, we, as docs, have to maintain an eye out for it in individuals who consume masses of rice day in and day out.
In their 2012 arsenic-in-rice exposé, Consumer Reports endorsed adults devour no greater than a median of servings of rice a week, or three servings every week of rice cereal or rice pasta—though in their later analysis, it gave the look of rice cereal and rice pasta had more; so, they dropped their recommendation to like servings per week.And, that’s in case you’re not getting arsenic from different rice assets.
So, they came up with this type of factor machine, so human beings should upload up all their rice merchandise for the week, and make certain they’re staying below seven factors per week, on average. So, in case your handiest source of rice is just rice, then they suggest no multiple or servings, and then call it a week.But, I recommend 21 servings of complete grains a week in my Daily Dozen.
Well, get to understand quinoa, or buckwheat, or millet, or oatmeal, or barley, or any of the other dozen or so commonplace non-rice complete grains accessible.The FDA recently tested a few dozen quinoa samples, and most had arsenic ranges beneath the level of detection, or just hint amounts, consisting of the purple quinoas which are my circle of relatives’s favored, which i used to be happy approximately—though there had been nevertheless a few that have been up round like half that of rice.
But normal, quinoa averaged ten instances less arsenic than rice (the poisonous arsenic). So, instead of two servings a week, following the Consumer Reports advice, you can have 20.So, that’s approach #1:
We can avoid “processed…ingredients sweetened with brown rice syrup.” Anything else we are able to do at the eating room table while watching for “[f]ederal corporations [to] establish [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 fats did seem to have an effect—however inside the wrong route, growing estimates of arsenic absorption, possibly due to the more bile we release when we eat fatty foods. We realize that the tannic acid in coffee, and especially tea, can reduce iron absorption, that's why I endorse to no longer drink tea with meals.But whats up, would possibly it additionally lower arsenic absorption?
Yes, with the aid of perhaps 40 plus percent.But, they used megadoses:
17 cups of tea really worth, or that observed in 34 cups of espresso; so, it isn’t truly practical.
What Do The Experts Suggest?
Another wonky, questioning outside the ricebox, concept entails an algae located within the warm springs of Yellowstone National Park, with an enzyme that could volatize arsenic right into a gas.
Aha!