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Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

nature.com

31–40 of 64 posts

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#31
post #6

I 'wash' my rice several times before it goes in the rice cooker. I wonder what percent of the arsenic I'm removing.

Me to I normally leave it over night and rinse 3 or 4 times.

I do use the 100g rice 100ml water method not sure if adding more water and steaming for longer would work or not.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broccoli contains cyanide too. The rice arsenic thing is a bigger deal though. Some enterprising entrepreneur needs to come out with a percolating rice maker.

It’s clearly a sign. Vegetables are tying to kill us. :( apparently bamboo is deadly to humans and only pandas and lemurs (spelling) can eat it raw. It must be boiled for a period of time for human consumption.

> Vegetables are tying to kill us.

I seem to remember a Bruce Sterling book(Islands in the Net?) where one of the characters avoided vegetables for this reason.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#34

I wonder if arsenic in rice is even a true concern. Billions of people across Asia eat it as staple food and the incidence of cancer is usually lower (could be due to low reported cases though).

It depends on the country. The study mentions Bangladesh and (American) rice based baby food.

Not sure about Bangladesh, but arsenic was commonly used as an insecticide in US rice fields in the south, so rice from that region still has some of the highest arsenic concentrations on earth.

In the US rice is less of a staple food (except for infants), so it matters less, I guess.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#35
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broccoli contains cyanide too. The rice arsenic thing is a bigger deal though. Some enterprising entrepreneur needs to come out with a percolating rice maker.

It’s clearly a sign. Vegetables are tying to kill us. :( apparently bamboo is deadly to humans and only pandas and lemurs (spelling) can eat it raw. It must be boiled for a period of time for human consumption.

"Vegetables are tying to kill us."

Of cause they try to. It is normal evolutionary behavior of plants. And co-evolution of humans to being able to tolerate this toxins.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#36

I wonder if arsenic in rice is even a true concern. Billions of people across Asia eat it as staple food and the incidence of cancer is usually lower (could be due to low reported cases though).

As with all things cancer, you can't easily compare completely different cultures, this is yet another carcinogen, one of the millions of contributing factors to cancer.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#37
post #34

I wonder if arsenic in rice is even a true concern. Billions of people across Asia eat it as staple food and the incidence of cancer is usually lower (could be due to low reported cases though).

It depends on the country. The study mentions Bangladesh and (American) rice based baby food. Not sure about Bangladesh, but arsenic was commonly used as an insecticide in US rice fields in the south, so rice from that region still has some of the highest arsenic concentrations on earth. In the US rice is less of a staple food (except for infants), so it matters less, I guess.

> In the US rice is less of a staple food (except for infants), so it matters less, I guess.

If it's that way around it's likely to matter more, infants tend to be far more sensitive to toxins than adults. Specifically it can seriously affect brain development, same with lead.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#38
post #18
post #6

I 'wash' my rice several times before it goes in the rice cooker. I wonder what percent of the arsenic I'm removing.

Handy for removing some starch too.

Another reason for doing it is that the bran contains some fat. When you are washing the rice, one technique is to push down with your hand to cause the rice grains to rub against one another. This polishes the rice a little bit more and removes a bit more bran from the outside (including any potentially rancid fat). Unless you have ridiculously polished rice, there will always be a bit of bran on the outside, so it can potentially improve the flavour. I eat a lot of rice on its own (no sauce, etc) and I do find that washing it this way improves the flavour slightly.

Re: Simple cooking methods flush arsenic out of rice (2015)

#40
post #6

I 'wash' my rice several times before it goes in the rice cooker. I wonder what percent of the arsenic I'm removing.

> I 'wash' my rice several times before it goes in the rice cooker. I wonder what percent of the arsenic I'm removing.

Very little apparently: https://youtu.be/H_Lui1v2A1M?t=135

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