Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Arsenic, rice and your baby’s diet


Ask any mom or dad to name their baby’s first food. The likely answer? Rice cereal. What’s a common go-to “healthy” snack for toddlers and kiddos? Rice cakes.

Yet a growing amount of scientific evidence is pointing to an alarming connection between inorganic arsenic in brown and white rice and harm to children’s immune systems and intellectual development.

Concentrations of arsenic were twice as high in the urine of infants who ate white or brown rice than those who ate no rice, according to research published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. Arsenic levels were highest in babies who ate rice cereal, often given several times a day to introduce babies to solids.

In April, the FDA proposed a limit of 100 parts per billion of inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal. That proposal is still in the public comment phase. The European Food Safety Authority has already moved to limit inorganic arsenic in rice products to that level.

“Arsenic is a known carcinogen that can influence risk of cardiovascular, immune and other diseases,” said Margaret Karagas, an epidemiologist who studies the effects of toxic metals at Dartmouth College, and the lead researcher on the new study. “There’s a growing body of evidence that even relatively low levels of exposure can have an adverse impact on young children.” [...]

Arsenic is a natural element found in soil, water and air, with the inorganic form being the most toxic. (“Inorganic” is a chemical term and has nothing to do with the method of farming.) Because rice is grown in water, it is especially good at absorbing inorganic arsenic and, according to the Food and Drug Administration, has the highest concentration of any food. [...]

And in this case, brown and wild rice are the worst offenders, because the bleaching process used to create white rice removes the outer hull, where much of the arsenic concentrates. [...]

Pediatrician Tanya Altmann, author of “What to Feed Your Baby: A Pediatrician’s Guide to the 11 Essential Foods to Guarantee Veggie-Loving, No-Fuss, Healthy-Eating Kids,” said she’s changed her guidance on first foods. She recommends “tossing white rice cereal, as there is little nutritional benefit and it simply primes young palates for a lifetime of eating white carbs, not to mention the arsenic issue, which this study confirms.”

She echoes the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which advises parents to offer a wide variety of foods including grains such as oats, barley, wheat and quinoa.

“Best first foods for infants are avocado, pureed veggies, peanut-butter oatmeal and salmon,” Altmann said. “They all provide important nutrients that babies need, help develop their taste buds to prefer healthy food and may decrease food allergies.”

4 comments :

  1. Until the survey comes out in a few years stating beyond scientific doubt the benefits of white rice and the harmful radioactivity in avacado and salmon....

    I laugh at that overused phrase "growing amount of scientific evidence"

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  2. Whoa. Hang on. There are whole countries where rice is a staple of the national diet. That means expecting mothers, newborns, just about everybody eats rice. Any study of those populations?

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  3. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm

    "You may be able to cut your exposure to inorganic arsenic in any type of rice by rinsing raw rice thoroughly before cooking, using a ratio of 6 cups water to 1 cup rice, and draining the excess water afterward. That is a traditional method of cooking rice in Asia. The modern technique of cooking rice in water that is entirely absorbed by the grains has been promoted because it allows rice to retain more of its vitamins and other nutrients. But even though you may sacrifice some of rice's nutritional value, research has shown that rinsing and using more water removes about 30 percent of the rice's inorganic arsenic content."

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  4. Japan, for example. Maybe it depends of where it was cultivated. I don't know if the japanese import or produce all the rice they need.

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