Remove arsenic from rice and keep on enjoying your curries & risottos.
Unfortunately, there’s Arsenic in rice, because that’s just what the rice plant does more than others: Take up arsenic from the soil and water it’s grown in.
The good news is though that it’s easy to remove arsenic from rice. But why bother with rice at all?
Rice is great if you want to cure chronic constipation: Bugger all fiber and lots of carbs with some protein.
But shouldn’t we load up on more fiber to get things moving?
If you’ve got your share of fruit and veg in your diet already, having more fiber isn’t necessarily the way to go.
In fact, more fiber can make things WORSE by further clogging up your already constipated colon.
So how to still have your rice but not the arsenic?
There are actually two kinds of arsenic: Organic arsenic which is less toxic. And inorganic arsenic which has been linked to such niceties as bladder, lung and skin cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
It’s inorganic arsenic we’re talking about here.
You can remove arsenic from rice by up to 80% by using a simple 3 step cooking method.
That’s according to latest research by experts at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
How to remove arsenic from rice:
- First soak the rice overnight.
- Then wash it until the water is clear.
- Finally cook 1 part rice to 5 parts water and discard the excess water.
Easy!
According to the researchers, just washing and cooking the rice in plenty of water removes about half of the arsenic. Not ideal but still better than the modern cooking method of no washing and then cooking in 1.5 to 2 parts of water until no water remains which doesn’t lower the arsenic content at all.
So if you still want to have your rice but keep it clean and healthy, the little extra effort of the 3 step method will get you there.
It also pays off to buy rice that’s low in arsenic.
Brown rice has up to 80% more arsenic than white rice.
That’s because most of the arsenic is in the outer layers which are removed to make white rice.
Rice lowest in arsenic are white basmati rice from California, India and Pakistan, and sushi rice from the United States.
These on average have about half of the inorganic arsenic amount of most other types of rice according to Consumer Reports. It’s therefore a good idea to stick with these types of rice if you can.
Organically grown rice unfortunately takes up arsenic just as much as conventionally grown rice.
So while going organic usually lowers your intake of unwanted toxins, don’t rely on it to be a lower arsenic choice.
It’s therefore best buy low arsenic rice if you can, and then use the 3 step cook method for the cleanest rice possible. Try it out and enjoy!