New way of cooking rice removes arsenic and retains mineral nutrients, study shows

This is important to know.  A slightly different approach to cooking rice can elimin ate any arsenic.  This is a reral issue as water from a river drainage system is flowed into rice paddies in areas likely to concenttrate pollutants as well.

The simple first step of parboiling the rice in boiling water for five minutes will extract the soluable arsenic.  Drain then and now cook as normal to produce cooked rice.

This is a real potential problem not least because some watersheds are badly polluted by mining operations but because some do have natural mineral breakdown taking place as well.  Usually hte levels are still to low to matter but in a deltaic paddy, we could get a build up and i presume measurements have shown this.

My point is that this happens to be good practise.  It will obviously remove any soluble polutant of concern as well.

New way of cooking rice removes arsenic and retains mineral nutrients, study shows

by University of Sheffield

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-cooking-rice-arsenic-retains-mineral.html

Credit: University of Sheffield

Cooking rice in a certain way removes over 50 percent of the naturally occurring arsenic in brown rice, and 74 percent in white rice, according to new research.

A new paper, released today in Science of the Total Environment shows that cooking rice in a certain way removes over 50 percent of the naturally occurring arsenic in brown rice, and 74 percent in white rice. Importantly, this new method does not reduce micronutrients in the rice.

Following previous research from the University of Sheffield that found half of the rice consumed in the UK exceeded European Commission regulations for levels of arsenic in rice meant for the consumption for infants or young children.

This new study tested different ways to cook rice to try and reduce the arsenic content and the team from the Institute for Sustainable Food found that by using a home-friendly way of cooking rice, the "parboiling with absorption method" (PBA), most of the arsenic was removed, while keeping most nutrients in the cooked rice.

The PBA method involves parboiling the rice in pre-boiled water for five minutes before draining and refreshing the water, then cooking it on a lower heat to absorb all the water.

Arsenic, which is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, is water-soluble—so it accumulates in rice, which is grown in flooded fields more than other cereals. Arsenic exposure affects almost every organ in the body and can cause skin lesions, cancer, diabetes and lung diseases.

Rice is known to accumulate around ten times as much arsenic as other cereals. In rice grains arsenic is concentrated in the outer bran layer surrounding the endosperm. This means that brown rice, (unmilled or unpolished rice that retains its bran) contains more arsenic than white rice. This milling process removes arsenic from white rice but also removes 75-90% of its nutrients.

Dr. Manoj Menon says, "For rice consumers, this is excellent news. There are genuine concerns amongst the population about eating rice due to arsenic. Previous studies have shown that cooking rice in excess water could remove arsenic but the problem is it also removes nutrients. Our aim was to optimize the method to remove arsenic while keeping maximum nutrients in the cooked rice. Our newly developed method, PBA, is easy and home-friendly so that everyone can use it. We don't know the amount of arsenic in each packet rice we buy; even though brown rice is nutritionally superior to white rice as our data shows, it contains more arsenic than white rice. With our new method we are able to significantly reduce the arsenic exposure while reducing the loss of key nutrients. We highly recommend this method while preparing rice for infants and children as they are highly vulnerable to arsenic exposure risks."