If you're in the US and the rice is from a former cotton state (not California), you could be getting a high dose of arsenic by using brown rice as a staple. A

If you're in the US and the rice is from a former cotton state (not California), you could be getting a high dose of arsenic by using brown rice as a staple. A sane government would set limits on arsenic at least on par with China's, but that would be costly to American agriculture, and it's easy to ignore chronic arsenic poisoning because it causes cancer or heart disease, not an identifiable syndrome that would generate bad publicity for politicians. My favorite alternatives are millet (cheap, has flavor if you toast it) and quinoa (price on par with rice if you can find it not packaged for yuppies).