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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
by option_greek 8y ago
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).
- hedora 8y agoIt 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.
- tomxor 8y ago> 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.
- tomxor 8y agoAs 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.
- askvictor 8y agoA brief bit of googling suggested suggests that rice from Asian countries is substantially lower in arsenic; I have no idea why though.
- mveety 8y agoCould be that they didn’t use arsenic based pesticides as much or if they did environmental factors/farming techniques removed the ability for the plants to uptake the arsenic. They might also just have less naturally occurring arsenic in their soil.