Is eating rice healthy?
Rice is a very convenient food (can be cooked fast), is considered nutritious and readily available in most supermarkets. So I was not pleased when I read that most of the rice today, whether white, brown or wild is tainted with arsenic, one of the most toxic poisons on earth. Add to that the fact that it is considered even more dangerous during pregnancy and for children. Not to mention that most kindergartens seem to offer rice daily (read convenient and cheap). The FDA even issued a statement discouraging parents from using rice and rice cereals as a primary food due to arsenic contamination.

Even organic rice?
Unfortunately organic is not much better than the conventional one. Arsenic-based pesticides were heavily used on crops (like cotton in US) for decades and it can persist in the soil for a very long time. So even if the land has been growing organic food for decades, but it was exposed to arsenic-contaminated pesticides in the past, these toxins may still be found in the soil today. When arsenic is in the soil, all plants will absorb some of it. But because rice is grown under flooded conditions (and irrigation water is often contaminated with arsenic), rice absorbs more arsenic than other crops.

How bad is arsenic?
Most of the arsenic we consume will leave our body in a few days. But some of the arsenic will remain in our body for months or even longer. Frequent exposure to arsenic, even in low doses, can cause health concerns: Stomach aches, headaches, drowsiness, abdominal pain and diarrhea, confusion etc. Larger doses create more serious problems (in ancient Greece, arsenic was often used as a poison, where a dose the size of a pea was found to be fatal!).

Long-term exposure to arsenic has been linked to many health issues, including: cancer (lung, skin, bladder, liver, kidney), Dementia, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurological problems, skin pigmentation and lesions.

The situation may be even worse for pregnant women, babies and children. Pregnant women who are exposed to arsenic may put their unborn babies at risk of having compromised immune systems while in the womb and in early life.

The U.S. FDA links high levels of inorganic arsenic during pregnancy to numerous adverse outcomes. For example, exposure to arsenic during pregnancy and infancy can impair a child’s performance on developmental tests.

Are some rice better than others?
Yes. Basmati rice from California, India or Pakistan are the best choices, as they have about one third of the inorganic arsenic compared to brown rice from other regions. Rice grown in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and most other U.S. states had the highest inorganic arsenic levels when tested, so best to minimize or avoid rice grown in these areas. While I have not found comprehensive data on rice grown in Egypt, given the legacy cotton plantations, I try to minimise rice consumption and to cook it the "pasta way" in order to reduce arsenic content.

So what can we do to reduce arsenic content in rice?
The most efficient way is to cook the rice the "pasta way" or more scientifically known as "the parboiling method", as show in the below image*.

Alternatively you can also soak the rice for 48 hours before cooking it, pour off the water and rinse it every 8 to 12 hours (like soaking beans), which I find too time consuming.

But even when reducing arsenic content in rice through the above cooking method, it is probably worth contemplating reducing rice consumption overall. Even one only serving of rice cereal or rice pasta could put kids over the maximum amount of rice recommended in a week. What we often forget is that rice is also "hidden" in many other food types (think rice cereal, rice puffs and crackers, rice cakes, rice-based pasta, gluten free products that substitute gluten with rice etc). 

Rice alternatives?
There is a wide range of food items we can use instead of rice, that have significantly lower arsenic content: amaranth, buckwheat, millet and polenta have been shown in studies to have negligible levels of inorganic arsenic, while bulgur, barley and farro also had very little arsenic. Quinoa had much lower levels than any of the rice they tested, but the amount varied depending on the sample. And let's not forget my favourite Cauliflower rice: minced or riced or shredded cauliflower. Either replace part of rice with cauliflower rice or use cauliflower rice only recipes (many available if you google, I will share one on the blog soon). 
Cauliflower is a cruciferous vegetable (like kale, broccoli, arugula etc), which help with detoxification. So not only you are reducing arsenic consumption when replacing rice with cauliflower, but the sulforaphane in the cruciferous veggies helps the body with elimination of arsenic, other heavy metals and pesticides. So now you can have your (non-rice) cake and eat it ;-) 

* From “Improved rice cooking approach to maximize arsenic removal while preserving nutrient elements,” by Manoj Menon, Wanrong Dong, Xumin Chen, Joseph Hufton, Edward J. Rhodes, 2020, Science of the Total Environment, 143341. CC By 4.0.