Not that I trust much that comes from Joe Rogan but I saw a clip from his show suggesting that white rice is better because there is arsenic in brown rice. So I googled and saw a few links that suggested the same. I don’t know how credible they are but one of them was a Washington post article and another that just suggested not eating it multiple times every day. Well I’ve been eating a single serving for lunch just about every day for the last few years now because i prep 6 weeks worth of lunches and always eat the same thing.
Obviously I haven’t died, but I was curious, is brown rice really so scary?
Yep, nearly all edible, non- or minimally-processed plants contain arsenic. Brown rice has more inorganic arsenic than white rice. Arsenic accumulates in the bran (outer later of the grain) in brown rice and much of this bran is stripped away when white rice is made. The bran also contains fiber, vitamins, etc. that white rice no longer has, so while white rice has less arsenic, it also has less nutrients.
Arsenic exposure limits have been determined from contaminated drinking water, which yield much higher arsenic levels than rice. That said, some cultures eat a lot of rice and some rice grown in certain areas have more arsenic than others. Theoretically- as this has never been demonstrated in studies looking at this issue- a high level of arsenic via the diet (not water) could cause a health risk in a susceptible population (kids). For reference, arsenic levels are lowest in California-grown brown rice and higher in Louisiana-grown brown rice.
This is concerning to me. Do you mean that the arsenic in the rice or the water is not something to worry about? Cause when I hear arsenic, I think poison. Feel like I need to drop my rice consumption and start researching an arsenic-removing water filter haha!
Arsenic is in the soil and will be present in some amount in pretty much all foods. The amount of arsenic in our foods are not high enough to be concerning, which is why this isn’t a national public health issue.