9 hours ago
Rice feeds billions of people, and it has a problem most of us never hear about.
It grows in flooded fields, and that helps it take up more arsenic from the soil than other major grains.
Dr. Manoj Menon and his team at the University of Sheffield wanted to know whether arsenic could be cooked out without cooking the nutrients out too.
Earlier methods that use a lot of water do remove arsenic, but they strip nutrients as well.
Their method is simple. Cook the rice in boiling water for five minutes, drain it, add fresh water, and finish it on lower heat until the water is absorbed.
In their tests it removed about 73 percent of inorganic arsenic, the more harmful form, from white rice and about 54 percent from brown rice. Most of the nutrients stayed in.
The study was published in Science of the Total Environment in 2020 (DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143341).
The researchers called it a good first step and said the tests should be repeated with other kinds of rice and different water supplies.
They specifically recommend it for rice prepared for infants and children, who are most vulnerable to arsenic.
The whole change was one extra step: draining the pot after five minutes and adding fresh water.
Source: Menon et al., Science of the Total Environment, 2020; University of Sheffield.
Everyday science, explained plainly, goes out in my newsletter. Comment “NEWS” and I’ll add you.
It grows in flooded fields, and that helps it take up more arsenic from the soil than other major grains.
Dr. Manoj Menon and his team at the University of Sheffield wanted to know whether arsenic could be cooked out without cooking the nutrients out too.
Earlier methods that use a lot of water do remove arsenic, but they strip nutrients as well.
Their method is simple. Cook the rice in boiling water for five minutes, drain it, add fresh water, and finish it on lower heat until the water is absorbed.
In their tests it removed about 73 percent of inorganic arsenic, the more harmful form, from white rice and about 54 percent from brown rice. Most of the nutrients stayed in.
The study was published in Science of the Total Environment in 2020 (DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143341).
The researchers called it a good first step and said the tests should be repeated with other kinds of rice and different water supplies.
They specifically recommend it for rice prepared for infants and children, who are most vulnerable to arsenic.
The whole change was one extra step: draining the pot after five minutes and adding fresh water.
Source: Menon et al., Science of the Total Environment, 2020; University of Sheffield.
Everyday science, explained plainly, goes out in my newsletter. Comment “NEWS” and I’ll add you.