In Search of “Just Right”: The Challenge of Regulating Arsenic in Rice

Rice, a dietary staple for millions of people around the world, is often contaminated with arsenic, a naturally occurring element in soils that can cause cancer and other health effects.1 Although other foods also contain arsenic, rice is unusually efficient at absorbing this element from soil; it can absorb up to 10 times more arsenic than other crops, such as wheat.2 Moreover, rice flour and syrup are used in many processed foods, including baby foods, so exposures aren’t limited to people eating the grain itself. It’s estimated that 95% of the average arsenic intake among Europeans comes from food, and half of that comes from rice and rice products.3 And in areas with high levels of arsenic in well water, the exposures via water and rice add up to a toxic double whammy.3 Mounting worries over arsenic in rice are now prompting calls for regulation. “We need to set strict standards for rice that will be meaningful in terms of reducing arsenic exposure through the diet,” says Andrew Meharg, a professor of biological sciences at Queens University Belfast in Ireland. “This is imperative to protect people with high rice consumption, including virtually all children, people living in South Asia, and those who eat a lot of rice for health reasons, such as gluten intolerance.” A regulation that’s too high may not adequately protect health, and a regulation that’s too low could be infeasible for producers to achieve. But regulating a naturally occurring element in such a widely eaten food is no easy task. Arsenic levels can vary widely in rice from different countries and states, and among different rice cultivars, according to Aaron Barchowski, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh. This raises difficult questions about how a regulated standard could be monitored and enforced.