Why you should know:

Arsenic is a carcinogen and has various other negative health effects; enough to warrant exposure limits in various jurisdictions. A five minute boil-and-discard step before cooking is a simple way to reduce your exposure, especially if you eat a lot of rice.

Details are in the study, linked in the title of this post. Here’s a diagram from the abstract:

14 points

Ysk your body can naturally get rid of arsenic so this is pointless.

permalink
report
reply
2 points

is that why that one british lady Uncle Roger was roasting drained her rice?

permalink
report
reply
46 points

Let’s do the math. Rice contains about 0.4 mg/kg As by weight. The “bad” rice in Louisiana or whatever contains about 75% more - about 0.7 mg/kg. Let’s round up to 1 mg/kg to make the math easy. Chronic exposure limits for a 50 kg adult are about 5 mg/day (on the low end).

So you’d have to choke down a full 10 lb bag of rice every day (about 110 cups of cooked rice) to start to tip the scales. Other sources of arsenic, like groundwater, are likely far more significant.

Comment stolen from reddit

permalink
report
reply
5 points

Challenge accepted.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

Soooo it’s safe to eat without throwing the eater out?

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

Well, if you were previously throwing anyone who ate the rice in the garbage, then yes, not doing that would be safe.

sorry, I ^couldn’t ^ resist. yes, it’s safe to eat rice without throwing out the first batch of water. see rest of this thread for nuance.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-1 points

Do you “discard” the water by… just letting it into the sink? How long before aresnic is everywhere?

permalink
report
reply
6 points

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Does it come with old lace?

permalink
report
parent
reply
18 points

You can actually buy parboiled rice which have been dried. It’s very close in price to white rice and not as sticky as regular rice.

permalink
report
reply
11 points

It takes just as long to cook, and has the texture of parboiled rice.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Helpful advice? Who ARE you?

permalink
report
parent
reply

You Should Know

!youshouldknow@lemmy.world

Create post

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you’re a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.



Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post’s text body, you must include the reason “Why” YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That’s it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

Community stats

  • 3.7K

    Monthly active users

  • 204

    Posts

  • 4.1K

    Comments