New Report on Store-Bought Rice Reveals Concerning Levels of Arsenic and Lead

Rice tends to be a dietary staple, and one of the first foods you feed babies. But an alarming new report from Healthy Babies Bright Futures found that many popular rice types and brands contained significant levels of toxic heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.

The study assessed 211 different samples of rice and other grains from 105 different brands, including some of the most popular rice producers. And what they found was that there were significant levels of arsenic in particular, with cadmium, mercury, and lead also appearing in some samples. The amounts of heavy metals in rice varied from 65 ppb (parts per billion) to 151 ppb, depending on the type of rice and where it was grown.

Why Is Rice More Likely to Contain Heavy Metals Than Other Plant Crops?

Heavy metals are present in the soil everywhere, so what makes rice more likely to have arsenic, cadmium, and other toxins? “While all plants can absorb some heavy metals, rice plants are especially effective at pulling it from the soil, because of their physiology and growing conditions,” says Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). “Rice plants can accumulate 10 times more arsenic than other grain crops, in turn increasing your potential exposure.”

And how much a particular rice plant absorbs also depends on the soil conditions where it’s grown—so white rice from California has a different amount of heavy metals than white rice grown in the Southeast. “Published data show that arsenic concentrations in rice vary based on the variety and the region where the rice crop is grown,” Stoiber says. “In some places, higher concentrations exist as a result of industrial pollution and decades of agricultural use of lead- and arsenic-based pesticides, Cadmium is a contaminant in phosphorous-based fertilizers.”

What Are Heavy Metals—and What Health Impacts Do They Have?

Heavy metals aren’t just a type of rock music—they’re commonly occurring environmental chemicals that can be absorbed by plants like grains as they grow (and by animals who eat the foods, too). Long-term exposure, even at low levels has been associated with a series of different health problems, including a cognitive issues and cancer.

Here’s a look at how these heavy metals may impact your health.

Arsenic

Arsenic is a colorless, odorless, and flavorless metal, which is an infamous poison in pop culture and in history. Obviously, the levels of arsenic in rice don’t come anywhere near a fatal amount, but even lower doses over time can cause health problems.

Even low levels of arsenic can disrupt your endocrine system, and have been associated with type 2 diabetes, and skin, lung, bladder, kidney, and liver cancer.

Cadmium

This toxic heavy metal has been linked to a number of different cancers (breast, lung, prostate, nasopharynx, pancreas, and kidney), along with osteoporosis and liver and kidney damage.

Lead

Lead is a well-known danger to health, especially in children. Children who are exposed to lead can have damage to their brain and nervous system, resulting in lowered IQ and learning difficulties. In adults, it can lead to cardiovascular issues like high blood pressure, nerve disorders, and memory and concentration problems.

Mercury

Exposure to mercury can damage your nervous system. If ingested by pregnant women, it can affect their baby’s nervous system, including cognitive thinking, memory, and language skills. In everyone else, it can cause memory issues, muscle weakness, mood swings, tremors, and sensory issues.

What Can You Do to Limit Your Exposure From Rice?

Fortunately, Healthy Babies Bright Futures had a few key suggestions that could help you reduce your overall exposure to the heavy metals that can be present in rice and other foods.

Try a different grain option.

As part of the study, Healthy Babies Bright Futures tested other grains, and found that popular grains like barley and quinoa had, on average, 69% lower heavy metal levels than rice. These are other options to consider, ranked from those lowest in heavy metals to those highest.

• Barley (20 ppb)
• Amaranth (25 ppb)
• Bulgur (29 ppb)
• Quinoa (31 ppb)
• Couscous (33 ppb)
• Farro (34 ppb)
• Buckwheat (38 ppb)
• Millet (42 ppb)
• Spelt (55 ppb)

But Theresa Gentile, MS, RD, CDN, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, suggests you don’t stop there. “This report highlights the importance of diet variety, and we should remember this applies to all foods, not just grains. Vary your diet with these grains: quinoa, barley, buckwheat, bulgar, amaranth, farro, couscous, oatmeal, polenta, and spelt. You could even use spaghetti squash, zucchini noodles, or cauliflower rice.”

Avoid precooked rice and other rices that had higher levels of heavy metals.

The rice types that tested on the higher end of the spectrum included the following:

• Brown rice (151 ppb)
• Arborio rice (risotto) from Italy (142 ppb)
• White rice from the Southeast U.S. (118 ppb)

Precooked rice (such as 5-minute or ready-to-heat varieties) often contained higher levels of the particularly toxic types of arsenic, though lower levels of heavy metals overall.

Choose rice types that were lower in heavy metals.

In their testing, the researchers found that some types of rice were lower in heavy metals than others. Serve some of these, which averaged 32% less heavy metals than other rice types.

• California rice (Calrose, sushi, jasmine, or white)
• Jasmine rice from Thailand
• Basmati rice from India

Use more water when you’re cooking rice.

Healthy Babies Bright Future recommended cooking the rice like you would pasta, in a large amount of water, then draining the rice. That helped lower the levels of arsenic and other heavy metals between 30% to 70%.

Rinsing the rice before cooking it, or soaking it for at least a half hour before cooking it can also reduce the amount of heavy metals in the rice. “Rinsing raw rice two to four times can decrease arsenic concentrations by 13% to 84%, if the water is not contaminated with arsenic,” Gentile says. 

Skip processed foods that contain rice.

Rice cakes or snacks, and foods that use brown rice syrup as a sweetener can contain high levels of arsenic—and there would be no way to rinse or otherwise dilute it.

Advocate for limits to heavy metals in rice.

When infant rice cereal was found to contain high levels of arsenic, the FDA set a limit of 100 ppb for the amount of arsenic in rice cereal in 2020. Since then, baby food companies were able to reduce the amount of arsenic to meet that limit—decreasing it by 45%.

People can push for legislation on the state or federal levels that would set heavy metal limits similar to the 100ppb set for rice cereal, and push food manufacturers and growers to use methods that could reduce the exposure.

Check your water supply, too.

Because they’re naturally occurring, many of these heavy metals can end up in the water along with the soil. The EWG’s Tap Water Database can give you insights into whether arsenic and other contaminants are showing up in your local water supply—which can also impact your health and your overall exposure to these heavy metals.