Arsenic Rice Essay

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Arsenic Rice For years have scientist known that inorganic arsenic can sometimes be absorbed by rice. Inorganic arsenic is a colorless, odorless, crystalline oxide, which is a carcinogen that can cause several types of cancers such as lung and bladder cancer. Although, it takes a huge amount of this element to actually cause any harm. However, it is not just in plain, rice it is also in brown rice and any rice products such as cereal or even infant rice cereal. The pros with the fact there is arsenic in rice is very minimal. To start off, nothing has happened yet nor has there been any report of health problems from the exposure of arsenic in rice that have been grown in the United States. Second, there is a way for people to have rice by changing the way we cook it; an individual must use lots of water when cooking it, consumer reports say using one part rice to six part water and then draining the excess water off. Third, mix up the regular diet with other grains or some other staple food. The negatives with having arsenic in rice are that it is a staple food. About fifty percent of the Earth’s population consumes rice daily, especially the Asian and Latin nations. The federal government imposed a 10 parts per billion (ppb) limit for arsenic in drinking water, but rice products have arsenic contamination levels varying from 85- 250 ppb. Rice absorbs arsenic from soil or water much more effectively than most plants. That’s in part because it is one of the only major crops grown in water-flooded conditions, which allow arsenic to be more easily taken up by its roots and stored in the grains, unlike wheat and oats. Some may be contaminated with lead, since many consider that the cause for arsenic being in rice in the first place is due to the fact that the southern states used arsenic based pesticides for the boll weevil beetle for which some pesticides had

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