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In the latest episode in the ongoing saga of high levels of arsenic in rice cereal marketed to babies, Beech-Nut says it is going out of the rice cereal business.

In addition to issuing the voluntary recall, Beech-Nut has also decided to exit the market for Beech-Nut branded Single Grain Rice Cereal. Beech-Nut is concerned about the ability to consistently obtain rice flour well-below the FDA guidance level and Beech-Nut specifications for naturally occurring inorganic arsenic.

Background: I have been posting about arsenic in rice since 2013.  In 2015, I wrote about how

• Rice cereals contain higher-than-desirable levels of arsenic.
• Arsenic gets into rice from natural sources but also from arsenic pesticides.
• The FDA says these levels do not pose health problems.
• Consumer Reports recommends not feeding rice cereals to children.
• The U.S. Rice Federation said the CR recommendation was not supported by science.

In August 2020, the FDA finally set guidelines for upper limits of arsenic in baby foods.  I wrote most recently—in May this year—about pressures on the FDA to set and enforce more rigorous standards and to go beyond its “Closer to Zero” plan to reduce heavy metals in baby foods.

Now the FDA announces the recall of Beech-Nut rice cereal with levels of arsenic that exceed those standards.

The Environmental Working Group asks if you should worry about arsenic in rice.  Its answer: Yes.

Rice, it points out, is a “specifically risky crop. Eating less rice and foods with rice-based ingredients will decrease the amount of arsenic in your body.”

EWG also recommends government actions:

• Crop monitoring programs
• Soil testing
• Elimination of use of sewage sludge as fertilizer (this practice is forbidden in organic foods)
• Clear communication of risks

At long last, pressures to fix this problem are having an effect.

Lawsuits also might help, as indicated by this item.

Heavy metals in baby food: 86 lawsuits and counting as Beech-Nut decides to exit infant rice cereal category owing to inorganic arsenic concerns:  At least 86 lawsuits have now been filed against firms named in the recent Congressional Subcommittee report on heavy metals in baby food including Beech-Nut Nutrition, which has just announced plans to exit the infant rice cereal category citing difficulties in sourcing rice flour that is consistently below FDA guidance levels for inorganic arsenic…. Read more

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) announces that the Philippine Department of Agriculture/Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) has approved Golden Rice—bioengineered to contain beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A–and ruled it as safe as conventional rice.

 With this approval, DA-PhilRice and IRRI will now proceed with sensory evaluations and finally answer the question that many Filipinos have been asking: What does Golden Rice taste like?

To complete the Philippine biosafety regulatory process, Golden Rice will require approval for commercial propagation before it can be made available to the public.

My prediction: it will taste like rice.

But keeping up with this saga requires a lifetime commitment, apparently.

In 2016, I posted about Golden Rice, the poster child for the benefits of food biotechnology, pointing out that:

Beta-carotene is a precursor of vitamin A and the idea behind this rice was that it could—a conditional word expressing uncertainty—help prevent blindness due to vitamin A deficiency in areas of the world where this deficiency is rampant.

But vitamin A deficiency is a social problem.  Fruits and vegetables containing beta-carotene are widely available in such areas, but are not grown or consumed as a result of cultural or economic issues.  If they are consumed, people cannot absorb the beta-carotene cannot be absorbed because of poor diets, diarrheal diseases, or worms.

Here we are, 16 years after the Time cover, and Golden Rice is still not on the market.

In 2020, we are 20 years after the [in]famous Time Magazine cover—its operative word is the conditional “could”—and Golden Rice is still not on the market.  For an explanation of why, see my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety.

The saga continues.

I’ve been collecting items on concerns about the levels of arsenic in rice, especially rice cereals for children.

The arsenic problem

Arsenic is toxic.  It occurs in food and water in two forms:

Inorganic: a carcinogen and heart disease risk factor

Organic: less toxic, but still harmful

Infant rice cereals are a special concern because they are often the only cereals fed to infants, and arsenic adversely affects infant cognitive development.

How much arsenic is in rice cereal?

In January 2012, Consumer Reports found worrisome levels of arsenic in apple and grape juices.  It followed this with a November 2012 testing of more than 200 products which found measurable amounts of arsenic in every product category, and in both forms:

Further testing in 2014 confirmed these findings.  Because there is no safe level of arsenic, it’s best not to have any, let alone the amounts found in commonly consumed products.

But in March this year, a report from Healthy Babies/Bright Futures (HBBF) found six times more arsenic in infant rice cereal than in infant cereals made from other grains.

How does arsenic get into rice?

Soil and water naturally contain arsenic, but humans also add arsenic to soil through agricultural pesticides (now supposedly banned) and other sources.

Rice also absorbs more arsenic from soil and water than other grains, perhaps because arsenic resembles the silicon these plants need, but also because rice fields are often flooded to prevent weed growth.

What is being done about arsenic in rice cereal?

In 2016, the FDA proposed limits on arsenic in infant rice cereals, issued a call for public comments, and extended the comment period, but has yet to take action.

The agency’s web page on rice an rice products provides:

• Proposed Action Level for Inorganic Arsenic in Infant Rice Cereal (Draft Guidance for Industry)
• Action Level Supporting Document
• Risk Assessment: Arsenic in Rice and Rice Products

In March this year, the Government Accountability Office issued a report urging FDA to finalize its guidance (this provides an excellent and well referenced review of the arsenic-in-cereals situation).

The FDA has all the evidence it needs and it is difficult to understand what is holding up its action.  One can only assume politics, alas.

What should you do in the meantime?

It seems pretty obvious that infant rice cereals should be removed from the market unless they can show much lower arsenic levels.

Plenty of other cereals exist.  At this point, those are much better options.

The FDA has concluded its “consultation process” on Golden Rice.  This, you may recall, is rice bioengineered to contain genes for beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) consulted with the FDA to make sure that the agency had no objection to this rice being used in human or animal food products.

The FDA’s letter to IRRI concluding the consultation includes this statement:

Although GR2E [“Golden”} rice is not intended for human or animal food uses in the United States, when present, it would be a producer’s or distributer’s responsibility to ensure that labeling of human and animal foods marketed in the United States, meets applicable legal requirements.  Although the concentration of ß-carotene in GR2E rice is too low to warrant a nutrient content claim, the ß-carotene in GR2E rice results in grain that is yellow-golden in color.*

The FDA’s analysis of the science concludes that this rice Is unlikely to be toxic or allergenic.  It also concludes that although the rice contains higher amounts of ß-carotene than non-modified rice, people in the U.S. are unlikely to eat much of it and in any case the amounts would decline due to storage, processing, and cooking.

In any case, the amounts are not high enough to merit a nutrient-content claim.

This rice has long been promoted as a means to solve problems of vitamin A deficiency in the developing world.  Will it?  We are still waiting to find out.

*What does “too low to warrant a nutrient content claim” mean?

The FDA’s rules for nutrient content claims (go to pages 91 and 92) say:

• “High,” “Rich in,” or “Excellent source of” means that a standard food portion contains 20% or more of the daily value for that nutrient.
• “Good source,” “Contains,” or “Provides” means 10% to 19% of the daily value per standard serving.
• “More,” “Fortified,” “Enriched,” “Added,” “Extra,” or “Plus” means 10% or more of the daily value than an appropriate reference food.

The daily value for beta-carotene is complicated because it is a precursor of vitamin A; 12 micrograms of beta-carotene are equivalent to one vitamin A unit.  The standard for adults and children is 900 vitamin A units or 900 x 12 for beta-carotene = 10,800 micrograms.

One serving of Golden Rice must provide less than 10% of that amount (1,080 micrograms).

For comparison, one small carrot provides about 4000 micrograms of beta-carotene.

Golden Rice, genetically engineered to contain beta carotene, has long been the poster child for the benefits of GMOs—as witnessed by this Time Magazine cover of July 31, 2000.

Beta-carotene is a precursor of vitamin A and the idea behind this rice was that it could—a conditional word expressing uncertainty—help prevent blindness due to vitamin A deficiency in areas of the world where this deficiency is rampant.

But vitamin A deficiency is a social problem.  Fruits and vegetables containing beta-carotene are widely available in such areas, but are not grown or consumed as a result of cultural or economic issues.  If they are consumed, people cannot absorb the beta-carotene cannot be absorbed because of poor diets, diarrheal diseases, or worms.

Here we are, 16 years after the Time cover, and Golden Rice is still not on the market.

I predicted its current problems in my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, first published in 2003.  In Table 12 (page 158) I outlined the many basic research studies and research on production, consumer acceptance and use, and clinical effectiveness that would have to be done before Golden Rice could be shown to achieve its intended purpose.  Much of this research has now been done but plenty more still needs doing on getting it produced and into the mouths of people who most need its beta-carotene.

Proponents of the benefits of Golden Rice, however, complain that anti-GMO activists are responsible for keeping the rice off the market.

Not so, says an article in the Source, a publication of Washington University in St. Louis.  Based on what some of its researchers have just published in an article in Agriculture and Human Values, the Source quotes one of its authors:

The rice simply has not been successful in test plots of the rice breeding institutes in the Philippines, where the leading research is being done,” Stone said. “It has not even been submitted for approval to the regulatory agency, the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI)…The simple fact is that after 24 years of research and breeding, Golden Rice is still years away from being ready for release.”

As I learned long ago, even the slightest skepticism about Golden Rice is perceived by uncritical proponents of GMOs as an attack on science and the entire food biotechnology enterprise.  If you publicly express doubt that Golden Rice can solve the vitamin A problem, you will be accused, as I have been, of responsibility for the illnesses and deaths of millions of children.

As the table in Safe Food makes clear, Golden Rice is a highly technical approach to solving a nutritional problem resulting from cultural and socioeconomic factors.

Such solutions do occasionally succeed.  The best examples I can think of are iodized salt to prevent goiter and water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay.  But both of these interventions address geographical mineral deficiencies, not deficiencies resulting from cultural prohibitions or poverty.

Is Golden Rice worth a try?  Sure it is.  But not when it is used to demonstrate that GMO foods are good for the public as well as the owners of seed and pesticide companies.

I am often asked about the potential dangers of arsenic in rice.  As with all such questions, I start with the FDA.

The FDA says the amounts of arsenic it finds in foods do not pose a risk at current levels of consumption.  Brown rice, it finds, has levels of arsenic much higher than those in white rice.

Consumer Reports also tested rice samples.  It recommends against feeding rice cereals to children.  It calls on the FDA to set standards for arsenic levels in rice products.  These, according to the tests, vary widely.  Basmati rice from California, India and Pakistan and U.S.-grown sushi rice are “better choices.”  Just one serving of rice cereal or rice pasta could put a child over CR’s recommended weekly limit

On this basis, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced legislation— The R.I.C.E (Reducing food-based Inorganic Compounds Exposure) Act— to limit the amount of inorganic arsenic, the most toxic form of arsenic in rice foods.  The act would require the FDA to set limits on arsenic in rice.

Politico reported that the US Rice Federation questioned the science behind the Consumer Reports story:

Arsenic in our food supply is a challenging, yet unavoidable, situation which is why we support the FDA studying the issue carefully,” said Betsy Ward, president and CEO of the USA Rice Federation.  “But CR’s new consumption recommendations aren’t supported by any science that we’ve seen.”

How does arsenic get into rice?  Lots of ways, apparently: naturally occurring, but also from arsenic pesticides that persist in soil.  The flooding makes rice especially susceptible.

What to do while waiting for a resolution to safety questions?  Prepare rice in a coffee percolator says a recent study.  This flushes out a lot of the arsenic.

And everything in moderation, of course.

Food Politics is back from vacation in Indonesia where its president, Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) made this announcement:

His program particularly aims to support rice production, but also corn, soybeans, and sugar, all of which are currently imported.

Much Indonesian rice is still produced on small terraced farms, like this one on Bali.

The government plans to distribute hand tractors and seeds to thousands of farmers across the various islands.

The Jakarta Post also ran a long story about a program promoting organic farming and seed-saving methods, particularly for rice.  Rice productivity has been falling as a result of over-fertilization and exhausted soils.

The food movement seems alive and well in Indonesia.  It has Slow Food chapters and Bali Buda restaurants (“real food by real people”) are multiplying.  Interest is starting early.

This will  be fun to watch.

Is arsenic in rice something you should be worried about?

I never know what to say about food contaminants consumed in tiny amounts, in this case, micrograms (millionths of grams) per serving.

The FDA devotes a web page to arsenic in rice.  Here, the agency releases the results of its testing, which found amounts of arsenic mostly below 6 micrograms per serving.

Higher levels—11 micrograms per serving—were found in three samples from Texas, Louisiana and California.  The highest was 30 micrograms per serving of hot ready-to-eat rice bran cereal.

Is this good, bad, or indifferent?  And how would we know?

The FDA says such levels are too low to cause concern about short-term health problems.

But Consumers Union thinks the real issue is the long-term effects.

Today’s widely-reported message on arsenic levels in rice misses the point.  The issue is not the short-term risks of rice consumption. The concern is the long-term effects from exposure to arsenic in rice. As Consumer Reports has said in the past, consumers should not ignore the potential risks from consuming rice and rice products over a long period of time…Consumers are not well-served if they do not have the full story. The concerns about long-term effects are significant and warrant the FDA’s decision to investigate further.

The FDA says it plans further investigations.  In the meantime, it says you should:

• Eat a well-balanced diet.
• Vary your grains.
• Consider diversifying infant foods

This is always good advice.

But Consumers Union  is more specific.  It suggests you worry a little and observe these limits:

At the moment, this is the best information available.  FDA: get to work!

FDA references:

• FDA Statement on Testing and Analysis of Arsenic in Rice and Rice Products 
• Consumer Update: FDA Explores Impact of Arsenic in Rice
• Updated Questions & Answers: Arsenic in Rice and Rice Products