OT - arsenic in foods

At the moment it's not really a concern for people. Just that health sites get ahold of this stuff and go bonkers on their claims.

Part of the problem is making the distinction between Organic (Carbon containing) and Inorganic (non carbon containing) Arsenic. So organic arsenic vs. inorganic arsenic.

The main issue to bear in mind is that the Inorganic form is roughly 50% more toxic and found in highest levels in drinking water. Whereas the organic version is common to the food you mentioned.

More so things get more complicated fast, in which these health sites don't account for:

Organic arsenic can be transformed into other things by the internal processes of animals and plants and such. So you can end up with sugar arsenic and methyl arsenic etc. If you take the time to look things up it turns out that some of these forms are say 1,000 times less harmful than inorganic arsenic.

So really the stuff in foods we eat all the time is no real concern - It seems it's the inorganic forms found in higher levels in drinking water is where the concern came from both by the FDA and the WHO. So they have decided to monitor the situation.

It's most likely very safe to say that you can go about eating your fruits and veggies as always without concern or arsenic poisoning or toxicity. There does not seem to be any data showing the organic forms are highly toxic to us. If they were we'd all be dead from eating them for the last 200,000 years or so.

Exactly - in their table they list ranges from ~20% to as much as ~80% in inorganic form. So there is very little organic forms present nor cause for any concern at all in this regard.

10 micrograms per litre of inorganic arsenic is considered acceptable for drinking water (here in canada) and this equates loosely to ~10 parts per billion.

So all of the foods tested were well above that for inorganic - no doubt about that and cause for some concern to say the least if one considers acceptable drinking water concentrations for inorganic arsenic.

As far as all the other foods like fruits and veggies and organic arsenic you would need to get readings in the 5,000 parts per billion range for it even to be considered remotely dangerous. So the bulk of the arsenic we are exposed to that is dangerous is solely from inorganic arsenic in our environment.

In any case, not that we want any of this crap in food in the first place though. It's kind of sad we even have to have these conversations about arsenic, lead, mercury and lord knows what else that has made it's way into our environment.

CanadaMark... The one part of the article that talks about the veggies mentions the inorganic form.

"Brussels sprouts Despite the fact that these vegetables are among the healthiest you can eat, Dr. Cottingham's research, along with others studies, note that inorganic arsenic that exists in soil is highly attracted to sulfur compounds in brussels sprouts, along with other cruciferous vegetables, including kale, broccoli, and cauliflower. Arsenic levels in regular sprout eaters were 10.4% higher than in people who never ate them or ate them less than once a month."

I do agree that we have been eating these vegetables for so many years and would think all Americans would be sick. I was just thinking with our guts being so fragile it may be something else we may want to avoid.


It does make me want to get my well water checked!

Iamcurious... That makes sense why the south is so high for arsenic in rice. I never thought about that.

Here are the brands guardian suggested in a previous post:
Royal can be found @ ethnic stores or costco. Tilda can be purchased from Amazon