Thursday Things: Rice & Arsenic Edition

20 February 2025. Vol 7 No 8. By Dan McGirt. #289

Dan McGirt

Feb 20, 2025

Thursday Things is here! This week we enjoy a big bowl of arsenic rice and watch SNL.

If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the header or at the end of the post to let me know.

Mmm, arsenic. Photo by Pille R. Priske on Unsplash

Rice with arsenic

This week I learned that I have probably been eating arsenic rice!

Rice, it seems, often contains troubling levels of arsenic, but there are steps you can take in how you prepare and cook rice to reduce, though not fully eliminate, the amount of arsenic in your rice.

Maybe I’m the late to this party and the last one to know. Or maybe you, like me, are right now saying — Wait! Arsenic in rice? What?

In my defense, most rice I’ve cooked for myself has come out of an Uncle Ben’s box, and I feel pretty sure Uncle Ben would have dealt with any arsenic concerns before putting rice in a box with his name on it.

Then again — whatever happened to Uncle Ben? I haven’t seen him around lately.

Maybe it was the arsenic.

Anyway, back in early 2020, I stocked up on bags of rice, just in case civilization was about to collapse and we were on the verge of going full Road Warrior. That, fortunately, did not happen, but five years later I still have 15 pounds of uncooked rice. So I thought I better look into how best to cook my rice, find some interesting recipes, and so forth.

That’s when I came across this instruction: “With this method you boil water first, add the rice to boil for 5 additional minutes, remove the arsenic water, then add fresh water to cook at a low temperature for the water to absorb.”1

I’m sorry — REMOVE THE ARSENIC WATER?!?

Before we get how to reduce (not eliminate) the arsenic in your rice, let’s look into how it got there in the first place:

Arsenic occurs naturally in soil and groundwater, and it’s also present as a result of coal mining and past use of pesticides, paint and wood preservatives, all of which contained arsenic.
Being very porous, rice can absorb a lot of that arsenic from the flooded fields where it’s grown. In fact, rice can soak up more arsenic than any other food crop. How much arsenic is in a rice field varies by the region.2

It also turns out that brown rice contains more arsenic that white rice, so keep that in mind. Also, rice from certain regions tends to contain less arsenic:

Rice grown in Nepal, north India or north Pakistan is considered to have the least amount of arsenic because these regions have less arsenic in their soil and water. Basmati or Jasmin rice typically are also lower in arsenic compared to other varieties.3

On the other hand, rice from an organic farm isn’t necessarily arsenic-free. So your first line of defense against arsenic, if rice happens to be a major part of your diet, would be to eat less rice, potentially switch from brown rice to white rice, and go for Basmati or Jasmin rice from the arsenic-lite growing regions.

All that said, if you’ve got bags of rice to cook there are several methods for draining off some of that arsenic before you chow down:

How to Cook Rice to Lower Arsenic Levels

“Cooking rice in a high water-to-rice ratio reduces toxic arsenic content…”

The first method is cooking your rice in excess water — a 6:1 ratio of water to rice — and draining off the arsenic water before serving. In this approach you’re cooking rice more like you’d cook pasta, rather than the standard approach of simmering all the water away at low hear.

But is that the best approach? It turns out, no. This article discusses a study that compared multiple methods of cooking rice to reduce arsenic:

The Most Effective Way to Remove Arsenic in Rice

The study compared 4 different methods of cooking white and brown rice to find which method removed the most arsenic, while still retaining the most nutrients.

When you add water to uncooked rice and cook at low temperature, (in a rice cooker, crock pot, on the stove) that is considered an unwashed and absorbed method. You're adding just enough water to be completely absorbed during the cook.
You can also choose to wash or rinse your rice prior to using the absorption method.
You can take it a step further and choose to pre-soak your rice prior to the absorption method.
The last method is termed parboiled and absorbed (PBA). With this method you boil water first, add the rice to boil for 5 additional minutes, remove the arsenic water, then add fresh water to cook at a low temperature for the water to absorb.

So PBA seems to be the way to go if you want to maximize your arsenic reduction. However, as with most things in life, there is a trade-off. The methods that remove the most arsenic also remove the most nutrients from the rice. Which is probably why you’re eating rice in the first place, right? To get those yummy nutrients.

Brown rice has more nutrients, with less loss due to rinsing or soaking because the vitamins and whatnot are inside the grain — but brown rice also has more arsenic.

White rice contains less arsenic — but also fewer nutrients, and for the same reason, because to make white rice out of brown rice, the outer layers and the germ are removed. Often white rice is then “fortified” with spray-on vitamins, which are then lost in whole or part if you rinse, soak, or parboil to remove the arsenic.

What to do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You have to take your pick. It is worth pointing out that other whole grains like quinoa, barley, amaranth, millet, etc. are as nutritious as rice and don’t absorb arsenic from the soil in the same way.

Anyway, enjoy your rice!

Another article: Arsenic in Rice: Why It's There, How to Remove It, and Which Types Are Safest

Get the science facts here:

Live from New York - SNL 50

I have not watched Saturday Night Live in more than a decade, although I have seen clips online, some funny, some not. However, in years past I did watch the show with semi-regularity and I do have fond memories of some of the great skits and cast members of yesteryear. As, perhaps, do you.

This year SNL airs its 50th season. Amid all the hoopla I stumbled upon this article that ranks not skits, cast members, hosts, or musical guests, but all fifty SNL seasons. I scrolled past the years I didn’t watch and zoomed in to read about those I remembered. You may enjoy doing the same!

Every Season of “Saturday Night Live,” Ranked

Throughout its half-century on the air, approaching 1,000 episodes, SNL has more or less been itself. Yes, there are some dramatic explorations and departures, especially in that wild first season, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule. Forget season-to-season nuances — week to week, sometimes minute to minute, the show can be excellent or terrible. Part of the fun is that even the worst seasons have some good sketches, and even the best ones have some utter bombs.

Read the article and find where you favorite seasons ranked.

This week’s edition is brought to you by Dan’s Advice: Take control of your digital life.