Why you should know:
Arsenic is a carcinogen and has various other negative health effects; enough to warrant exposure limits in various jurisdictions. A five minute boil-and-discard step before cooking is a simple way to reduce your exposure, especially if you eat a lot of rice.
Details are in the study, linked in the title of this post. Here’s a diagram from the abstract:
The microplastics in my body laugh at arsenic’s petty attempt on my life!
The only reason I started eating more rice in the last decade or so, was one click cooking. If you want me to use a process more complex than “dump equal rice and water in rice maker then click start”, I’m afraid the alternative is potatoes
Im with you.
Sorry, everything these days causes cancer. Let me have a quick easy dinner so this life is worth it.
Yeah, I’m getting a prop 65 warning tattooed on my ass one of these days. That way I can just enjoy life knowing I’ve been told.
How much arsenic water would you need to distill down to get a useful amount of arsenic?
Asking, for science
Of course.
The real question. Apple seeds have naturally occurring cyanide, but you would have to eat something like 30 to 300 apples worth of seeds to maybe have a health issue.
It’s the dose that makes the poison.
Aren’t you better off with plum or peach seeds?
Best not to eat any, but it’s still a matter of dose. Plum/peach seeds may be more a choking hazard than any other.
How much arsenic do you define as useful? I had a similar thought and could probably figure it out, but I really don’t want to dig my old chem and bio texts out of my garage.
Ysk your body can naturally get rid of arsenic so this is pointless.
You can actually buy parboiled rice which have been dried. It’s very close in price to white rice and not as sticky as regular rice.
It takes just as long to cook, and has the texture of parboiled rice.
Helpful advice? Who ARE you?
And bananas are radioactive. Best leave them a few halflives before scraping the mouldy gunky remains from your fruit bowl.
It takes 40 mins to fully cook brown rice plus the 5-8 mins it takes for it to boil. This will add 15-20 mins more to overall cooking. As someone who eats rice almost everyday, I’ll probably want to start doing this, but man that’s a lot more time and water wasted 😞
This will add 15-20 mins more to overall cooking.
Are you counting 5-8 minutes to heat water + 5 minutes parboiling the rice + 5-8 minutes to heat fresh water? If so, you’re double-counting one of those steps, because you already have to heat water when cooking rice. Using your figures, the overall cooking time would only increase by 10-13 minutes.
You could reduce that to ~5 minutes by heating your cooking water during the parboil step, rather than after, so it’s ready to go when the parboil is done. In a kettle or second pan, for example.
You could further reduce it to <1 minute (the time it takes to replace the parboil water) by taking 5 minutes off the cooking time, since the newly added 5 minute parboil is cooking.
I hope the fediverse doesn’t cook meals one step at a time. That would take ages. :)
I’m asian and grew up in Asia cooking rice without a rice cooker. This is how we do it:
- 1:2 rice to water ratio
- Wash rice
- Put rice and water in a sauce pan(?) or whataver you call that pan with deep sides.
- Turn on stove to high heat until water boils (This is the initial 5-8 mins)
- Once boiling, turn down heat to low and simmer for 40 mins (for brown rice. White rice is 20-25, broken rice is 12-15)
If I was to boil the rice for 5 mins and throw the water out, that means I need to boil water first (5-8 mins), throw in the rice and wait 5 minutes, then throw out the water. Only then will I do the above steps. The fresh water needs to boil again (5-8 mins) before I simmer for 40 mins.
Good point on heating the new batch of water while doing the initial boil. I can’t say I’ve ever cooked rice by throwing it into already boiling water though, so we’ll see how it turns out.
I can’t say I’ve ever cooked rice by throwing it into already boiling water though,
Do you mean when replacing the parboil water? At that point, the rice would already have been brought to a boil gradually. Discarding the parboil water and pouring in fresh boiling water wouldn’t be like throwing dry rice into a boiling saucepan.
Or are you thinking of changing your process, by no longer bringing the water to a boil with the rice already in it, but instead waiting to add the rice until after the parboil water has reached a full boil? I realize that’s what the infographic shows, but I don’t think it’s necessary to do it that way. If anything, I would expect your way (bring rice & water to a boil together) to pull out more arsenic.
Scientists of discovered that saliva causes stomach cancer but only when swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.
Give me the arsenic because there is no way I’m overcooking my rice to remove it
This is not suggesting the rice be overcooked, just cooked using a different process.
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Yes, thank you for the correction. I edited it.
is that why that one british lady Uncle Roger was roasting drained her rice?
Do you “discard” the water by… just letting it into the sink? How long before aresnic is everywhere?
Arsenic is a naturally occurring element.
Does it come with old lace?
