Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Food Addit Contam Part A 2016 Jan;33(1):78-85

Cooking rice in excess water reduces both arsenic and enriched vitamins in the cooked grain.

Gray PJ, Conklin SD, Todorov TI, Kasko SM

We report the effects of rinsing rice and cooking it in variable amounts of water on the total arsenic, inorganic arsenic, iron, cadmium, manganese, folate, thiamin, and niacin in the cooked grain. We prepared multiple rice varietals both rinsed and unrinsed and with varying amounts of cooking water. Rinsing rice before cooking has a minimal effect on the Arsenic (As) content of the cooked grain but washes enriched Fe, folate, thiamin and niacin from polished and parboiled rice. Cooking rice in excess water efficiently reduces the amount of As in the cooked grain. Excess water cooking reduces average inorganic As by 40% from long grain polished, 60% from parboiled and 50% from brown rice. Iron, folate, niacin and thiamin are reduced by 50-70% for enriched polished and parboiled rice but significantly less for brown rice, which is not enriched.