What is in Your Rice Milk

After doing some research and speaking with my Pediatrician, I came to a rather startling realization: Most rice milk and baby rice products have large amounts of arsenic present. Many foods have naturally occurring levels of organic arsenic, however, the concern is the level of inorganic arsenic, a dangerous human carcinogen. Inorganic arsenic is a dangerous and chronic human carcinogen, linked to cancer when large amounts are consumed over a long period of time. Unfortunately, this concern has been discounted numerous times in the US and the public has not been notified.

In China, their allowance of .15 parts per million is much lower for inorganic arsenic allowed in a product. China will not even allow many of the common US brands of rice milk and baby rice cereal, that have been tested with high levels, on their store shelves. In the UK, they do not allow products with numbers over 1 part per million.

I have not been able to find the US’s arsenic allowance in food. The US is only strict about how much inorganic arsenic is allowed in drinking water, 10 parts per billion, but does not place rice milk under the same umbrella as water. This is very unfortunate because there does not seem to be a strict regulation on inorganic arsenic in rice products. If rice milk was classified with water, a majority of all commercial rice milks would have to be banned from the market. For example, in a study done in 2008 at the University of Aberdeen in the UK, they analyzed rice milk samples from supermarkets to see if the inorganic arsenic that is present in rice, transferred into the milk. All of the brands tested exceeded the arsenic standards in the UK and China, by as much as three times, and 80% failed to meet the US inorganic arsenic standard for allowance in water.

I know a lot of moms that give their babies bottles with cows or goats milk combined with rice milk. This really concerns me because you never know how much inorganic arsenic is present in the rice milk and babies have such delicate, susceptible bodies. The other area of concern, as mentioned above, is the arsenic levels in baby rice cereal. This product has been tested in the UK and respectively some Asian and European countries will not allow baby rice products to be sold in the markets. In a news report from 3/15/08, they claimed that a third of baby rice products tested by the Food Standards Agency contained very high levels of arsenic.

My advice is to avoid rice milk and baby rice products or consume them minimally, because you don’t know which brand has more inorganic arsenic than the other. Most people that go off cow’s milk replace it with rice milk. Aside from the issue of inorganic arsenic present, rice milk provides very little nutrition. My choice is almond, hemp or goat milk.