Consumer Reports recently came out with a study that demonstrated that there are concerning levels of arsenic in the rice and rice products produced in the United States. Please note that arsenic poses no acute or immediate threat to anyone eating these products in routine amounts. But there are no federal standards for safe levels of arsenic in our food. Research is still ongoing. However, since inorganic arsenic is a carcinogen, Northampton Area Pediatrics makes the following recommendations concerning rice intake:
--Avoid all baby rice cereals for children under 1 year old. When introducing solids to your 4-6 month old baby, offer pureed fruits, vegetables, and/or barley or oatmeal based baby cereals.
--Avoid rice milk
--Consider cutting back on rice and rice products overall, and eat white rice rather than brown rice. Consume no more than one serving of rice or rice product (rice cakes, rice crackers, rice-based cereal) per day.
We will be keeping up to date on the current research and present consensus guidelines as they become available.
