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Dear List Mates,

I received a number of lively emails from you. Thank you for your comments.
It is clear to me that the gluten free community is aware, educated and
articulate. Below is an edited summary.

BTW, I wonder about the amount of arsenic that collects in the new trendy
rice bran oil. Seems like that is a product that needs to be tested. It may
be ok or not. I just tossed my box of Ener-G rice bran. Sometimes I put
that into breads. No more.

 Vic – Sunnyvale, CA

LM: What brand of chicken broth are you using. Chicken broth here contains
wheat.
V: I just checked a can of lower salt Swansons, and it is wheat free. But
mostly we make our own after we have roast chicken.

LM: Another good substitute for rice flour is sorghum. It's the closest to
rice flour's attributes that I've used so far.

LM: I've used millet in stuffed peppers. It grinds to make a creamy tasting
flour.  It will thicken a gravy. I have also used it in pilaf with wild
rice. I buy Lundberg nutrafarmed rice because I feel a recognized brand is
probably safer than some generic rice grown in a foreign country.  Lundberg
is grown in Calif. with all the attendant regulations.
V: Lundberg grows rice north of Sacramento CA, and the good news is that
this is not the cotton belt. According to the Consumers article - table
further down the page, you are in good shape if you buy basmati. But there
is a problem, with Lundberg brown rice: It's not the worst of the lot with
respect to arsenic, but Consumers tested it at 3.8 - 5.4 micrograms per
serving. The 5.4 is the red light. 4.9 represents the  maximum.

Actually, a lot of our regulations in California are on dumb stuff but
sometimes on smart stuff. Unfortunately, there are no California
regulations on arsenic in rice. But the good news is that the article
raised the awareness of Lundberg, and they are researching how arsenic
comes into their picture. I'd suggest you contact Lundberg. I'm sure they
would love to know that you trust their brand and that you  want them to
fix their problem. You can reach them a number of ways. Check this out:
http://www.lundberg.com/Info/Contact_Us.aspx .

LM: I am wondering where the [Lundberg] arsenic comes from.  Arsenates are
usually used for potato bugs.  Run off from neighboring farms?  Mining
waste from nearby?  Wondering how they get that unless they are irrigating
with river water that is contaminated.
V: The arsenate that is found in Lundberg rice could be naturally occurring
in the soil, or their rice fields could be contaminated from insecticide
from a bygone era. They've been growing rice for 3 generations. But I think
you have hit on the reason in your last thought - water.

The area where rice is grown is far from mining, but the Feather River
contains dissolved arsenic. Wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richvale,_California ) says that the irrigated
rice in this area uses water from Oroville Dam. There are a number of
reports and articles (http://www.murkywater.org/media.htm ;
http://www.water.ca.gov/orovillerelicensing/docs/wg_study_reports_and_docs/EWG/W1%20jan05%20dfr%20%28combined%29.pdf
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oroville,_California ) that indicate high to
very high levels of arsenic in the water in the area. The Wikipedia article
also indicates that Koppers Chemical Company is/was a superfund site and
caused arsenic spills in Oroville which is upstream from Richvale where
rice is grown.

LM: How do we know millet (which I love) is any different? Apparently rice
that has "too much" arsenic is both American and foreign grown. Do you know
where most of the millet is grown?  And how?
V: -Where is millet grown  in the US: Colorado (68%), Nebraska and So.
Dakota according to
http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/grains__oilseeds/proso-millet/
.  (I didn't know until I looked it up.)

- How is it different from  rice: Reasons to believe there would be much
less arsenic in millet. (1) Millet is a grass, like rice, but it likes much
less water (well drained soil) and lots of sun, whereas rice need to start
out in flooded rice paddies. (2) Millet is grown in areas where cotton has
not been grown. The Carolinas, etc. are former cotton-belt states and have
had arsenic-based insecticides used. Staying out of the cotton belt and
using less water gives "hope" for much less arsenic. But we really don't
know unless some kind soul tests it for us.

LM: By the way, this story first broke in 2008 .I now find out...[it's] not
a new story.
http://www.mothering.com/community/t/863740/oh-now-what-if-we-cant-have-rice-because-of-arsenic
V: Thanks for the reference to the 2008 article. Clearly, this has been
known about for a long time. I see that the US EPA was also listed in the
authorship [of the original research article].This issue got no attention
or publicity until now. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702212p

LM: "One third of baby rice has arsenic" - Telegraph [UK Newspaper]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1912504/One-third-of-baby-rice-has-arsenic.html

LM:  I have been buying, cautiously because I have become so cynical about
truth in labeling or anything else, something marked 100% Millet Noodles,
imported by a company called  Northern Food, 385 West John Street
 Hicksville NY 11801. These packages have Chinese writing.

Just out of curiosity I called the importer. It's [...] not to be trusted
-- would not answer any question. In all millet products and everything
else we cannot trust/believe anything.  [T]hese products are being made in
China or if made here, [are] made with Chinese grains which are cheapest
and not reliable.

LM: Yes we can eat millet and corn until we find out what about those
grains ... [that are] killing us. Sad that our food isn't safe in so many
ways.

LM: Thanks, Vic, for sending this article.  I was getting concerned.  Any
thoughts?  We eat rice twice  a day!
V: [Turns out I know this person well.]  It's a real shocking article;
however, one of the persons on this list serve showed me an article dated
2008 in which the US EPA scientist was a co-author. It contains similar
figures, but no alarm bells have been sounded. The EPA didn't make a move
one way or the other. Some lawmakers are pushing the FDA to set standards (
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/us-usa-rice-arsenic-idUSBRE88K0YR20120921)
, and the rice industry is doing damage control (
http://www.arsenicfacts.usarice.com/ ).

Sometimes Consumers Union goes off half-cocked, but it doesn't happen
often. I would try to err on the side of caution and buy rice brands that
have been tested to be low in arsenic, at least until something more
definitive happens. Trader Joe's and Target basmati rices have been tested
and are low in arsenic. Even though these may not be your preferred brands,
I would advise switching brands.

LM: [Email to Lundberg. Reply is in Part 2]

[Email - edited]

Since a celiac disease diagnoses in 2002, we have been buying Lundberg rice
and grinding it in a mill to make rice flour.  I typically buy white
jasmine nutrafarmed, and have on occasion bought brown rice, or experiment
with basmati or one of the other varieties.  II felt an American product
with all the attendant health regulations would be safer than a store
generic from a foreign country where there are less [stringent] health laws.

 I am concerned about the arsenic in rice article in Consumer Reports and
am wondering how it is getting into rice.  I know arsenic compounds are
used for potato bugs but is this a pesticide used on rice?
Or a contaminant in irrigation water?  From neighboring farms?  and what
you can do to minimize it?

*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the Celiac List*
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