Apparently the plant has an affinity for arsenic (the atevi might think it a nice trait)—and sucks it up where available. Now, the US set acceptable arsenic levels in drinking water. But—you take to raising rice on certain ground, and apparently it will do as rice does. Since there is no US standard for arsenic levels in food (does that seem rather a curious omission?) the possibility that certain locales, especially orchards converted to rice culture (arsenic was in certain pesticides acceptable on fruit)—can create a problem. We lived, in Oklahoma, near a town that had the acceptable level of arsenic in its water, due to its natural occurence in the soil. But…if you live there AND eat a lot of rice—you get the regulated amount in your water, and stack atop it the non-regulated amount in your food choice—
So…while I am not alarmist re warnngs about this and that, the rather gaping hole in foodstuffs regulation does argue that somebody, sooner or later, should conduct some tests.
The good news is, the longer rice is grown in a locale, the more it sucks out of the dirt, the poorer the dirt will become, so where rice has been grown for a long time, it should be quite safe. It seems rather like what we do in marine tanks, when you get a lot of hair algae—due to the phosphate that comes in on rock and sand; so you grow another sort of algae in an attached tank, and as it grows, and you tear up bits of it and toss it out (or give it to another hobbyist) away goes the phosphate, and with it the curse of hair algae. OR you can simply run the water through iron filings, and it binds the phosphate. I wonder what binds arsenic—and if it would be a similarly simple fix….
Meanwhile, we are watching the origin label, and going for old fields. If, that is, they haven’t put the rice paddy over something as bad, eh?
I say enjoy the dinner and if nobody drops over, it was good.
I area where the rice I buy is grown in a part of California, in and near Colusa County, that has had extensive rice cultivation for over 100 years and has always been almost entirely irrigated with local river water rather than from wells. It will be interesting to see the arsenic level numbers for that area.
For those not familiar with California, Colusa county is at the foot of the north end of the central valley. The Sacramento River runs through it. The San Joaquin River drains the south end, San Joaquin Valley logically enough.
So, that said, irrigation in the dry San Joaquin valley needed to be drained. Before it was complated the drain stopped at Kesterson, creating a wetlands. That’s a good thing, right? Nope. The drain water was leaching selenium from the south valley, which was causing birth defects in the waterfowl.
Now, that’s the south end of the central valley. My point is that Californians have “engineered” their state, especially the water, to such an extent, e.g. Shasta Lake, Hetch-Hetchy Valley, Mulholland/LA county’s buying-up all the water in the Owens Valley, that nothing should be taken at face value. One might say, “Trust, but verify.”
“poor old st kildans also suffered from neonatal tetanus which killed half the babies born in their first week in the mid 19th century, due to poor midwifery practices, just from tetanus bugs in the soil/sheep’s stomachs ……”
I don’t think modern folk realize how regularly pre-industrial communities did themselves in through mistakes in husbandry of resources—you can see it in deforested islands, slash-and-burn farming in Indonesia, and St Kildans…the past was not an idyllic time of harmony with nature, unfortunately, and very frequently bad practice took out a community.
“I area where the rice I buy is grown in a part of California, in and near Colusa County, that has had extensive rice cultivation for over 100 years and has always been almost entirely irrigated with local river water rather than from wells.”
California rice is rated the best US rice in terms of arsenic levels.
And I note the FDA is now taking a hard look at the arsenic situation, which is not going to make farmers in several other rice-growing areas happy at all—rice is an important crop in Louisiana, probably Arkansas, and Texas, all of which are ‘red’ states. Stand by for some fierce local politics and political pressure on the FDA on the national level as to exactly where those numbers are set…gerrymandering is not only for congressional districts. [For our European readers: gerrymandering [from: salamander] refers to a political trick of drawing a voting district in a creative way so as to marginalize a community that will vote against the party doing the line-drawing. You do this by redesigning the district lines to carve a bloc of opposition voters into a minority scattered into a number of districts. The most notorious effort early in American history was so convolute it looked like a large salamander. This is usually done to preserve a state Congressman from being voted out of office. Courts may get involved to stop this.] Unfortunately, ‘moving’ the standards numbers a tad would not be so evident as redrawing a congressional district. But in general, the strong public spotlight on this issue will make it easier for the FDA to work past local political pressure.
Rapa Nui is the poster-child for island living. So I refer one and all to the Apollo 8 “Earthrise” photo. 😉
Exhibit E: Small blue-green oasis in the black desert of vastly nothingness. Currently quaintly backward and homey, though getting a mite stuffy and crowded. Populated by a quarrelsome but wonderfully curious mostly hairless primate species. Species is pre-interplanetary and not yet ready for interstellar contact. Quarantined, interdicted, trespassers will forfeit space travel and licenses.
Maybe that’swhat’s the whales are singing about: Minding the silly monkeys, pre-space.
The trouble is, we don’t know of any nice planets to set up new housekeeping, nor any movers or real estate agents offering a ride on the bus or moving van. If anyone did show up, they might be looking to move in after kicking us out…fumigating…harvesting…? (Eek, that.)
Then again, you could always play that new video game at the trailer park and get recruited for starfighter piloting….
And every once in a while you might get someone that breaks quarantine. Mostly it does very little damage, as the primates are very good at fabrication and as a result disbelieve anything about which they don’t have hard evidence in hand. Kind of on the order of hopping the fence into the bear pit… and getting out again unscathed. Silly taperli.