The Study
Removal of Toxic and Essential Nutrient Elements from Commercial Rice Brands Using Different Washing and Cooking Practices: Human Health Risk Assessment
This study looked at how cooking rice in different ways changes the amount of bad stuff (like arsenic) and good stuff (like zinc) in it. It didn't test if eating this rice makes people sick or healthy — it just measured what's in the rice before and after cooking.
Analysis score
Maximum 44 for a cross-sectional study.
Where the score came from
Washing rice five times and cooking it with lots of water (6 parts water to 1 part rice), then throwing out the water, removes some poison (arsenic) but also washes away good stuff like selenium and zinc.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 544 / 100
Quality score
Snapshots of a population at a single point in time, or descriptions of small groups. Can identify correlations and prevalence, but cannot determine cause and effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — even the best cooking method doesn’t make rice safe from cancer risk, and you lose important nutrients doing it.
- 2Arsenic goes down by 20–39%, but selenium drops 49%, zinc 17%, and manganese 22%.
- 3Even after cooking, cancer risk from arsenic is still too high (3–25 times above safe limit).
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Year
2022
Authors
S. Shahriar, A. Paul, M. Rahman
Related Content
Claims (6)
Soaking rice in water and throwing out the water lowers the amount of arsenic left in the rice.
Cooking rice with six times its volume in water and discarding the water after five washes removes 20–39% of inorganic arsenic, while using a rice cooker with twice its volume in water removes only 1–17%.
Rice cooked with twice its volume in water leads to higher daily arsenic exposure than rice cooked with six times its volume in water, and both methods result in arsenic levels that exceed safety thresholds for noncarcinogenic health effects.
Rice tested across all brands and cooking methods contains arsenic levels that result in a lifetime cancer risk higher than the U.S. EPA's safety threshold.
Cooking rice with six parts water per one part rice after five washes reduces cadmium by 35% and lead by 27%. Health assessments show no significant risk from these metals regardless of cooking method, but arsenic remains the main toxic concern in rice from Bangladesh.
Cooking parboiled rice with six times its volume in water after five washes lowers arsenic by 33% but also reduces selenium by 49%, zinc by 17%, and manganese by 22% compared to cooking with two times its volume in water.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.