In late May, the organic baby formula maker Natures One        announced a goal ofzero arsenic in its product.    Good, you say. Great. Makes perfect sense. Or it would except    for this question - why is a poison like arsenic, of all    things, an issue in baby formula?  
    Read a little further in the Natures One press release, and    youll find a direct link to the problem. The     link goes to a February study, published in the Journal of    Applied Chemistry, titled Arsenic Concentration and Speciation    in Infant Formula and First Foods.  
    That study, I want to emphasize, found nothing panic worthy,    nothing but very trace levels of arsenic in formula and baby    food. But, still, as I     wrote last week, arsenic can have health effects at a    surprisingly low dose. Its no wonder that Natures One    so determinedly wants none of it.  
    But there are other things to wonder about here. Such as    - why does arsenic so inconveniently turn up in the food    supply? And are public health officials doing anything to    protect us in this regard? These are connected questions but    Ill give you one heads up on the latter. In the United    States, the Environmental Protection Agency sets     a safety limit of ten parts per billion for arsenic in    drinking water. But  to the frustration of advocates and    scientists - the Food and Drug Administration    offers no safety standard for arsenic in food .  
    And that matters because study I cited is just one of many    telling us that there is some risk here. The word speciation in    that title refers to the type of arsenic. The basic    division is between organic (a carbon-containing    compound) and inorganic arsenic. Its a big division actually.    Our bodies metabolize organic arsenic compounds efficiently and    they are not particularly dangerous. Inorganic arsenic,    by contrast, is notably dangerous. And its that more poisonous    variation that turned up in the baby formulas and cereals.  
    And here, as they say, is where the story gets interesting.  
    The researchers of that study, based at Dartmouth University,    identified rice as the primary source of inorganic arsenic.    They found it (again, in very tiny amounts) in rice syrup used    to sweeten baby formula, rice cereal, rice flour used in    making crackers and cookies. This does not mean that rice is by    by nature a poisonous plant. It isnt.  
    But both soil and groundwater can contain arsenic - as a    naturally occurring element and as a residue from the use of    arsenic-based pesticides. And , as the Dartmouth scientists    noted, Although As (arsenic) is not readily taken up by    crops or transported to the edible parts, a notable exception    is riceThe magnitude of this uptake varies widely between    cultivars but the ability to take up elevated concentrations of    As (in comparison with other cereal crops) appears to be a    trait found in the entire rice germplasm.  
    In other words, rice turns out to be outstandingly good at    absorbing arsenic from the environment and storing it.    One reason is that the plant is     designed to easily absorb the mineral silicon which helps    give rice grains their elegantly smooth structure. The    crystalline structure of arsenic is just close enough that rice    plants readily uptake arsenic as well. In fact, a     toxic metal study, also from Dartmouth, describes rice as    a natural arsenic accumulator.  
Original post:
The Arsenic Diet