A comparison of the effects of two cooking methods on arsenic species and nutrient elements in rice

Rice is one of the major cereal crops in the world, contributing significantly towards the dietary energy and nutrition of more than half of the world's population. However, rice can also be a significant exposure route for inorganic arsenic (iAs). This risk is even greater if rice is cooked with iAs-contaminated water. Here, we quantified the effect of two cooking methods, excess water (EW) and parboiled and absorbed (PBA), on As species and essential nutrient elements (P, K, Mg, Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu, Se and Mo) in white, parboiled and brown rice cooked with As-safe (0.18 μg L−1) and As-spiked (10 and 50 μg L−1) tap water. Furthermore, we calculated the exposure risk using the margin of exposure (MOE) for both low (the UK) and high (Bangladesh) rice per capita consumption scenarios. The total micro and macronutrient content in cooked rice was measured using ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry). An LC-ICP-MS (liquid chromatography-ICP-MS) method was used to quantify arsenic species. The results demonstrate that EW and PBA methods produced similar efficacy of iAs removal (54–58 %) for white and brown rice. However, the EW method was better at removing iAs from parboiled rice (∼50 %) than PBA (∼39 %). We found that cooked brown rice was superior to other rice types in many essential nutrient elements, and cooking methods significantly affected the loss of K, Fe, Cu and Mo. For both cooking methods, cooking with iAs-spiked water significantly increased iAs in all rice types: white > parboiled > brown. However, when using As-spiked water, the PBA method retained more iAs than EW. Our risk evaluations showed that cooking rice with 50 μg L−1 significantly raises the As-exposure of the Bangladesh population due to the high per capita rice consumption rate, reinforcing the importance of accessing As-safe water for cooking.