It’s unfortunately true that rice contains more inorganic arsenic, which is highly toxic, than other grains. This is simply in the nature of rice, to concentrate whatever little bits of arsenic are present in the soil and water. It is a tiny, tiny amount, perhaps 50-100 ppb (parts per billion), and presents no known health risk. But the arsenic is in the rice, not on the surface, so rinsing will do little or no good.
It is still a good idea to rinse rice before cooking in most situations to remove excess surface starch, which would make the cooked rice gummy.
Should you worry about arsenic in rice? Generally, no because the amount of arsenic in rice is very low and not considered to be a health risk. But if you are a fretter, you can minimize your arsenic exposure from rice:
- Be aware that brown rice has on average 50% more arsenic than white rice.
- Cook rice like you cook pasta, in lots of water (6 parts water to 1 part rice). Drain when tender and return to the empty pan and cover for 5-10 minutes. This removes as much as half the arsenic.
- Focus on basmati rice, white or brown, which tends to have less arsenic than other varieties.
If you eat a lot of rice and are a bit worried, consider adding other grains to your diet to replace some of the rice. For example, quinoa, barley, amaranth, buckwheat, millet, polenta, bulgur, and farro.
My Mom used to tell me this to encourage me to eat my spinach…which I hated! But dear old Mom was wrong. Spinach indeed contains a lot of iron, but almost all of the iron is in a form that your body cannot use, and it just passes right through you. Popeye was a fraud it seems!
Dietary iron comes in two forms. Heme iron, which is found only in animal products—meat, poultry, and seafood. Then there is non-heme iron which is found in many plants. Your body readily absorbs heme iron and can use it for making red blood cells and other needs. Non-heme iron, in contrast, is very poorly absorbed so the body cannot use it. To make things worse, spinach contains a lot of oxalic acid, which further inhibits iron absorption. So sorry Mom, I am not going to eat the spinach!
Because heme iron is found only in animal flesh, vegetarians/vegans often suffer from iron deficiency anemia. With careful diet planning and/or supplements this can be avoided.
Soy contains compounds called isoflavones, which mimic some effects of estrogen. Isoflavones were found to stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells in animals, hence the origins of this myth.
But there is no similar effect in humans, and in fact soy products may actually have protective effects regarding breast cancer. Plus, they are excellent sources of certain nutrients including protein and minerals. So, you can munch tofu, tempeh, miso etc. without concern.
It is believed by many that only animal-based foods contain all nine essential amino acids–the amino acids that humans cannot synthesize and must be obtained in the diet.
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and having all of them is essential to good health. But the fact is that all nine essentials are found in plants, just not all of them together in one food. So, eating a varied diet of plants – nuts, grains, beans, and so on – will give you all you need.
An allergen is a chemical in food that causes the allergic reaction. Food allergies an be deadly, as with a peanut allergy, which can kill you dead, or mild, as with my father-in-law who would get dry eyes after eating a banana.
It’s a mistake to think that allergens can be destroyed by cooking, even at high heat such as deep frying or grilling. For example, French fries may see fine for someone with a peanut allergy, but not if they are fried in peanut oil. It’s true that cooking works sometime. For example, people with dairy allergies may be able to eat cooked items, such as a cake, that contain milk. So don’t count on cooking to save the day!
This is one of those malarkey marketing scams that so many people fall for all the time. Coconut oil as the new super food, with claims that it lowers blood pressure, promotes weight loss, reduces blood glucose, protects against heart disease, erases wrinkles, increases energy, reduces inflammation, and counters Alzheimer’s disease. Nope to all these claims–y’know, that little pesky matter of evidence, of which there is none. That doesn’t stop some people, to the supplement makers’ delight.
Coconut oil does have a unique taste that some people love, and using it in your diet occasionally is not a problem. But don’t expect any health benefits. And, by the way, external use is fine.
Monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is a popular flavor enhancer that has gotten an essentially undeserved bad rap on the health front (see here). One more twist to this is the truly bizarre idea that MSG is somehow related to gluten, the protein found in wheat and some other grains that causes nasty reactions in celiacs and others with a gluten sensitivity. Nope, the two are completely unrelated. Perhaps the confusion stems from the two terms being somewhat similar: GLUTen and GLUTamate. A food may contain both gluten and MSG, of course, but that’s a different matter.
A lot of people still believe this but it just ain’t so. There was some validity to it long ago, before refrigeration, when oysters headed to market were more likely to spoil because of the warm weather. And back then, oysters were wild-harvested and there was a greater chance of them being contaminated with red tide or or bacteria, which flourish in warm water. With today’s regulated farming techniques, oysters are monitored for contamination. And, of course, with refrigeration they can be kept nice and cold from ocean to table.
Safety aside, however, some oyster aficionados stay away from oysters from May to August because of the taste–they claim that cold month oysters are tastier and plumper. Be that as it may, don’t let the time of year deter you if you are jonesing for oysters.
This is legal but somewhat deceptive labeling on the part of manufacturers, likely because some people try to avoid MSG (but see below). Check the ingredients–if they include hydrolyzed soy (or vegetable) protein (HSP), then you’ve got MSG. Seems that MSG is an unavoidable byproduct of the manufacture process for HSP and in fact is the main reason that HSP is added to foods. Let’s face it, there’s no denying that MSG makes many foods taste better.
So why isn’t MSG on the label? It seems that it is not required to list things that are “ingredients of ingredients.” For example, if a product contains milk, the ingredient list does not need to say “milk proteins,” and the same for anchovies and salt.
Now onto the sidebar. Why do some people want to avoid MSG? There’s this fantastical idea that MSG is bad for one’s health, for which there is precisely zero evidence. And some claim to get “Chinese restaurant syndrome” from MSG, a phenomenon that seems to be purely psychological. You can read more here.
