How to Cook Rice

Reduce Arsenic In Rice With This Cooking Tip

Rice is one of the top three leading food crops and a staple food source for many countries. It will surprise most people to learn that rice contains arsenic at varying levels amongst the varieties. Inorganic arsenic is present in rice and is considered dangerous due to it's association with adverse health effects. A good idea would be to consume rice moderately or prepare it in such a way that reduces the arsenic content.

A paper published by Science of the Total Environment details how cooking rice in a certain way removes over 50 percent of arsenic in brown rice and 74 percent in white rice, whilst still preserving its nutrients.

Instant Pot Rice

Pressure cooker cooked rice is convenient, fast and is basically the way to cook rice with the least effort. Unfortunately it does not comply with the method described here unless you are willing to modify the process by adding the rice to the pressure cooker from step 4 below.

The tested cooking method involves parboiling the rice which results in substantially reducing the amount of arsenic to safer levels. The parboiling with abortion method (PBA) involves:

Step 1: boil water (water to rice ratio: 4 cups to every 1 cup of rice)

Step 2: add rice and boil for 5 minutes

Step 3: empty water

Step 4: add fresh water (2 cups to every 1 cup of rice)

Step 5: continue to cook at low to medium heat until all the water is absorbed