[HN Gopher] U.S. rice exports to Haiti have unhealthy levels of ...
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. rice exports to Haiti have unhealthy levels of arsenic, study
finds
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 112 points
Date : 2024-02-24 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm a bit annoyed the article doesn't even bother to touch on
| whether this is a concern domestically. Are we exporting the bad
| stuff? Or are we eating it too?
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It is in fact a problem domestically as well, rice is a well-
| known bio-accumulator of arsenic. This is the reason for
| guidelines on how much rice pregnant women and children should
| eat.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Ugh, as someone with celiac disease, I don't have many starch
| choices. Don't take rice from me!
|
| The recent lead contamination in apple sauce made me glad we
| have the FDA, but also wonder if the FDA is doing enough.
| I've ran across some political conspiracy theories about
| doing away with the FDA and similar organizations, and I
| think I should appreciate the FDA while I can.
|
| But also, why did it take a bunch of kids getting lead
| poisoning for the FDA to find that apple sauce had a lead
| problem? Systematically testing products from the stores
| seems like a low hanging fruit, one of the simplest and most
| effective means of regulating the food supply. Is this not
| happening? What is the FDA doing that is more important than
| performing regular checks of the food in stores for
| contaminants?
|
| Maybe I'm a pessimist, but if rice commonly does have unsafe
| levels of arsenic, I'm not confident that anyone will say or
| do anything until it becomes a tragedy.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Probably fighting for the budget to do so.
|
| Certain political stances think that companies are the best
| people to curtail their own behavior. That inspections
| should never be done by the government.
|
| That no sane company would ever chase short term profit and
| stock price, over going bankrupt in 5 years, because they
| killed 1/2 their customers.
|
| So the FDA hasn't the budget to do random pulls I suspect.
|
| Of course, if you think of how many products are on grocery
| store shelves, pulling and testing 100k? 200k? products a
| week would be a budget indeed.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The bigger problem is we have a ton of regulatory overhead.
| The FDA and the USDA are both responsible for checking the
| safety of different parts of the food supply, and this
| causes issues. Instead of it being a clear priority for one
| agency it gets muddled in which agency should be looking at
| what. Then couple that with the fact that the FDA
| historically spends more time on drug safety than food
| safety and the USDA has conflicting priorities in many
| ways, combined together you end up with some real issues
| with catching things early and/or before they hit the
| market
|
| It could be solved by creating a single agency dedicated to
| food safety and removing the burden from two the agencies
| that have many other priorities on top of food safety.
|
| That in a tl;dr nutshell is the problem. There is a good
| overview of these dynamics done by Last Week Tonight that's
| on YouTube I recommend for an overview:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Za45bT41sXg
| mh- wrote:
| This sounds a lot like the justification for creating the
| DHS to encompass the historically-disjoint agencies. I
| don't disagree with you, but I worry that the result
| would end up providing food safety theatre, a la TSA.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I don't think the theater resulted from the joining of
| the agencies but rather the change in mindset post 9/11
| that led to the merger. Common root cause.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you're truly worried about rice consumption levels, you
| likely can order specialty rice from known locations that
| has less arsenic
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The other common arsenic bio-accumulator in our food is
| _brassica oleracea_ i.e. broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower,
| Brussels sprouts, and other cultivars of that plant.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| That's why just to stay safe, I exclusively eat french
| fries and ham. Sure my doctor keeps talking about
| cholesterol and something about the pressure of my blood,
| but they're just in the pocket of big brassica!
|
| Kidding aside, I really think that a more... "European" for
| lack of a better word... attitude would do us a lot of good
| in the US when it comes to food. Our bottled water is full
| of plastic, our rice and brassica are loaded with heavy
| metals, and a lot of our food just sucks. Our dairy is sub-
| par unless you buy the very high end, our meat varies
| wildly, and you never quite know what you're getting.
| Sabinus wrote:
| But it might put up food prices! Apparently people need
| the choice to slowly poison themselves with food produced
| extremely cheaply.
| gnicholas wrote:
| We're eating it too. Some brands are better than others. And
| brown rice is generally worse than white, since much of the
| arsenic is in the hull.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| What are the safe trace levels, assuming zero is impossible
| to achieve? I'm guessing our rice exports to Haiti are almost
| 100% white since brown rice is more of a domestic specialty
| crop (is it eaten much outside of the western developed
| world?).
| gnicholas wrote:
| Dunno, but we eat Lundberg because it appears to be lower
| than others: https://info.lundberg.com/arsenic-in-food
| DrewRWx wrote:
| Back in the day I hung out with of the Lunderberg kids
| and they were all in on providing the safest rice.
| huytersd wrote:
| Rice is going to have higher concentrations of arsenic no
| matter what. Indian rice has the lowest. It's very high in
| Bangladesh so I would never buy rice from there. Chinese rice
| is also very high in arsenic. The US, Italy and Spain are
| particularly bad as well. If you buy rice make sure it's Indian
| or Pakistani. Japanese rice also has lower levels of arsenic,
| comparable to India and Pakistan.
| nullhole wrote:
| What are you basing this on? Is there a place where
| measurements are catalogued?
| Gareth321 wrote:
| They're mostly right.
|
| > White basmati rice from California, India, and Pakistan,
| and sushi rice from the U.S. on average has half of the
| inorganic-arsenic amount of most other types of rice.
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-
| muc...
| mh- wrote:
| I was unfamiliar with this as well, but found these
| sources:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S18785352
| 1... (ctrl-f American)
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-
| muc...
| huytersd wrote:
| Research I did when I had my child since we eat a lot of
| rice. The numbers are readily available, some are listed in
| this comment thread.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| What about the second largest rice exporter, Thailand? This
| is what I found:
|
| > In comparison, the American rice accumulated the highest
| arsenic concentration (mean 0.257 mg kg-1) followed by the
| Thai rice (mean 0.200 mg kg-1), the Pakistani rice (mean
| 0.147 mg kg-1), the Indian rice (mean 0.103 mg kg-1), and
| finally the Egyptian rice (mean 0.097 mg kg-1).
|
| So the lowest is Egyptian rice?
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187853521.
| ..).
| huytersd wrote:
| Egypt doesn't really export a significant amount of rice
| (77th rice exporter in the world, <0.02% of Indian output)
| so its inclusion is irrelevant here since you will never
| find it in stores. Its arsenic level is basically the same
| as Indian rice.
| hgomersall wrote:
| My understanding is that rice you buy in China, which is
| presumably Chinese, is generally good for arsenic since the
| authorities are really hot on it, given the amount they eat.
| I can't remember where I read this but it seems plausible.
| huytersd wrote:
| That's not true. Arsenic levels are geo bound so cracking
| down on it does nothing. It's in the soil and the ground
| water.
| hgomersall wrote:
| This paper suggests it's not too bad: https://www.science
| direct.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...
| huytersd wrote:
| Their acceptable safe amount is 200mg/kg which is
| considered very high in the rest of the world. It's a
| 100% higher than the _average_ amount of arsenic in
| Indian rice.
| supertrope wrote:
| Food safety regulation enforcement is notoriously lax in
| PRC. People will import baby formula from foreign countries
| because it's safer.
| rafram wrote:
| Or in other countries. It makes total sense for the study to
| focus on analyzing samples in one market, but turning it into a
| news story without outside context is misleading - it seems
| like the story is about Haiti when it's really about the US.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| It mostly isn't a concern domestically. Americans don't eat
| nearly as much rice as Haitians, apparently.
|
| What constitutes a dangerous level of arsenic in the diet is
| controversial. First, arsenic is an essential micronutrient
| similar to selenium, and with a similar toxicity profile. There
| isn't much science to support the notion that the trace levels
| commonly found in food and water represent a health risk.
| Second, the recommended arsenic thresholds set by the
| government were the product of efforts by environmentalists to
| make opening new mines impractical by setting the standard
| below background environmental levels for many types of mining.
| This was sold under the theory that "arsenic is toxic at any
| dose" but per the first point, it clearly isn't.
|
| tl;dr: There was a lot of motivated reasoning and not much
| science behind the food and water arsenic recommended safe
| levels, and several regions of the planet are subject to
| significantly higher background levels with no ill effects. You
| definitely don't want to go out of your way to consume arsenic
| -- it _is_ toxic at some dose -- but much of the discussion
| around the level of risk is misleading.
| laborcontract wrote:
| What a gross generalization of what Americans eat. My family
| eats rice with almost every meal.
|
| Given that, is this a concern domestically? Is it a concern
| for my toddler?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Of course it is a gross generalization, talking about the
| diet of any country usually is.
|
| While everyone is focused on rice, the other major bio-
| accumulator is _brassica_ vegetables such as cabbage,
| broccoli, and cauliflower. Many parts of Asia consume large
| quantities of both plants daily as staples, which suggests
| that the risk is low in practice.
| hollerith wrote:
| Your Asia observation is relevant only if Asian levels of
| arsenic in the soil is comprable US levels, but I always
| thought levels in the soil in the southern US are an
| order of magnitude or 2 higher.
| kthartic wrote:
| > My family eats rice with almost every meal.
|
| I wouldn't say that's typical of most American households
| though. Ever heard of the Standard American Diet?
| aaomidi wrote:
| America is extremely diverse. There is no "standard
| diet".
| subpixel wrote:
| There empirically is a standard American diet. Of course
| diversity also exists but it's insignificant
| statistically. When this changes you'll see different
| food at rest stops on interstate highways. It'll happen
| but not very fast.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I think the whole point is that an American who eats a
| lot of rice is not served by the answer "it's not a
| problem, Americans don't eat a lot of rice".
|
| I think the people are trying to figure out if arsenic
| levels in rice will be a problem for them specifically,
| not our population as a whole. When they say "is that a
| problem here?" they mean "is the rice I am buying here of
| concern if I eat a lot of it?"
| aaomidi wrote:
| It's like the US is literally one of the most diverse
| countries out there.
|
| Nearly every meal I have has rice.
| fabian2k wrote:
| As far as I understand there is no actual evidence that
| arsenic is an essential trace element for humans. There is
| some data in animals, but not in humans.
| fermentation wrote:
| I can't recall where but I read something about southern US
| rice (especially Texas) having high levels of arsenic.
| California rice was reported as safer
| supertrope wrote:
| On cotton fields lead arsenate was used as a pesticide to
| kill boll weevils. Some of that land now is rice fields. USA
| rice is marked Product of USA to differentiate from foreign
| crop. California grown is marked California to differentiate
| it from US south grown rice.
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/11/arsenic.
| ..
| bell-cot wrote:
| > The study also pointed to comparatively loose U.S. limits on
| concentrations arsenic and cadmium, which can leach from both
| human and naturally occurring sources to contaminate food and
| water. Rice is especially prone to absorb these metals.
|
| So Haiti has nothing whatever to do with the root problem.
|
| And the headline forgot to mention the added bonus of toxic
| cadmium in U.S. rice.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The paper itself largely ignores cadmium. While it was "higher"
| it was a low number and in many of their samples below the
| limits of detection.
| rafram wrote:
| > "The flooding of U.S. rice into Haiti is not only economically
| violent for Haitian peyizan who struggle to sell their local
| product, but also violent toward the long-term health of Haitian
| consumers," the report said.
|
| I was really hoping that the academic writing trend where you
| call everything "violent" had died around 2021, but apparently
| it's still with us!
| anonporridge wrote:
| Future headline...
|
| > In a violent act against the Haitian people, the US halts
| export of low cost rice, leading to mass starvation and food
| insecurity.
|
| Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I mean, its not far off. The country has been in immense debt
| over freeing themselves from slavery. Economic violence is
| real, you undermine local markets then make them dependent on
| your exports, hurting the local economy and resiliency.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Could a Haiti ag industry (people, land, systems) that
| isn't interfered with support the domestic nutritional
| needs of the current population?
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| '"There's a long history in Haiti of groups like USAID
| flooding the market with rice and other imports," said
| Victor. "This is not what we need. We need real help and
| that means completely changing the agricultural system."'
|
| 'Paul O'Brien of Oxfam America says the lessons of the
| harm of flooding a country like Haiti with subsidized
| rice should have been learned a long time ago.
|
| '"The days are gone when we can throw up our hands in
| terms of unintended consequences; we know now what these
| injections can do to markets," he said. "The question we
| want asked is what is being done to guarantee long-term
| food security for Haitians."'
|
| '[...] there is plenty of malnutrition.
|
| 'Some 2.4 million Haitians -- out of a population of
| nearly 10 million -- cannot afford the minimum daily
| calories recommended by the World Health Organization.'
|
| 'But donors often sink more money into emergency aid than
| such long-term projects.'
|
| 'Before the 1970s, Haitians only ate rice once or twice a
| week, getting starch from other local staples like
| sorghum and manioc, Woolley said.
|
| 'Today, rice is a staple but often U.S.-subsidized rice
| costs less than locally grown crops. On Friday, a
| 55-pound bag of US rice cost about $36, compared with $60
| for the same size sack of Haitian rice.'
|
| 'In the 1970s, fearing indigenous pigs could spread swine
| fever, the United States -- in conjunction with USAID --
| moved to replace all of Haiti's hearty Creole pigs with
| pigs from Iowa. The end result was the fragile U.S. pigs
| often became sick, preferred expensive feed and had fewer
| litters.'
|
| '[Haitians need] cheap credit, cheaper fertilizer and
| more government aid, he said.'
|
| [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna35608836
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| Using the word "violence" the way you are is clearly
| newspeak; it's inflammatory and unhelpful.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| I believe the 2nd definition fits this use case.
|
| From dict.org
|
| 2. Injury done to that which is entitled to respect,
| reverence, or observance; profanation; infringement;
| unjust force; outrage; assault. [1913 Webster]
| analognoise wrote:
| Um it's violence and privilege to use famous examples of
| "Western" literature to make your point and it doesn't
| consider the diverse heritage of learners.
|
| Could you please cease doing violence and not think those
| thoughts?
|
| (/s This is sarcasm - the second line obviously
| references Doublethink. The example is meant to point out
| how ridiculous it is that thought is being shut down by
| accusing people with an expanded/changed definition of
| violence)
| anonporridge wrote:
| I don't disagree.
|
| But the broader point is that whenever you have a strong
| and weak entity interacting, you can always find a way to
| frame anything the stronger entity does as "violence".
|
| Not sharing your wealth and power? Violence by indirectly
| causing suffering with your hoarding.
|
| Sharing your wealth and power? Violence by harming the
| weaker entity's ability to take care of themselves and be
| independent.
|
| At the end of the day, some armchair critic is always going
| to accuse the stronger/wealthier party of violence, so
| accusations of such lose their meaning and people
| increasingly ignore the boy who cried wolf.
| tomrod wrote:
| > whenever you have a strong and weak entity interacting,
| you can always find a way to frame anything the stronger
| entity does as "violence".
|
| Correct. While it's a bit crude term than the historical
| "inquitable", it accurately describes trade surpluses
| being lost to the weaker party compared to a more equal
| exchange. This is why BATNA is an important principle.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| What happens if they just don't pay the debt?
|
| Is Fr*nce going to invade?
| diab0lic wrote:
| Probably not but they'll have a harder time finding
| capital the next time they need to borrow. It is
| generally unwise to default on debt if you think you may
| need to borrow again.
| colechristensen wrote:
| That's not it. You just can't help a freezing person by
| setting fire to them.
|
| Giving people money for food raises the prices of food.
| Giving people free food ruins the people selling food.
|
| A starving population is an economics problem, rarely is it a
| commodity shortage.
|
| If you want to distort an economy you have to do it
| intentionally and with great care with an eye for helping it
| grow.
|
| For example, look at what they already import from your
| country, buy it from your own producers and then sell it at a
| deep discount, but watch out for who else sells it and if
| you'll distort any other exporters markets.
|
| Look at their needs for capital equipment, especially where
| efficiency is involved and sell it to them cheaply, again
| paying attention to not trample existing markets.
|
| Many more examples but in essence pay attention to the
| consequences of your actions, don't just focus on one and
| ignore the rest.
| viraptor wrote:
| This is not wrong in any way. If you undermine someone's
| ability to help themselves and then withdraw your help,
| that's two bad actions. There are other ways to go about
| helping.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> There are other ways to go about helping._
|
| The best ways to help countries and communities out of
| poverty is through quality education and eradicating the
| endemic corruption.
|
| Throwing aid and free money at that corrupt and broken
| system, won't fix anything.
|
| It just perpetuates a cycle of systemic addiction where the
| people/society depend on your aid to function and are
| therefore under your control.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| This train of thought has very "just build more housing
| to solve homelessness" character. While it's a true
| statement, there are people in need in the interim that
| would eventually be helped by more housing, but will be
| irrevocably harmed without short and mid term
| interventions.
|
| In your case, yeah, eradicating corruption might solve
| the issue, but that's something that has eluded the
| entire human race since time immemorial. So in the
| meantime while we work to solve the human equivalent of
| an NP Hard problem, let's help people out.
| gruez wrote:
| >This is not wrong in any way
|
| ...other than calling it "violence". If there's no use of
| force or threat thereof, it shouldn't be called "violence".
| marci wrote:
| Haiti used to have a thriving rice production and could feed
| itself. In the 90s, the then government made some bad
| decisions when dealing with the IMF and reduced import taxes
| to almost nothing. At which point, farmers where not able to
| compete anymore, and the dark spiral began.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| It is overused, for sure, and stylistically obtuse, but
| nitpicking when the meaning is clear ("destructive"). And it is
| true: NGOs and "aid" that indiscriminately flood a market with
| cheap products under the lazy and foolish belief that giving
| away free stuff is a Good Thing does incredible damage to
| economies. It's one thing to distribute aid during a crisis.
| It's another to keep shipping free stuff indefinitely.
|
| In this case, free rice is having the effect of price dumping.
| You can't compete with free, so local agriculture and cuisine
| is being wrecked, and diets are changing for the worse.
|
| Another example is the distribution of so-called mitumba,
| where, say, ragpickers from New Jersey ship tons of used and
| second hand clothing to Africa, destroying the local textile
| industry. This, and intentional Chinese tactics (and probably
| American, among others), is how, for example, Nigerian cotton
| and textiles were destroyed.
|
| If you want a country to flourish, often it's a matter of
| fucking off and letting it develop. Investment is good, of
| course, as long as it's done on the basis of a partnership
| between labor and capital, not taking over and pumping and
| dumping competition so you can effectively colonize the country
| economically. Unregulated free trade is always promoted by the
| powerful, as they can easily swoop into developing economies
| and entrench themselves before the local industrial base even
| has a chance to establish itself.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > but nitpicking when the meaning is clear ("destructive")
|
| But "destructive" and "violent " aren't synonymous. Its not
| nitpicking at all.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Then you are not familiar with the historical range of uses
| of the term, because it can certainly be synonymous. To "do
| violence to" does not imply physical force, but damage. I
| already said the particular manner in which the term is
| used is obtuse, but it is most definitely nitpicking,
| especially when all the original comment has to offer is a
| comment on how he doesn't like this particular usage of the
| word (as I said, I am also not a fan), paying no attention
| to the much more important substance of the article.
| chaps wrote:
| Indeed. Just look at phrases like "violent contrasts"
| [1]. That phrase has lasted throughout the entirety of
| its history back to 2004, too! [2]
| Tenebrism, from Italian tenebroso ("dark, gloomy,
| mysterious"), also occasionally called dramatic
| illumination, is a style of painting using especially
| pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are *violent
| contrasts of light and dark*, and where darkness becomes
| a dominating feature of the image.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenebrism
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tenebrism&
| oldid=8...
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > t's one thing to distribute aid during a crisis. It's
| another to keep shipping free stuff indefinitely.
|
| Everyone agrees, but Haiti is essentially in perpetual
| crisis.
|
| If you have to pick between economic harm and starvation,
| people are going to pick economic harm.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Here's the thing though - those are both entirely fair uses of
| the word.
|
| Economic violence is a real thing.
|
| And selling rice with internationally illegal levels of arsenic
| and other toxins is violent too.
| kortilla wrote:
| Why don't we ratchet the Overton Window a bit further and
| introduce the term "economic rape" when you force product
| into an economy. That's bound to produce some useful
| discussions.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Dude, poisoning people is violent. Fucking up their economy
| for profit is violent.
|
| What is complicated about that?
| kortilla wrote:
| Don't be obtuse. When people say "economic violence" they
| aren't referring to poisoning.
|
| There are two things in discussion:
|
| - the "economic violence" of food relief programs because
| it makes it hard for local farmers.
|
| - high arsenic levels in US rice
| chaps wrote:
| Or we could stop bike shedding here and just try to
| understand the intent of the written words.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's not bike shedding. It makes the writer look like an
| emotional moron when they use terms like "economic
| violence" for an export program that disrupts one small
| industry.
|
| Do you consider cheese exports from France to be economic
| violence against Wisconsin?
| chaps wrote:
| Not going to get involved in this any further because I
| still think you're bike shedding. Just -- there's some
| intense irony in saying someone looks like "emotional
| moron" to win an argument. Stones, glass houses, etc.
|
| But if France was knowingly shipping arsenic-laden cheese
| to the US in a way that displaced the local economy to
| the degree that the only available cheese is poison?
| That'd, at least, cause some violent diarrhea.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > And selling rice with internationally illegal levels of
| arsenic and other toxins is violent too.
|
| You'd have to prove intent to call it violence. Seems more
| like negligence. Its also puzzling why someone would assume
| an intent to harm in this scenario .
| mandmandam wrote:
| > You'd have to prove intent to call it violence.
|
| Are we supposed to believe _no one_ involved in selling
| this _massive_ amount of rice knows what we learned in
| _2007_ [0] ?!
|
| > At one point during the reign of King Cotton, farmers in
| the south central United States controlled boll weevils
| with arsenic-based pesticides, and residual arsenic still
| contaminates the soil. Today, rice paddies cover fields
| where cotton once grew, and a large market basket survey
| published in the 1 April 2007 issue of Environmental
| Science & Technology now shows that rice grown in this area
| contains, on average, 1.76 times more arsenic than rice
| grown in California.
|
| 'Negligence' is not the word for this. It's violence, and
| it's inexcusable.
|
| 0 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892142/
| krapht wrote:
| the way rice is cooked can reduce arsenic levels by 80%.
| we don't need to completely forbid rice production in the
| southern US
| boringuser2 wrote:
| Speaking of violence:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haitian_massacre
|
| There aren't many instances in history where people are
| actually systematically exterminated on the grounds of their
| race, so Haiti is of historical significance.
| vkou wrote:
| It is indeed quite unusual for a chattel slave uprising to
| _actually succeed_. It 's more the norm for them to be
| crushed and for their oppressors to continue to brutalize
| them with no consequences for decades and centuries to come.
|
| Nobody bats an eye at the reprisals that follow when the
| slavers win.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| In the case of Haiti, the country was isolated
| internationally for decades as a result of the revolt. The
| US refused to recognize Haiti for nearly 60 years,
| ironically despite the fact that the US was itself founded
| on a revolt on grounds that were less serious. This
| naturally stunted Haiti's development economically.
| overstay8930 wrote:
| Some people really want to normalize violence
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| It is not economically violent for the poor people who buy the
| rice.
| tptacek wrote:
| _Please don 't pick the most provocative thing in an article or
| post to complain about in the thread. Find something
| interesting to respond to instead._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| teslabox wrote:
| Arsenic used to be added to chicken feed, to change the color of
| the meat. The chickens' arsenic droppings were used to fertilize
| rice fields. Rice concentrates arsenic out of the soil. I think
| the rice from Arkansas and other southern states are the most
| contaminated with arsenic. Whoops.
|
| There are cooking methods to remove arsenic from rice. Simplest
| method is to use a coffee percolator to run fresh hot water
| through the rice. The other way is to boil the rice in lots of
| water for five minutes, discard the water, then add fresh water
| and cook until completed.
| laborcontract wrote:
| This is by far the most helpful and useful comment in this
| thread and it's sitting down here at the bottom. Thank you I
| will be doing those things.
| ThisIsMyAltAcct wrote:
| I feel like this has been known for years. Don't know why nothing
| has been done about it yet
| anonporridge wrote:
| I'd be curious to see a study that weighs the health costs of too
| much arsenic, with the health costs of too few calories. It's not
| intrinsically obvious what the cost/benefit analysis is.
|
| Obviously, this assumes that if Haiti doesn't import bad rice
| from the US, their calories per capita would decrease or cost per
| calorie increase, which isn't necessarily the case. Also
| obviously, we should do everything we can to decrease arsenic
| content for healthier food.
|
| It's akin to the problem of our housing standards and regulations
| that are so high, that we struggle to build low cost housing that
| satisfies code, so instead tons of people end up living on the
| street.
|
| The perfect is the enemy of the good.
| bombcar wrote:
| One way we "split the eye of the needle's onion" or whatever is
| differentiate on things you "do for others" and those you "do
| to yourself". For example, relax building codes for work done
| by the homeowner - the problem comes when people sell.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I really wouldn't be shocked if exported agricultural commodities
| were held to a different standard than if they were sold
| domestically or imported. Likely they're only held to the
| standard of the exporting nation and to me it is likely that if
| the industry senses any form of lax enforcement many players will
| simply press their luck on how often they get caught by overseas
| regulators.
| cchi_co wrote:
| Yes, I also sometimes think that exported goods may only adhere
| to the standards of the exporting country, which may be less
| stringent than the standards of the importing country. This
| could lead to exported goods being unsafe for consumption.
| hbarka wrote:
| It raises questions about the levels of toxins in imported and
| domestic grains. Who does the measurement and is the data open
| and trustworthy?
| cchi_co wrote:
| I have also heard that Indian rice has the lowest level of
| arsenic. Indian farmers are increasingly using rice varieties
| that are resistant to arsenic uptake and also the climate (hot
| and humid, which helps to reduce arsenic)
| viraptor wrote:
| What's the source?
| shrubble wrote:
| Rice also concentrates fluoride, as does tea.
| alecco wrote:
| Cooking methods to remove arsenic from rice:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...
|
| Summary of bes method (PBA): pre-boil for 5', remove water, add
| fresh water, then cook rice normally.
|
| https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00489697203687...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Par-boiling then steaming also happens to be The Right Way to
| cook it, to my taste.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Thank you so much for an actual action item. I wish that it was
| possible that each post could have one as useful as this.
| bethekind wrote:
| Does this work with lead and cadmium as well?
| baxtr wrote:
| Won't work with a rice cooker though :/
| afiori wrote:
| maybe you could pre heat the water pour the rice for 5
| minutes and then start fresh with new water.
| cs702 wrote:
| Whenever I read sad stories about poor countries like Haiti[a], I
| like to ponder a hypothetical scenario:
|
| If one were a god who could, with the snap of a finger, replace
| the country's entire population with an equal number of people,
| randomly sampled from a rich, diverse country (say, Canada, but
| any other rich, diverse country would do), how would the poor
| country's fortune change, if at all, over the course of a
| generation?
|
| ---
|
| [a] According to the World Bank, Haiti is the poorest country in
| the Americas: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview
| finikytou wrote:
| you can look at south africa and see those sample of people.
| bombcar wrote:
| You can look at the island that Haiti shares. Seems pretty
| stark.
| mglz wrote:
| Do the swapped people maintain their experiences, education and
| general attitude towards each other?
| cs702 wrote:
| Great question, very much aligned with my thinking!
|
| Yes, assume they maintain their current experience,
| education, and general attitude towards each other.
| sumeruchat wrote:
| You can easily argue it would change significantly and not
| because of the reasons you think. Its because "rich" people
| will help "rich" people become rich again and not "poor"
| people. Value goes where its likely to increase in worth
| nitwit005 wrote:
| You've halved the gang population, but that's still probably
| plenty to rob all the newcomers.
|
| They'd basically need to be sent with an army to have a chance,
| and even then, they'd probably set up some ethnic enclave.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| Isn't this the same rice we're eating here in the US?
| colordrops wrote:
| Most rice has unhealthy levels of arsenic.
| bombcar wrote:
| What are the healthy levels of arsenic?
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > heavy metals that can increase risks of cancer and heart
| disease
|
| I'd say this is the least of Haiti's problems right now, as
| virtually nobody there is expected to live long enough to develop
| any cancer or long-term heart disease.
| luckman212 wrote:
| Not trying to minimize the gravity of this situation, however I
| want to point out that soaking rice in water overnight prior to
| cooking, as well as cooking it in a larger quantity of water
| (excess water is drained off, rather than cooking with less water
| until rice is dry) has been tested to reduce arsenic levels by
| around 80%. I've been doing this for years, and once you make a
| habit out of it, it's really not a big deal. Makes me feel better
| about eating rice 2-3x per week.
|
| [0]
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2F1MDzyW55pg97Tdpp...
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221345301...
| blacksqr wrote:
| Most Hatians are critically short of both drinkable water and
| cooking fuel (not to mention food), so any advice to take extra
| steps that require extra fuel or water are likely to be ignored
| for the sake of short-term survival.
| dusted wrote:
| Before I understood the true depth of mans incompetence, I'd have
| attributed this to evil Americans keeping the best to themselves.
|
| But now I just feel sorry for both Haitians and Americans because
| they're probably eating the same bad rice.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| This is pure FUD because it's not a racist conspiracy. Rice grown
| in America contains unhealthy levels of arsenic because of
| America's soils and the nature of rice.
| tmaly wrote:
| My neighbor, a retired chemist, tested US grown rice sold in
| Costco and found high level of arsenic.
|
| He said some of it comes from run off at chicken farms where they
| use arsenic to give the meat a better color.
| alwa wrote:
| > "The flooding of U.S. rice into Haiti is not only economically
| violent for Haitian peyizan who struggle to sell their local
| product, but also violent toward the long-term health of Haitian
| consumers," the report said.
|
| This seems like a very strange way for a research paper to talk
| about chemical analyses. The Reuters article doesn't cite the
| paper directly, but it's here [0].
|
| I note from their paper that rice from _all_ non-Haitian origins,
| not just the US, contained what they describe as worrying levels
| of arsenic. I'm also confused by their (mislabeled) graphs
| attempting to suggest that the levels are routinely harmful.
| Those graphs all seem to reflect people whose bodies weigh
| between 8 and 20kg each eating 1.5 cups dry = 300g dry = 1kg
| cooked rice daily.
|
| That seems like a lot of rice for a baby to eat, but I don't know
| what's normal. What's more, their graphs seem like they're saying
| both local and imported rice would largely fall below the "cancer
| risk" threshold they show on one set of graphs, and both largely
| exceed the "non-cancer health outcome" thresholds they're
| interested in.
|
| To top it off, in their conclusion, they mention that they know
| they've been measuring the wrong thing all along: they're
| measuring total arsenic levels, while the standards they use
| refer to concentrations of inorganic arsenic. The EPA says that
| organic arsenic is nontoxic and harmless. [2]
|
| > By measuring only total arsenic levels, our measurements do not
| exactly correspond to thresholds set by Codex and the U.S. FDA,
| which are based on inorganic arsenic concentrations.
|
| A quick look at other widely-cited experimental research suggests
| that around 40% of the total arsenic in US rice is the harmful,
| inorganic kind [3]. And the remainder of the total arsenic count
| is the nontoxic organic kind.
|
| Which suggests that if the researchers at hand had measured the
| thing that was actually harmful, instead of including harmless
| things with a similar name, they'd find that all the rice in
| question was below the worrisome thresholds, even for the small
| humans they're worried about.
|
| I wonder if the same policy agenda informs the rest of the
| editorial decisions at the "Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems,
| and Community Development." A causal glance suggests an activist
| kind of flavor [1], but I don't have much of a baseline on norms
| in the "food justice" discipline.
|
| [0]
| https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/vie...
| [1] https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj [2] e.g.
| https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/documents/ar...
| [3] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es802612a
| teekert wrote:
| "According to the study, average arsenic and cadmium
| concentrations were nearly twice as high in imported rice
| compared to Haitian-grown product, with some imported samples
| exceeding international limits."
|
| I'm a biologist. I worry about these differences. Many things we
| measure in our bodies are reported in "fold change", we plot
| things on logarithmic scales, things go 10x, 100x before we call
| them "active".
|
| The same happened in my house, I had the lead contenting of the
| drinking water measured. It was 1.5 (something) - in the green. A
| fried does it: 2.7, orange. He is recommended to flush his pipes
| at the start of each day.
|
| I just can't help but feel very weird about these very small
| differences between "safe" and "alarming".
|
| How about you all?
| bboygravity wrote:
| Depends on what the (something) is.
| teekert wrote:
| I can look it up (ug/L or something). But my whole point is
| about the factors. Super low concentrations and then a factor
| 2 is from safe to alarming? I almost don't buy it.
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