Permies Poll: Do you wash your rice?

Yes I wash my rice because it results in fluffier rice and less toxins. I also know that it reduces some minerals but I still prefer to wash. I also learned recently about rice water addition to the soil so now I save the rice water to add to my plants.

I do rinse my rice very well, several times before cooking.  i try to let the water be as clear as can be, and not milky.

Hi Thekla,

You have headed in the direction where my brain was going…..which is along the lines of a tuna and rice casserole…..maybe toss in a bottle of sake

I always wash rice. It gives me the perfect level of sticky.

I use the rinse water to make LAB (Lactic acid bacterial serum.) I ferment the rice water first (3-5days). This is used in Korea and other places for a hair/skin rinse. But for LAB I add one part to 10 parts milk. (if raw skim the cream). This also takes 3-5 days.

Both ferments are in a vessel with 1/3 airspace and a breathable cover. I like cotton tea towels or osnaburg or muslin. Keep out of light at room temps.

Milk will separate into a sediment at the bottom, a yellowish serum in the middle, and cheese curd at the top. Separate the liquid and the cheese.

Toss the sediment. Eat the cheese curd. Yum! Use the LAB on plants (diluted 1:1000) in animal water, or drink a shot daily as a probiotic. Keeps in the fridge about one month.

Side note if you practice KNF: when making rice to collect Indigenous Micro-Organisms (I M O) do NOT wash the rice. You want the extra starch to collect all the soil biology.

For white rice, I don't wash. For brown rice, I soak overnight, and then drain and rinse once.

No. I like parboiled rice as I don't like sticky rice. It's already been in water so they say it has less arsenic. I usually add coconut oil and onions. Make it in a frying pan. So easy.

John F Dean wrote:It seems that the FDA has a recommended arsenic limit for children of 100 parts per billion.  Even if we believe this, we still have to consider other sources of arsenic in our diet…such as the radish we pulled out of the ground, brushed off, and ate.  Arsenic is a naturally occurring trace element.

Brown rice appears to have 154 parts per million. So there is substantially more arsenic than the FDA would like.

Have you quoted the correct labels on your numbers? If so, it would take over 600 servings of brown rice to reach the FDA threshold...

I am Korean and I was taught to always wash my rice. My mom showed me pictures of rice being dried in the streets, and explained that it is a common practice in most of Asia. She also taught me to wash produce, and wash the lids of cans before opening, because rats live in warehouses, and pee on everything, and roaches crawl everywhere.

Most grains never get washed between farm and table, primarily because they must be kept dry. I imagine that rice or other grains from industrial farms, here in the US, gets harvested and processed mechanically, so no street dirt, but there is still plenty of dust and pollutants that can make it past the blowers, and get bagged with your seeds.  

Hi Coydon,

I suspected as much.  I referred earlier to the cranberries cause cancer scare on the late 1950s.   The news medias was all over it, cranberry farmers went bust … then someone actually read the research and crunched the numbers .   One would have to eat truck loads of cranberries ….

Coydon Wallham wrote:

John F Dean wrote:It seems that the FDA has a recommended arsenic limit for children of 100 parts per billion.  Even if we believe this, we still have to consider other sources of arsenic in our diet…such as the radish we pulled out of the ground, brushed off, and ate.  Arsenic is a naturally occurring trace element.

Brown rice appears to have 154 parts per million. So there is substantially more arsenic than the FDA would like.

Have you quoted the correct labels on your numbers? If so, it would take over 600 servings of brown rice to reach the FDA threshold...

I don't understand this.

Is my math right?

154 parts per million = 154000 parts per billion.

Where is the 600 servings number coming from?

John F Dean wrote:I suspected as much.  I referred earlier to the cranberries cause cancer scare on the late 1950s.   The news medias was all over it, cranberry farmers went bust … then someone actually read the research and crunched the numbers .   One would have to eat truck loads of cranberries ….

Similar story with rootbeer and sassafras, where rats force fed more than their body weight of the compound in the 60s were found to suffer liver problems. If you drink more than a 100+lbs of rootbeer a day, be sure it is safrole free, assuming you have a metabolism resembling that of a mouse/rat.

And comfrey!  A man with terminal liver condition tried to cure himself, drank comfrey tea, or it might have been root.  

He died of the liver condition, but comfrey was declared poison.  For a time health food stores and herbalists didn’t carry comfrey leaf or root.  Now , common knowledge is that leaf is ok to ingest, root has higher concentrations of the alkaloids ( or maybe different alkaloids) and so root extracts should only be used topically.

I feel the discussion of arsenic is off topic.

How in the world can washing rice in the home remove enough arsenic to be beneficial>

I read somewhere that washing rice will make it fluffier ...

Anne Miller wrote:
How in the world can washing rice in the home remove enough arsenic to be beneficial>

Wouldn't any removal of arsenic, even a small percentage, be considered beneficial?

Les Frijo wrote:I don't understand this.

Is my math right?

154 parts per million = 154000 parts per billion.

Where is the 600 servings number coming from?

I somehow missed this the first time. Yes, the comparison would actually dial up the number for concentrations, meaning each serving of rice would deliver 600 times the FDA recommended limit. I suspect Asian restaurants in the USA would have run out of customers by now if this were the case, hence my quick assessment that a disparity would be best explained in the other direction.

Looking at an FDA paper on the subject, arsenic in brown rice is actually listed as 154ppb, not ppm. I guess that would mean they recommend children get no more than a serving of brown rice every other day (or one serving max of white rice daily). This sounds in line with general social perceptions, although obviously this is just a crude guideline individuals should refine if they are concerned.

The FDA paper goes on to estimate observed chronic problems determined to result from real world arsenic exposure. They found lung or bladder cancer attributed to arsenic in rice in 39 people per million. The overall cancer risk was 90,000 per million, meaning rice was associated with ~0.04% of cancer cases, or four one hundreths of a percent of lung/bladder cancer cases attributed to arsenic in rice.

Going by the numbers in that paper, concerns over cancer prevention would be most productively focused in other areas. Apparently, arsenic is so omnipresent in our current environment, attempting to live 'gick-free' from it would not work.

Looking at the paper's introduction and conclusion, it seems likely to have been written to promote certain patterns or products for pediatric diets. I've seen ample evidence that the FDA readily departs from an objective assessment to pursue outside agendas, so I'd be interested to hear if other sources contradict what they say here. I have some confidence the numbers are roughly objective despite my concern with the conclusions stated.

Also, the paper mentions that washing/rinsing/soaking rice will reduce arsenic content somewhat, while also reducing some nutrients accompanying it. They refer to these minerals as "enriched", so I'm guessing that only applies to artificially "fortified" nutrients...?

Thanks Coydon. Cleared it right up for me. Appreciated.

I'm not worried about arsenic. Sounds like our bodies are much better at getting rid of it than say mercury or lead. However right now I have some "organic" "whole grain" brown rice. Says it's from Pakistan. I did not rinse it before the one time so far that I've tried it. It was almost inedible. Like some musty off flavors. Doesn't expire until 2027 according to the package I bought it in. I did end up feeding the last half or so to my worm bin. I will try making it one more time but will be washing it well first and see if there's any difference.

I wonder what other substances might be in organic agricultural products.

I guess when I find myself more interested in contaminants that naturally occur in varying concentrations depending on their place of origin, I will search that out.

Some things I am already aware of, like mercury in apex predator fish… but I bet there are a multitude of food contaminants from the natural world that I am blissfully unaware of.  Emphasis on the bliss!

I can be quite an extremist or fanatic about purity and exactness and precision.  If I take an interest, I can take that interest “farther than most”.  This has probably been a good thing most of my life.  Good for me, goood for my children, good for people I have encountered through the years, patients, friends and even strangers have also benefited from my thoroughness …

But now this extremely analytical and observant brain that gives great attention to detail is relaxing some.

People say “choose what hill you want to die on”. People engaged in conscious parenting say “choose your battles”.  My mentor Jim Faye said if you get in a control battle with your child, you MUST win, therefore choose wisely, don’t engage if you can’t win.  And NEVER fight with smooth muscle. 🤣 (eg, going to sleep, eating repugnant foods, etc)

I am old enough now, and healthy enough, that were I to start smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day, I would not have TIME to die of lung cancer.

Sooo I am as “careful” as I can be about food, contaminants, pharmaceuticals, supplements etc.  I try to keep 90% of my diet organic local foods that I cooked from scratch, try to avoid heavily contaminated foods, and weigh the comparative dangers of the contaminants.  Mostly I rely on decisions I made long ago.  Just my opinion that mercury is likely more harmful than trace amounts of arsenic….

If the rice from Pakistan doesn’t taste good, probably a good idea not to eat it.  If you believe it has a high heavy metal burden, probably don’t feed it to the chickens either.  But I don’t have the mental real estate to research and assemble a map of prevalence of contaminants by geographic region.

If someone else did, though, I would likely welcome the resource.

All this from the simple question do I wash my rice!  Sorry if I have gone off topic.  

Just an observation.

Rice is overall more calorie dense, and supports much bigger populations than other grains. More than half the world's population in fact.*  In Asia, there are cultures that choose rice for its flavor, and ones that choose rice for its calories. Thailand has jasmine and India has basmati. Korea and Japan are very selective of their short grain rice, with entire stores devoted to hyperlocal varieties. Population pressure has historically forced China to select rice for its calories.† This is changing. Increasing affluence has allowed the Chinese consumption of Jasmine, Basmati, Korean and Japanese varieties to increase.

Growing up in America many years ago, I found when eating out, that American rice was chosen for its calories, as it had no flavor of its own. This was in stark contrast to the short grain rice I ate at home, which tasted great, just by itself. I have been very glad in recent years to see the growing interest in more flavorful varieties, including some domestics, such as Carolina Gold, Blue Rose, pecan rice, and others.

So if you have been eating rice as a filler, just for the calories, it is time to branch out and try some flavorful varieties, that taste good, even without being smothered in gravy.  

*The Valeriepieris circle shows this.  

† In 1970, Yuan Longping, a Chinese agronomist, discovered a rice variety growing in a drainage ditch, and created hybridized rice, to increase yields 20-30%, and gave China the ability to feed its rapidly growing population. He received the Medal of the Republic, China's highest honor.

Hear hear Thekla!

I don't feel like it's off topic at all. Unless a poll is meant for yes no answers only. I suppose it doesn't include "and why". but it seems like it's implied.

I think often times the simplest questions lead to some more complex answers.

L Cho wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:
How in the world can washing rice in the home remove enough arsenic to be beneficial>

Wouldn't any removal of arsenic, even a small percentage, be considered beneficial?

Did you know that there are medically approved benefits?  I have heard it is used for treating certain cancers,  leukemia  for one.

Before modern antibiotics, arsenic was used to treat syphillis.  Mercury too.

Anne Miller wrote:
Did you know that there are medically approved benefits?  I have heard it is used for treating certain cancers,  leukemia  for one.

I don’t see how those medical uses apply here. We are talking about consuming rice, where any reduction in arsenic content, is a good thing.

To me, the discussion of medical benefits is germane…. if you are washing your rice to rid it of “contaminants” that also have medical applications, to me it speaks to the idea that tiny amounts are negligible, sometimes beneficial.  Wash if you prefer, but for those who stress over such things… it says “don’t worry” there’s probably no harm in it.

wash and parboil

This paper reports the effects of rinsing rice and cooking it in variable amounts of water on total arsenic, inorganic arsenic, iron, cadmium, manganese, folate, thiamin and niacin in the cooked grain. We prepared multiple rice varietals both rinsed and unrinsed and with varying amounts of cooking water. Rinsing rice before cooking has a minimal effect on the arsenic (As) content of the cooked grain, but washes enriched iron, folate, thiamin and niacin from polished and parboiled rice. Cooking rice in excess water efficiently reduces the amount of As in the cooked grain. Excess water cooking reduces average inorganic As by 40% from long grain polished, 60% from parboiled and 50% from brown rice. Iron, folate, niacin and thiamin are reduced by 50–70% for enriched polished and parboiled rice, but significantly less so for brown rice, which is not enriched.

Gray PJ, Conklin SD, Todorov TI, Kasko SM. Cooking rice in excess water reduces both arsenic and enriched vitamins in the cooked grain. Food Addit Contam Part A Chem Anal Control Expo Risk Assess. 2016;33(1):78-85. doi: 10.1080/19440049.2015.1103906. Epub 2015 Nov 2. PMID: 26515534.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Before modern antibiotics, arsenic was used to treat syphilis.  Mercury too.

The word Antibiotic; Greek in origin,  literally means "against life".

So just because something is an antibiotic doesn't mean it's advised. Yes mercury is antibiotic and antiviral, but is also a neurotoxin. It was used in tooth powders, mercurochrome and vaccines. All ill-advised and withdrawn from the market.

Interesting video:


What Happened to mercurochrome?

Wishing everyone good health and pure food, air & water!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:To me, the discussion of medical benefits is germane…. if you are washing your rice to rid it of “contaminants” that also have medical applications, to me it speaks to the idea that tiny amounts are negligible, sometimes beneficial.  Wash if you prefer, but for those who stress over such things… it says “don’t worry” there’s probably no harm in it.

The problem is that the amount of arsenic in rice can be quite variable, based on where it is grown. Some areas have higher amounts naturally occurring in the soil, and some places have it from pollution. Some governments monitor arsenic levels in rice, but it varies worldwide. If your rice comes with high levels of arsenic, then washing is advised, because it can reduce the dosage by a measurable amount.

And it is a similar problem to fluoride in water. Your dosage depends on how much you consume, compared to your body weight. Small children can get comparatively much higher dosages because of their much lighter body weight.

Last vote in apple poll was on February 8, 2026