Tuesday, May 14, 2013

FDA Sued over Arsenic in Chicken


Last week the FDA was sued  by the Center for Food Safety and eight other government agencies.for  ignoring a 3 year old petition to not allow arsenic in chicken feed. Nitarsone can be added to chicken feed and it contains an inorganic form of arsenic. Because it was inorganic it was originally thought  to be less harmful. It was later found that the arsenic was converted to an organic form inside the chicken.

Arsenic can reduce our ability to fight off some types of influenzas such as N1H1 and Swine Flu This can increase the chances serious disease or death. Long term exposure to Arsenic increases the risk of getting cancers of the bladder, kidney, liver, prostate, skin, lungs .

In some  places they use chicken manure to fertilize for rice. This is thought to be the reason that American rice contains a lot of arsenic.

So what can we do to protect our health. We can buy organic chicken. We can thoroughly rinse rice before cooking. We can cook rice like pasta and throw out the extra water.

My favorite rice is Jasmine Rice. It has one eighth the arsenic and to my taste buds it tastes better.  
 

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