Is rice safe for my baby?

The verdict

Rice is fine. Rice drinks are not.

GOV.UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is direct about this: rice tends to take up more arsenic from the environment than other cereal crops, and the arsenic in rice also tends to be a more toxic form, with the potential to increase the risk of illnesses in humans, including cancer. Then, immediately: this does not mean you should not eat rice. You can enjoy rice as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

The single rule that does exist concerns rice milk. The NHS states that children under 5 years old should not have rice drinks as a substitute for breast milk or infant formula, or cows' milk after 1 year old, as they may contain too much arsenic. GOV.UK gives the reason: compared to other consumers, young children tend to drink more milk and have a lower body weight.

Why rice and not other grains

Arsenic is naturally present in the environment, and it gets into food and water in varying amounts in different regions of the world. GOV.UK notes plainly that it's impossible to eliminate arsenic from food.

Rice concentrates it more than other cereals for agronomic reasons. It is grown in flooded paddies, and flooding changes the chemistry of the soil so that arsenic becomes far more available to the plant. Rice roots then take it up efficiently. Two things follow: the amount is higher, and the form is worse. The arsenic in rice skews towards inorganic arsenic, which is the toxicologically significant kind.

Babies are more exposed than adults per kilogram of body weight for two reasons at once. They eat a narrower range of foods, so a single ingredient carries more of the diet, and they are small. Rice cereal has historically been a very common first food, and a rice-heavy weaning diet concentrates the exposure at exactly the age when it matters most. The FDA is explicit that it is taking action because exposure to inorganic arsenic is associated with neurodevelopmental effects.

What the regulators have already done for you

This is the part that usually gets left out of consumer coverage, and it changes how worried a parent needs to be.

In the UK, GOV.UK states that there are maximum levels set in contaminants legislation on the levels of inorganic arsenic allowed in rice and rice products, and that stricter levels are set for foods intended for young children. It adds that these maximum levels are regularly reviewed and that manufacturers are responsible for making sure the food they produce is safe and as low in arsenic as reasonably achievable. The NHS repeats the point in its own weaning guidance.

In the United States, the FDA issued final guidance in August 2020 identifying an action level of 100 micrograms per kilogram, or 100 parts per billion, of inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereals. It states that this level protects public health by reducing infants' dietary exposure to inorganic arsenic and is achievable by industry, and that it intends to consider the action level as an important source of information regarding whether infant rice cereal is adulterated within the meaning of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The FDA's own sampling shows the level is largely being met: results from sampling in 2018 show that 76% of samples were at or below the 100 ppb level, compared to 47% of samples tested in 2014 and 36% of samples tested between 2011 and 2013. Both white and brown rice cereals improved, but the improvement was greatest for white rice cereals, which tend to have lower levels of inorganic arsenic overall.

That last clause is worth reading twice, because it inverts the usual assumption. Brown rice is not the healthier choice here. Arsenic concentrates in the bran layer that milling removes.

What to do in practice

Vary the grains. The FDA's advice alongside the action level is that infant rice cereals fortified with iron are a good source of nutrients for infants and are often used as the first or only infant cereal given, but that other iron-fortified infant cereals including oat, barley and multigrain can be a first or early infant cereal. Rotating cereals costs nothing and removes most of the exposure.

Do not treat rice as a daily staple for a baby. Rice a few times a week in a diet that also contains pasta, oats, potato, bread, couscous and quinoa is a different exposure from rice at every meal.

Skip rice drinks entirely under five. Not as a milk substitute, and there is no reason for a young child to drink them at all. GOV.UK notes that children over five years old and adults can drink rice milk as part of their balanced diet.

Check the ingredients of processed baby snacks. Rice flour, rice starch and puffed rice appear in a great many rice cakes, teething biscuits and baby crisps, so a diet that looks varied on the plate can still be rice-dominated in the snack drawer.

Do not bother rinsing or over-cooking to reduce arsenic. Neither the FSA nor the FDA recommends any home preparation method as a control measure, and neither claims a domestic technique brings levels down reliably.

If your child has been drinking rice milk

GOV.UK's own reassurance is the right one, and the NHS echoes it: do not worry if your child has already had rice drinks. There's no immediate risk to them, but it's best to switch to a different kind of milk.

If the rice drink was being used because of a cows' milk allergy or intolerance, do not simply stop it without a replacement. GOV.UK advises talking to a health professional such as a doctor or dietitian to find a suitable milk alternative. Unsweetened calcium-fortified alternatives are available, and a dietitian can make sure the swap does not create a calcium or energy gap.

Where guidance differs

The UK regulates the drink; the US regulates the cereal. The UK's one consumer-facing rule is an age limit on rice milk as a milk substitute under five. The US has no equivalent rice drink age rule in FDA guidance, and instead sets a numerical action level of 100 ppb inorganic arsenic specifically for infant rice cereals. Two regulators, two entirely different intervention points.

The UK sets legal maximum levels; the FDA sets an action level. UK and EU contaminants legislation sets statutory maximum levels for inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products, with stricter levels for foods intended for young children. An FDA action level is guidance that informs enforcement rather than a hard statutory cap.

The age boundary is five in the UK. That is unusually old for an infant feeding rule, and it exists because the exposure is driven by body weight and by how much of the diet is milk, both of which persist well past toddlerhood.