The United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency (akin to the FDA here in the United States) just published research regarding arsenic levels in rice drinks. As a result, they’ve issued the following advice regarding toddlers:

“As a precaution, toddlers and young children between 1 and 4.5 years old should not have rice drinks as a replacement for cows’milk, breast milk, or infant formula. This is because they will then drink a relatively large amount of it, and their intake of arsenic will be greater than that of older children and adults relative to their body weight.”

According to the recent study, arsenic was found in all 60 samples tested, but the levels found were below legal limits. Those limits were set in the 1950s, however, before it was known that the inorganic form of arsenic can cause cancer. While there are low levels of arsenic in many foods and all around us, the inorganic type is found in higher levels in rice drinks,thus the cause for concern. There are also no uniform regulations for arsenic levels in the European Union but a risk assessment coming out this September may result in the development of EU-wide regulations.

Give toddlers the healthy option – AlfaLite.