An Environmental Problem to Worry About

From top: lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic (Slideshare)

Consumer Reports has a "troubling" report on heavy metals in American food:

CR bought 50 popular packaged foods intended for babies and toddlers, and tested them for arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. What we found was troubling. Every food had measurable levels of at least one of the four heavy metals.

Heavy metals have been linked to a host of medical conditions, including cardiovascular, kidney, and bone disease, cancer, and diabetes. The toxins aren't flushed easily, meaning that frequent ingestion at "safe" doses may lead to harmful accumulations. CR has advice on what consumers can do:

While you might not be able to eliminate heavy metals from your food, adults and children can follow these steps to minimize risks:

Limit consumption of foods that tend to be higher in heavy metals...

Eat an array of fruits, vegetables, and grains. "That helps you avoid overconsuming any one type of food, plus a varied diet has many other health benefits," says Amy Keating, R.D., a Consumer Reports nutritionist. And getting enough calcium, vitamin C, selenium, and certain other nutrients may offset some of the harm from some heavy metals.

Rethink rice prep. To help reduce arsenic content, rinse rice, cook it in a lot of water (as you would pasta), and drain it afterward.

Your humble blogger stopped eating brown rice five years ago. The benefits of higher fiber weren't worth the cost of higher arsenic consumption.

Another piece of advice: avoid eating food imported from China. The potential toxicity of imported foodstuffs is due to decades of rapid economic development: 20 percent of China’s farmland is polluted with heavy metals.

My hunch is that this environmental problem is more likely to kill us than climate change.