Arsenic, cadmium, and lead in rice and rice products on the Austrian market.

Fifty-one rice samples, i.e. 25 rice varieties, 8 rice products, and 18 rice containing baby foods from the Austrian market were surveyed for arsenic, cadmium, and lead. Inorganic arsenic (iAs) is most toxic to human health, and its mean concentrations in rice were 120 µg kg, 191 µg kg in rice products, and 77 µg kg in baby foods. The average dimethylarsinic acid and methylarsonic acid concentrations were 56 µg kg and 2 µg kg, respectively. The highest iAs concentration was found in rice flakes (237 ± 15 µg kg), close to the Maximum Level (ML) set by the EU regulation for husked rice (250 µg kg). The levels of cadmium (12 to 182 µg kg) and lead (6 to 30 µg kg) in the majority of rice samples were below the European ML. Upland grown rice from Austria showed both, low inorganic arsenic (<19 µg kg) and cadmium (<38 µg kg) concentrations.