Should Parents Be Worried About Arsenic Found in Gluten-Free Foods?
A recent discovery has parents everywhere wondering whether what they feed their children is really as healthy a they thought. These days, parents are going gluten-free, and believing that it is the best way to feed their children without having to worry about unhealthy things like additives, preservatives, pesticides, and other harmful chemicals. However, is gluten-free really the best way to go when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently found that some gluten-free foods were tested for arsenic and came back positive? Should parents be worried about these recent finds? Are the levels of arsenic a threat to the good health of not only children, but people who also live on gluten-free foods?
Believe it or not, it is completely normal for there to be trace amounts of arsenic in any foods whether they are gluten-free or not. When vegetables and fruits are growing, they absorb things from the soil and in the air. Arsenic is often found in small contents of the soil, even if it is kept pristine with no chemicals added to it. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducted their tests on gluten-free foods, they took over one thousand samples of rice. The results indicated that there were between .01 and 7.2 micrograms is every serving. Right now, the Food and Drug Administration is in the middle of doing a major evaluation on the arsenic that they are finding in gluten-free foods to see their overall effects. Will ingesting these small amounts of arsenic cause long term damage to adults, teenagers, the elderly, and young children? That is a question that the FDA is trying to find out.
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration tested over one thousand samples of gluten-free foods and found that they contain a small amount of arsenic in every serving. Anything that a plant is exposed to is going to be absorbed into the soil and then into the plant. Whether parents should worry about their kids eating foods with arsenic is still under review, but once the FDA has an answer they will share it with the rest of the world.
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