A few months ago, Dr. Oz announced that he had found worrisome levels of arsenic in apple juice, and it was all over the news. The FDA shot back, saying his study was flawed, and rushed to assure the public that apple juice was safe. To be honest, I wasn't too worried at the time. My family doesn't drink a lot of apple juice. Alden, my two-year-old, gets a mixture of 90 percent water and 10 percent juice -- if he's lucky. (He seems pretty content with this.)
But last week, when even Fox News was sounding the alarm about a Consumer Reports study on arsenic in apple juice, I started to wonder if I'd been too casual -- particularly now that it's also been found in rice products like rice milk and may be in some rice-based infant cereals. Graham's first solid food was rice cereal. And we eat a lot of rice in our house! I'm Chinese for goodness sake!
Arsenic causes cancer and other health problems. Was even 10 percent juice too much? And what about apples and applesauce? I've never even thought twice about letting Alden munch on an apple a day, or even two.
I spoke to Urvashi Rangan, the director of safety and sustainability at Consumer Reports. She assured me that there was no need to panic -- but there was a lot to think about. "The food system needs to be safer for our children, and our children's children," she says.
There is no government regulation on arsenic levels in juice, despite the fact that young kids drink a lot of it -- perhaps too much. (A Consumer Reports poll found that 35 percent of kids under age five drink more than seven ounces of juice a day, above the six-ounce limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.)
The CR study found that 10 percent of the juice samples they tested had arsenic levels greater than ten parts per billion, which exceeds the current EPA limit on arsenic in drinking water. (Many experts think that the drinking water standard for arsenic should be stronger, too.) Most of the arsenic they found, unlike in the Dr. Oz study, was the cancer-causing, inorganic arsenic. Even more worrisome was that there was no single brand of juice, including organic brands, that was reliably free of arsenic.
Here's why: Some of the arsenic in apples comes from an insecticide that was banned from U.S. agriculture in the 1980s (PDF), but the residues still linger in the soil. And some arsenic simply occurs naturally in the ground, where it can contaminate the water used for irrigation and get sucked up by apple trees. So apple juice that comes from American apples, even organic apples, can still be contaminated with arsenic.
Rangan has two words for parents with juice-loving kids: dilute and diversify. Giving kids less juice in the first place, and diluting it, will reduce their arsenic exposure as well as sugar intake. Varying the brand of your juice will also help diversify the risk of getting apples from a source that is higher in arsenic.
As for the apples themselves, CR didn't test them, but Rangan points out that there is probably more than one apple in a glass of juice, especially if it's made from concentrate. I figure it's OK, then, to let Alden munch away.
Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, is talking to the FDA about setting a standard of three parts per billion for arsenic in fruit juices, which would protect kids' health. The good news is that 41 percent of the samples they tested already met this standard, so clearly it's possible to drink apple juice safely -- as long as somebody's setting guidelines. The FDA says it's "considering" doing so. It wouldn't hurt to keep the pressure on by letting the FDA know you support limits on arsenic in fruit juice.
In the meantime, I'll keep diluting Alden's juice. How long do you think it will be before he figures it out?
