skullgiver , 6 hours ago

Neither the rice species nor the way it is prepared is the same as it was 10000 years ago. India has been producing spices for millenia but the massive amounts of arsenic, cadmium, and lead found in spices sold on the Indian market (and sometimes in Indian exports) is still a recent development.

The world is moving towards a focus on mass production through industrialisation on a record scale. This has an impact on things like the natural water sources, which is where most arsenic in rice is coming from.

Europe has limits on the amount of arsenic in rice, but I’ve never seen a lack of rice varieties in my supermarkets. You can have rice without huge amounts of arsenic, that’s not a weird thing to ask for.