Rice is one of the most valuable nutrients in the diet of most people in the world. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of various pre-cooking (washing, soaking) and cooking processes (traditional and rinse) of rice on the amount of toxic and essential elements in the various brands of rice in Iran and assessing human health risks from their carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects. For this purpose, totally, 144 sample sizes were examined from three brand (Iranian (n = 48), Pakistani (n = 48), and Indian (n = 48)) in order to the amount of toxic and essential elements using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. The results showed that pre-cooking processes such as washing and soaking in the rinse method were significantly effective in removal toxic metals than the traditional method, so that the most changes were observed for potassium and aluminum metals. The estimated daily intakes of copper, magnesium, manganese, iron, and zinc in different cooking methods were 1.19-1.2%, 0.29-0.32%, 1.01-1.23%, 0.4-0.98%, and 0.9-1.32%, respectively. The Monte Carlo simulation results showed that the rank order of toxic metals of cooked rice based on target hazard quotients value was arsenic > chromium > cadmium > mercury > lead > aluminum, respectively. The result of cancer risk probability was lower than the safe risk limits (1E-4), representing no remarkable cancer risk probability that was due to ingestion of rice for adults and children in Iran. According to the this results, it is recommended to use the rinse method due to further reduction of metals especially toxic metals for rice samples, although the amount of essential elements was also removed by this method.
Keywords: Cooking methods; Essential elements; Human health risk assessment; Rice; Toxic metals.