Feel terrible about children having rice cakes when young

[chocolatelimesaredelicious]

Hello,

Not sure this is the right thread necessarily, but I just wanted to offload about a subject I'm really worried about.
My children are now 12, 10 and 7 (twins).
When they were young, baby rice cakes were the "trendy" healthy snack, suggested by health visitors and seen as a good substitute for biscuits.

I used to feed my children them quite often - we always had a bag of baby rice cakes on the go. I think they probably had about 8 a week. When they went to pre-school, they were often given big rice cakes as a snack with fruit-maybe once or twice a week or so.

Fast forward to 2020....last week, I came across an article saying that rice cakes have dangerous levels of arsenic in , and that children under 5 should not have them, particularly not infants as they raise the risk of getting certain cancers later in life. Looking around more, I saw that Sweden have banned rice cakes for under 6s.

I actually emailed the Professor in charge of this project, and he said that individual risk of getting cancer from rice/rice cakes was relatively low, and that also stopping after 5 years would have helped as cancer risks were calculated on a lifetime's worth of exposure.

This made me a feel a bit better at the time, but since then I have become increasingly worried about what I might have done all those years ago to jeopardise my children's health. And I keep on remembering all those rice cakes I fed my children...

Any tips on how to not be consumed by guilt about this?

Also..do spread the word not to feed infants rice cakes...

Never had a rice cake, and never had them for my two children.

I’m actually really pleased you told me op - another good example of what appears to be healthy but is actually a highly processed food

I think you should write yourself a list of things you didn’t do that therefore have reduced their risks. Eg you didn’t smoke in the home - I think this will make you feel better

Try to remember how low the risks are. My df was brought up in a house where chain smoking was constant and he must have inhaled so much passively. Didn’t leave home until 23. And he has never had cancer

@Greysparkles me too, I wouldn’t have fed the dog vile tasting rice cakes, it was wotsits or quavers for my kids.

Oops, I didn't know about the rice cake thing either. I used to give the mini ones to DS all the time when we were out and about.

But then, my mum used talc on me as a baby, I ate coco pops and sugar puffs for breakfast and my grandparents smoked like chimneys around me. All you can do is follow the advice of the time and do your best!

Don't panic, the fact you're worried shows you clearly think lots about your DC. Firstly, I'd remember lots of these studies/experiments where a link is found are done by correlation and don't always reflect the true story. For example: when the sun shines hotter for longer, the number of umbrella sales go down - which the press would write as 'Study shows low sales of umbrellas cause heat waves'. Obviously, that isn't the case and these studies can be very useful in finding initial links and pointing researchers onto where needs looking at further. It may be that more children who ate more rice cakes had a worse diet overall and higher inflammation markers due to lifestyle - we just don't know.

The other thing to remember is that all poisons are safe in minute doses and all 'non poisons' are lethal in high doses. For example, you can use a very small amount of belladonna (atropine, hyocyamine and scopolamine)* and be fine, but you can drink a huge amount of water and die. It's more about the amount and how accessible it is, rather than the specific poison present. People accidentally swallow apple pips all the time and they contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide.

*Obviously, you have to be very clued up and know what you're doing, but just an example.

Rice cakes are not hugely processed-they are just like popcorn-popped rice (rice heated until it pops and then the grains fused together).
The arsenic in rice comes from the water it is grown in-many parts of the world have arsenic in their groundwater. Brown rice collects more of the arsenic than white, which has the hull taken off.
Brown rice cakes concentrate the arsenic more because the rice is uncooked, just heated.
BUT, again, the arsenic is a tiny amount and the risks are LOW. I just wanted to offload and it has been helpful to hear everyone's comments and put the risk into perspective.

The professor in charge of the study replied to an email from a random worried mother? What a sweetie!

@chocolatelimesaredelicious
I have to agree with your username, by the way! Chocolate limes are the best!

IF rice cakes were affecting Children markedly, it worked be in the news.
I remember the fears about lead pipes in old houses....Our houses all had lead pipes in, but I worried about lead poisoning.

I looked up the Study, but it says Rice milk is worse than rice cakes for arsenic content.
I bought an interesting book about Arsenic, last year, ''Bitten by Witch Fever'' which showed how common this substance was in the Georgian and Victorian eras.. and undoubtedly an old rocking horse we have {1850's} has Arsenic paint on his green rockers...plus lead ! Amazing any of us survived. :)
Arsenic was in a lot of paints and wallpapers back then.

It’s fairly processed though compared to eg eating an apple!

I gave DD Wotsits (on occasion), sometimes in her buggy when out shopping. Probably a bag a week.
No guilt here.

Yes, he has been really brilliant actually!
He's asked me to spread the word that, if you want to reduce your children's arsenic consumption, and want rice-cake-like snacks, maize, spelt and other grain cakes are much better.
He is trying to reduce the amount of arsenic children ingest from a tiny amount to virtually nothing. But the tiny amount you would eat in rice cakes still only amounts to a very small increased risk in cancer etc.

Forget it, when I was a tot Ribena full sugar was all the rage. Still living, still got all my own teeth. Oh that and whiskey with milk before bed maybe with a lovely sugary rusk dissolved in the bottle.

I do remember looking back when mine were small a massive scandal over mattresses in the nineties and SIDS and being massively panicked. I can’t even remember what it is all about now.

@nocoolnamesleft

The professor in charge of the study replied to an email from a random worried mother? What a sweetie!

@chocolatelimesaredelicious

This reminded me of a lovely Woman professor who replied to me, too...An old worry was triggered...
I had pethidine during childbirth.and it zonked me and DS out.

A Swedish study showed pethidine use was linked to ''priming'' opiate sites in infant brains....making them more likely to become opiate addicts in later life.

I was terrified.... I wrote a handwritten note to her, and she was good enough to reply.... and mercifully DS isn't {touch wood} an opiate addict.

But the fear I felt.. and guilt was horrible.

OP, how do you feel about the fact that countless millions of babies around the world have rice as their staple diet once weaning starts? Not puffed up, a few grains filled with fresh air as a snack, but their staple diet? For life , and over generations and generations.

Get help and stop yourself with this.

@ancientgran

Rusks! Totally forgotten about those! Loved them! No health damage done with them - me and sibling slim and both very sporty!

Study is here: www.jstor.org/stable/29709472

I have eaten rice every single day of my life since I was given solid food. I’m still alive and healthy, absolutely no need to feel any form of guilt about rice cakes.

I'd be mor worried about raisins and those dreadful yoyo bear fruit winder things rotting their teeth. I think you'd have to eat a hell of a lot of rice cakes for it to have an effect.

Oh and adults, if you eat them, rice cakes make your breath stink!

[quote popcornlover]@ancientgran

Rusks! Totally forgotten about those! Loved them! No health damage done with them - me and sibling slim and both very sporty! [/quote]
Me too! gorgeous things! I nicked them from my bros. Are they still around?

OP I understand how you feel ,about 3 years ago I had crippling health anxiety and an almost nervous breakdown over the fear of cancer . I am ok now but I totally get you .
On another note I remember my mum putting TEA in my brother's bottle in the early 80s ....he is doing a back to back marathon next month hes a powerhouse!

OP, these days it seems like everything either cures cancer or causes it.

And don't beat yourself up about it. There are things that my mum used to do with me that are considered dangerous now but were encouraged at the time. There are things that my grandmother did with her kids that were discouraged by the time I was born. There was a picture of in a newspaper a little while ago with a woman driving a bunch of world war 2 evacuees somewhere. It was an open topped jeep with about 12 kids crammed in the back. Nobody batted an eyelid at the time.

My point is, advice changes all the time. What was advised yesterday is discouraged today etc.

I think this period in your child's life of eating baby rice cakes will have been short. I too fed my dc organic rice cakes, and my eldest dd still eats them with cucumber and other toppings and she is sixteen. But for 12 years plus they have barely touched them, so I feel their risk is tiny. I am concerned about other risks far more, screen use, pollution, contaminated sea water when we go to the beach, plastic in their system I could send you a whole list ( but I don't want to make you feel worse!!)

We have to try and do our best to give our children a chemical free life, and to protect their bodies from poisons, directly or indirectly. However no one eats rice cakes for very long, they taste of cardboard for one! So over a life time of a 85 years it is absolutely tiny. I think it is right to raise children that question where things are from, and what they are putting into their bodies however.

There are a number of much older Mums on here, I'm 70+, we were brought up eating food cooked in aluminium pans and we're still here! Always remember, todays received wisdom is merely that, today's, tomorrow it might all change, we put our babies down on their front and din't intend them harm. When today's Mums are grandmothers they'll be horrified to find things have changed.

btw the rusks were packed full of refined sugar!! That is why every baby (and adult) loves them