Seeking to avoid cows' milk for dietary reasons? Scottish investigators have just announced findings that may unsettle your stomach: rice milk, an increasingly popular milk substitute, contains arsenic levels exceeding the EU limits for drinking water.

Rice milk is an attractive alternative to cows' milk, especially for consumers who are lactose-intolerant, on a macrobiotic diet, or vegan. Since it does not contain sufficient levels of the proteins, vitamins, and minerals present in cows' milk, rice milk is usually supplemented with these substances. In a recent survey of rice milk carried out by researchers at the University of Aberdeen, all 19 samples - representing 4 brands sold by UK supermarkets and including organic, non-organic and flavoured varieties - were found to contain levels of inorganic arsenic above the EU limit of 10 micrograms per liter of drinking water. In their report, which appeared as an advance online publication in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring of the Royal Chemistry Society, the Scottish group also described the identification of some sample containing arsenic levels that were 3 times higher than this permitted maximum level.