Ong Mei Gee^1,4, Rohana Abdul Jalil^1,4, Wan Rosli Wan Ishak^{2,4 *}, Noor Aman  Hamid ^1,4, Che Badariah Abdul Aziz¹, Wan Suriati Wan Nik^2,4, Noor Fadzlina Hamid^2,4, Vasanti Malik^3,4, Walter  Willet^3,4, Frank Hu^3,4

¹School of Medical Sciences, 16150 Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia

²School of Health Sciences, 16150 Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia

³Department of Nutrition, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 USA

⁴Global Nutrition and Epidemiological Transition Initiative (GNET),  Harvard Chan School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 USA

Abstract

Rice is the staple food in Malaysia. There are limited literature about study on the elemental levels and observation on ultrastructure of commercially available white rice and brown rice in Malaysia. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to determine the concentration of elements in three uncooked long rice grain, i.e. two brown rice and one white rice varieties that are commercially available in Malaysia using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and compare the structure and elements of uncooked and cooked rice grain using Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The ICP-MS results of the three uncooked rice grains showed high concentration of copper, manganese and zinc, followed with potassium, magnesium and calcium. Besides, the element contaminant such as plumbum, antimony and cadmium in the rice grains were under Malaysian permissible limit (Malaysian Food Act, 1983) and international standard  (FAO/WHO, 2002). Arsenic was below Malaysian permissible limit but higher than safe limit by international standard. Silicon was observed in brown rice after viewed by using SEM-EDX. Besides, brown rice showed higher concentration of elements than white rice

Keywords: Brown rice, Elements, ICP-MS, SEM-EDX, White rice