The assessment of rice cultivars widely produced in Turkey in terms of arsenic, cadmium, aluminum and copper: effect of soaking methods and household cooking

Industrialization-driven heavy metal contamination is a growing concern, as residues are increasingly found in foods and tap water due to soil absorption by plants. This study aimed to assess the amount of heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, and copper in widely produced domestic rice cultivars in Türkiye, and to evaluate the effect of pretreatments and domestic cooking on the concentration of heavy metals. Six different rice cultivars were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to determine the levels of heavy metals. Among these six cultivars, the highest heavy metal contamination and also the most consumed was selected to evaluate the effect of soaking processes accompanied by acetic acid (0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1%) and salt (1%) at different soaking times (2, 4, 8, and 12 h) and domestic cooking. The concentrations of heavy metals in the primary rice cultivar with the highest contamination were 64.9, 1.3, 2476.7 and 3185.2 μgkg−1 dry weight, respectively. The results showed that soaking in salt (1%) and acetic acid (1%) before cooking was the most effective treatment for removing heavy metals (As = 57.8%, Cd = 100%, Al = 98%, and Cu = 85.7%) at a soaking time of 12 h. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.