switching to nutrimagen at 20 months - crazy idea?

[MLK]

I usually make up about 1 litre at a time - so 2 days worth.

[lilisuze]

brilliant. It worked! i am so impressed! 1 part coconut to 1 part rice. Amazing! He asked for more and called it milkshake! I will make up some more this afternoon!

Does anyone know....nutritionally, is this enough for him at 20 months with an otherwaise varied diet?

[sleepyhummel]

I'm sure everyone knows this but rice milk does have arsenic in it.  but most all rice products do.

There are many options: Toddler health formula in rice or oat formats as well as metagenics rice based drink.  Elecare comes in a vanilla flavor for kids over 1.  Neocate also comes in vanilla and chocolate for kids over 1.

But I think the eggnog recipe is awesome.  May have to try that one - -I bet the calories are out of this world and we sure need that.

[lilisuze]

arsenic?

[Mashi]

I had no idea - but here is an interesting, but brief, article on toddlers and rice milk
http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2009/may/arsenicinriceresearch

[lilisuze]

ok....so it seems to me that i can't do right for doing wrong....

cows milk makes ds puke so we switched to soy
soy milk (after feeding it to him for an entire year) can give him thyroid problems, cause cancer and make him infertile.....so we switch to sice/coconut
rice milk poisons the little guy.

whats a mom supposed to do?

[MLK]

Thought  I would do a small calculation:

I found that the safe tolerable limit of arsenic is 2.14 µg/kg/day. So for a 10kg toddler (which is on the small side) the maximum tolerable limit of arsenic is 21.4 µg a day.

So I looked up some values for arsenic in brown rice, foudn some here:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=128#safetyissues

So to be on the safe side, let's assume the worst case scenario: US rice with 100% inorganic arsenic. So assume 0.4 μg/g of inorganic arsenic (bear in mind that in reality the amount will be lower than this.)

I make my rice/quinoa milk with 1/3 cup each of organic brown rice and quinoa and it lasts 3 weeks (frozen in batches) for making my coconut milk eggnog. 1/3 cup is about 50 g and so it contains 0.4*50=20 μg of arsenic, consumed over a 3 week period. That's around 1 μg a day! Less than 5% of the than maximum tolerable limit of arsenic which is 21.4 µg for a 10 kg toddler (and my toddler is 12 kg so his actual max limit is higher than that).

All in all, the egg-nog I make contributes less than 4% of the maximum tolerable intake for his weight so I am not going to worry about it.

Not sure how much arsenic is in the commercial stuff though, but I found this:

http://www.tastethedream.eu/safety/

Obviously the levels would vary from drink to drink so it might be worthwhile checking. Or you could dilute the rice drink further with coconut milk.

[Mom to M&M]

Awesome info MLK and ITA. Additionally, if you are still concerned - what about almond milk (if tolerated) or hemp milk?

[lilisuze]

thanks so much, you have put my mind at rest.....

I have spent the last few days really worrying about poisoning my little guy, but he likes milk and needs the comfort of having it morning and night. its only 400mls a day. I am going to stick with the rice milk. Its similar to rice dream.

[MLK]

According to a link from the website that Mashi posted, the AVERAGE total amount of arsenic was 0.023 milligram/kilogram in the rice drinks. So 400mls a day would supply 9.2 μg, which is 43% of the maximum tolerable limit for a 10 kg toddler.

The MAXIMUM amount of arsenic found in the rice drinks was 0.034 milligram/kilogram and 400mls a day would supply 13.6 μg, which is 64% of the maximum tolerable limit for a 10 kg toddler.


Of course that calculation depends on how much arsenic there is in YOUR particular brand (it could be more or less than the average) and how much your toddler weighs. If you had any concern you could alwyas dilute it half and half with coconut milk and/or water. Or mix it with another type of "milk."


If you used the commercial rice milk in the egg nog recipe you would only use 1.5 cups of rice milk per litre - so effectively only getting about 40% of the original amount of arsenic a day. So the average brand would supply 17% of the daily limit (down from 43%) and the maximum brand would supply about 25% of the daily limit (down from 64%).


My homemade stuff has lower amounts of arsenic because I mix it with quinoa milk and coconut milk. So the rice milk is only about 1/4 of the mix and it's a lower concentration than the commercial drinks, too.

Bascially that convoluted argument is trying to say that if you're worried, dilute the rice milk half and half with something else!