Water Test Kit Store carries the Arsenic Quick brand of arsenic testing products which works quite well for detecting levels of free dissolved arsenic in drinking water... but we do not know how well they would work when used to test non-water samples.

Several factors may play a part in determining whether or not the Arsenic Quick Test Kits will work in your suggested application:

• The concentration of arsenic may be too low or too high for the test kit to detect.
• Ingredients in the sample may cause a more 'violent' bubbling than water and result in the test area on the suspended test pad getting wet.  If the pad gets wet, the test becomes invalid.
• The sample may contain organically bound arsenic and the test kit cannot detect organically bound arsenic.

To sum all that up, we do not know if the test kit we carry will work for Orgain or any type of sample other than water (or wood).

The cost of an Arsenic Quick Test Kit varies depending upon the levels of detection required for the testing and the number of tests in the kit. For a school project we think something like the Arsenic Quick 5's Kit may work well since it will allow your daughter to test 5 different samples of water and it typically provides an adequate detection range for most residential water sources.

On the matter of testing foods for arsenic, we do not have much information to share because we have not tried an experiments using foods. In theory the kits should work using food in the same manner as they do wood but a few potential problems come to mind:

1) There's no way to determine the expected arsenic levels in other materials so the kit may lack the appropriate detection range to pick up traces of arsenic if present.

2) Since the Arsenic Quick Test Kits rely on test pad areas that change color to indicate concentrations of arsenic in samples, violent reactions where colored samples splatter up on test pad areas would invalidate any results obtained.

For additional (or more detailed) information on the Arsenic Quick Test Kits and their capabilities, feel free to contact us, again, or you may always contact the manufacturer directly (Industrial Test Systems, Inc.).

What juice brands contained arsenic? Name brands you might recognize included Minute Maid, Mott’s, Gerber, Welch’s, and Great Value ( source )

Did other brands ring in as containing arsenic, as well? Yes, and the same study also explored the lead content in various juices — and discovered that an alarming number of juice brands contained unsettling amounts of lead.

Scary times, in our opinion, when juice manufacturers — or the manufacturers of ANY food or beverage product — do not take into consideration contaminant levels like lead or arsenic regardless of whether or not the levels violate Federal Law.

We believe that companies who produce products intended for use or consumption by children really ought to hold themselves to higher standards than Federal Laws mandate since laws dictating food & beverage products — and possibly every aspect of our lives — only go on the books AFTER something becomes a problem, people get sick, someone dies, etc.

Many of you may have seen episodes of murder mystery shows where the killer used arsenic to poison his/her victims… because it WORKS as a lethal poison in the right doses and also causes debilitating conditions with prolonged exposure at lower levels.

Find more information on arsenic and test kits for arsenic in places like water, soil and wood below:

• Basic Information About Arsenic
• Arsenic Test Kits (water, soil, wood)
• Arsenic Quick Test Kits
• Arsenic Category on Water Testing Blog

We mentioned lead in the title of this article… so we will now tell you that the same study mentioned above ALSO determined that popular brands of juice contained higher than expected levels of lead, too.

For those not knowledgeable about lead in water or the effects of lead on the human body — especially young children — it will suffice to say that it does bad, bad things and you do not want it in your food or water.

Over the years we have posted numerous articles about lead in water, testing for lead in water and various ways to remove lead from drinking water. Check out those lead in water postings in the Water Testing Blog ‘Lead’ Archives.

“A lack of regulation means a third of baby rice on sale in the UK contains worryingly high levels of carcinogenic inorganic arsenic, according to researchers.

The study, carried out by scientists from the University of Aberdeen and published this month in the journal Environmental Pollution, said this meant some children could be getting six times the recommended inorganic arsenic for their weight.

The levels detected in some of the samples would be illegal in China, where there are stringent controls in place. But while there are European Union and American regulations for arsenic levels in drinking water, there are currently no laws to direct the amounts of arsenic allowed in food products.

Furthermore, current guidelines on intake are based on outdated research conducted before arsenic was found to be a carcinogen, according to the researchers.

This calls into question the need for am urgent review on the situation.

“It is apparent that inorganic arsenic levels in baby rice should be of concern,” said lead scientist, Andrew Meharg.

Read the full FoodProductionDaily.com story here.”

Pretty frightening stuff. We cannot help but wonder if the methodology used to test arsenic levels in soil with the Arsenic Quick test kit could also work for testing arsenic levels in certain types of foods.