A reader by the name of ‘ComicHunter’ recently asked, “Hi .. well with this article in CA in the news today.. would this Arsenic Test Kit work on wine? ( http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-cheap-wine-you-re-drinking-may-hold-6147956.php ) Thanks!”
Quite honestly we do not know if Arsenic Quick Test Kits would test for arsenic in wine for two main reasons:
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1) Ingredients in the wine sample may cause a more ‘violent’ bubbling than water and result in the test area on the suspended test pad getting wet. If the test pad gets wet, the test becomes invalid.
2) The sample may contain organically bound arsenic and the test kit cannot detect organically bound arsenic. We suspect that the wines contain organically bound arsenic because as far as we know, it is the free dissolved arsenic that health officials know causes health issues and hopefully someone would have noticed dangerous free arsenic levels in such a highly regulated industry before now.
So why did the tests performed by the labs on those wines come up ‘high’?
Our ‘guess’: During laboratory analysis samples get ‘prepared’ in various manners which break down the bonds between organic matter and contaminants like arsenic so that the contaminants may get detected in their ‘natural’ (i.e. free) state… and quantified.
Does organically bound arsenic pose risks?
We suppose it must in some way, but as of yet we have not read very many articles on the matter and therefore must refrain from rendering an opinion on the matter.
Our advice?
Arsenic is arsenic, and it sounds bad no matter how you slice it. None of us drink a lot of wine, but, should the day come when beer starts showing up with high test results for arsenic, we will choose our beers accordingly. 🙂
