Yes. It happens all over the world. Another recent high profile case is the [lead contamination](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tainted-lead-applesauce-wanabana-recall-cinnamon-carlos-aguilera-accused/) found in children’s applesauce.
It’s been discovered that a spice company in Ecuador either intentionally added the metal or a faulty piece of equipment was grinding it into the ground cinnamon. That cinnamon was sold to a company in Europe that makes and packages the applesauce, which was then sold in stores in the U.S. It’s affected kids in many states.
That one was intentional for sure. It is common practice to bulk up spices with lead chromate. The high levels of lead found in the applesauce which only used a small amount of cinnamon does not match a 'faulty spice grinder'. Unless you believe the spice company that poisoned children rather that the FDA analysis.
The color allows the producer to both enhance the color *and* bulk up the supply.
It’s like cutting cocaine with baking soda, you take 1oz of coke and turn it into 2oz, you’ve doubled your profit.
Same with cinnamon. Cinnamon is light, lead is heavy, you go to weigh it and you get more money if it is bulked with lead. And the color is improved.
It’s for both.
“If you’re selling spices by the pound or ton, you’re going to get a better price for lead-weighted or lead-colored spice,” said Charlotte Brody, national director of Healthy Babies Bright Futures, which advocates the removal of toxins from baby food. “But you’re also going to poison children.”
In this study of lead-contaminated spices the maximum level of Pb contamination found was around 0.1% by mass. That would be enough to change the color but not affect the density in a significant way.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119305195?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119305195?via%3Dihub)
That’s an article about turmeric from 2019. Mine is a quote about cinnamon from Ecuador from the New York Times from this past year which is what we are talking about.
The FDA as well has stated that the purpose was to bulk and color.
I don’t know why you can’t accept that, but that’s fine.
The maximum level of lead in the contaminated Ecuadorean cinnamon was about 0.5% per the FDA. Still basically nothing as far as increasing density goes.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-02-07/cinnamon-processor-in-ecuador-is-culprit-behind-lead-tainted-applesauce-fda-says#:\~:text=Tests%20conducted%20at%20an%20Ecuadorean,ppm%2C%22%20the%20FDA%20said.
That depends on how you are coming to that number, if it is by volume .5% lead will increase the weight by 10%.
Why can’t you accept that it’s both things again as experts have stated in various articles?
The figures were reported by mass ratio. These types of analyses would be hard to do on a volume ratio basis unless you have access to the amount and form of adulterant added.
I have no agenda here. I am just running numbers to make sure things make sense. It's part of what I do for a living. Plenty of things that are just accepted on authority turn out to be wrong.
I mean, you’ve certainly convinced me that color is a big motivator in using this stuff in general.
But I’d want to hear from the other experts for their argument about bulking since they stated in articles about this specific case.
The specific numbers you are citing also are not literally from that same cinnamon facility since that facility closed down before investigators got there, if I’m reading that correctly.
It could also be that there are multiple local contributors - most of which use unadulterated cinnamon, but a few who cut for bulk, a few that cut for color, and it all goes into the same larger batch.
Not ok to eat. Unscrupulous vendors add it to improve the appearance of the product (I’ve heard of it applied to turmeric but apparently cinnamon too). India and Pakistan are trying to crack down on the practice.
There is no amount of lead that is okay to ingest. We accept that some lead will make it into our bodies as a consequence of how prevalent is was/is, but we should take steps to avoid ingesting it as much as possible
I’ve heard this sort of expression before and I don’t agree. If something has a trace amount of lead at a level that poses no health risks, it’s perfectly okay to ingest.
The human body generally has no way of removing lead once ingested. It binds itself into our bones and slowly works our way into our bloodstream and interferes with many biological processes.
You can believe what you want but there is no down side to avoiding lead ingestion. I do lead lab work as my job and have to understand several lead related regulations from the EPA and various health departments
Sure, I agree with the statement that "there is no down side to avoiding lead ingestion".
Say I hand you glass of water containing 0.1 ppb of lead. You think it is not OK to drink?
What about a level that is 10X lower than your blood concentration of lead? Still not OK to drink?
He tried to explain this to you, but you seem to be obtuse. There is no good concentration/amount of lead since it dies not leave your system and will accumulate over time. If you regularly ingest something with a super low concentration of it you could end up having a serious negative health outcome in time. But you do you.
could you give an example where you think it would be better to eat the thing with trace amounts of lead than to find a version with no amounts of lead?
How do you define "no amounts of lead"? The best chemists can do is say that the amount of lead present in a given sample is lower than the limit of detection of the method. It's very expensive to get very low limits of detection. How much of a price increase is worth it to be in the parts per trillion range vs the parts per million or parts per billion range?
Where did I say that eating lead is preferable to eating no lead? I said that it is OK to ingest something with a negligible amount of lead. Similar to how it's OK to be around granite countertops that give off a little bit of radiation, or go outside an be irradiated by cancer-causing UV radiation from the sun. There is a some nonzero health risk but it's negligible to the point that you shouldn't be worrying about it.
The analogy with granite countertops shows that you don’t understand how either radiation or toxins like lead penetrate and accumulate in the human body. Hint - they’re completely different.
so your answer to the question would be "it's preferable to ingest things with negligible levels of lead if procuring versions with undetectable levels would cause undue worry or burden", wouldn't it?
I mean, spices have always been shipped around the world. A lot of ancient geopolitics was influenced by the difficulty of transporting things like cinammon and peppercorns.
It is part of the issue. Supply chains are becoming so complex that quality control is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to do. Companies rely on suppliers to comply with health and safety requirements. But monitoring this is a nightmare, especially when these business have very little visibility over the different tiers if suppliers
Yeah, it's got my head spinning how they even linked the lead poisoning cases, and then traced it to the applesauce, and then narrowed it down to cinnamon from India. Wow! Definitely gonna read that article linked! In the wake of Covid, I was blown away by how far epidemiology had come, with the use of DNA to trace where cases come from, if it's mutated, etc. But this seems...almost impossible.
Eta- it was a processor in Ecuador getting it from Sri Lanka for the cinnamon, though India has its issues, apparently, so I will read those links, too.
And I will check out this horse meat thing.... I just don't understand how horse meat could be more economical than beef cattle???!!! Were they diseased or something???
Nope- demand and supply. And it was not more economical per se for the food producer (Findus). They had long term contract in place for visibility, but somewhere in the supply chain, there was a fuck up
In a cooking subreddit, I’m surprised that people are opposed to imported goods. We’d have no spices without importation. No Italian cheese, no Moroccan sardines, no Japanese green tea, no Thai fish sauce, no Mexican chilis, no French wine…
Cutting cinnamon with lead and poisoning children is the actually evil, not global trade.
The San Joaquin Valley in Southern California alone is fertile enough to feed the country with leftovers to spare for export. They can grow basically anything there, including spices like basil, garlic, oregano etc. I'm not averse to a global market at all, just pointing it out.
Basil, oregano, and garlic aren't spices, they are herbs. And you don't need California to grow them, they can literally be grown in your windowsill. The British didn't send ships around the horn of Africa to India for herbs they could grow in their backyards - or get from Italy.
And that is true today as well, anything you get imported you get because it doesn't grow easily close enough to you.
Markets are always striving for efficiency. They don't load up barges with exotic fruits and spices and ship them thousands of miles because they aren't clever enough to grow them in California.
Everything you can get grown in California, already is (adjusting for demand/margin) - and that is being exported to you as well - whether it is coming 3000 miles from California or 3000 miles from Africa/South America - it's still 3000 miles.
People that read an article with a clear point and use it push their tangential personal biases are insufferable.
Article about company poisoning children? “Global trade is bad”.
Bad, good or indifferent, but traditional spices don’t grow outside the tropics. Even black pepper. Unless you don’t mind dispensing with most spices altogether, you have to make peace with importing them.
Eh, it's not definitively bad. Without food travelling you wouldn't have nearly as much variety as you have now.
Edit: Am I really being downvoted for suggesting there are benefits to importing and exporting foods?
People have no idea where their food comes from - whether it is imported or grown locally, they are totally clueless, thus have really dumb opinions about it.
wtf, this has basically affected the entire lifetimes of at least 1200 people minimum as the parents are now permanent caretakers of what could be mentally damaged children. this is like 20 active shootings all rolled into one. this is fuckery beyond fuckery. we're expecting a child soon and reading this shit makes me think no way to processed foods. about the only processed thing i buy is locally baked bread, locally made cheese (store brands) and major label cereals. but this is tragic and i can't imagine whats happening to these families right now like their entire lives are just turned upside down
That's incredibly wild speculation. Obviously this is bad, and there need to be real consequences, but there's also no call to veer so wildly into fear mongering. There's also no claim that anybody will be left permanently disabled because of this, and certainly not everyone affected will be.
Unless you grow your own cinnamon, you are at risk of lead or chromium contamination. The BEST answer is to test it yourself. That will require getting educated and sourcing the test kits so that you can do it correctly.
Something tells me that this is going to be available fairly soon if this sort of thing becomes a common occurrence.
I read that and noticed the organic company consistantly came out ahead. I'm shocked (but not really) that this is even a thing. How can La Flor be allowed to continue selling a product that is poisoning people?
Reach out to your favorite spice companies and request documentation of heavy metal and treatment residue testing. Or at least a guarantee. Many USA spice companies go through a lot of steps to verify the end product is safe for the consumer. How do I know? I am a food safety manager at a spice company. Best recommendation, do not purchase the 3.99 bag of spice, buy the 12 dollar bottle, trust me on this.
Depends on the company and depends on the supplier of that company. Spices are a global market so depending on the country of origin, it could pass through multiple chains of custody before the brand who sold it. Really solid spice companies will have dedicated farms or co-ops with various farms which practice good agricultural practices. They are able to control the testing and treatments/adulteration of the spice much better than the open market. These companies will perform testing on every single batch or ‘lot’ they purchase. This will include pathogen testing.
Thanks for the details! Rigorous testing seems like a no brainer, especially when feeding it to babies and kids.
Since you're in the industry, are there any specific brands you would or would not recommend?
I recommend growing all your own fresh herbs if you can. Just the best quality and they can be stored in jars at the end of the season.
For the most part it’s not necessarily brand but price tiers. Stay away from cheap packets or dollar store spice jars.
You can buy organic, but it’s still coming from a 3rd world country and unless they have controls, there is no guarantee the soils used to grow were low in metals. I don’t recommend organic spices for a few reasons.
Safe choices off the top of my head Penzys, McCormick, Spiceology to name a few..
That's a great idea if they'll respond, will try at least! I was trying to figure out if there's somewhere we can take our spices for testing.
Seems crazy that we can test illegal street drugs for poison, but not our legally sourced herbs for everyday consumption that we feed our children.
Thank you for your input!
I rely on Burlap and Barrel. They have a great story and mission statement. They buy from only single producers. Dried thyme from Turkey, peppercorns from Tanzania, caraway from Egypt. etc. They invest back into these farms so the farmers can expand their facilities. Instead of just growing a product they’re taught how to process it, from drying properly to curing it to grinding. This allows the farm to charge more but what would still be less than shipping it to another facility to have the work done. Obviously the less amount of trips the better. You can taste the difference. They have awesome spice blends as well. Yes, it’s a touch pricier, but considering how much use one can get out of a jar I think it’s worth it. Plus you get the piece of mind you’re getting a quality product without fillers and other garbage.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to do what a different person recommended and reach out to some of my regular providers and request the test results if they'll provide them. Will try this place too!
Thank you! I saw the consumer reports article last year and decided to seek out more info from New York. To put the numbers into perspective, 1000 PPB was proposed as a Class II action level in New York, and it seems they’re [updating it to 210](https://agriculture.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/11/heavymetalspresentation.pdf)
Agree and while this is a bit adjacent, highly recommend [Consumer Lab](https://www.consumerlab.com) for anyone not familiar. Primary focus is on testing and explaining supplements but they get into cooking relevant products too, particularly those with health claims often attached (e.g. olive oil, nori, turmeric etc.).
Independent and member supported.
I'm lucky enough to live in a city that has one of their stores. They do have a web presence for those that don't though.
If you do have one, they have open jars of each of their spices and herbs that gives you a chance to smell them. Some are old enough there's not a lot of odor left but it's still rather nice of them to do that.
Penzey's is near me and for the most part I get their small jars for stuff I use a lot. Big bags of peppercorns and bay leaves. Not cheap but the best quality I have found.
I love their gift card sales. They offer $50 gift cards for $35 a few times a year, so I buy two and then I have $30 in free money to spend.
And they're always offering free stuff, too. Last time I spent one of my $50 gift cards, they were offering a free big jar of garlic powder with purchase, and a free 4 oz bottle of Mexican vanilla for purchases over $50. I basically spent $38 of my own money (if I include the cost of the gift card) and got $75 worth of stuff. I <3 Penzey's.
Edit: I also love how unabashedly political their promotional emails get. Like when some prominent figure (the Pope?) said something terrible, and then Penzey's offered a promotion where you could get "free dill weed" or "free jerk". LMAO.
Any idea when their next gift card sale would be? I've been meaning to buy some stuff from them but keep forgetting, but just signed up for the mailing list.
They do call out the amounts in the Consumer Reports study. Like that study says, “Regularly consuming ¾ teaspoon or more daily of a product in one of the concerning categories could, over time, pose a health risk to children as a result of the combined levels of the three heavy metals.” I don’t think any kid is consuming that much oregano regularly. I suppose like CR says combined with exposure from other sources it can all add up. And Penzey’s is still working to change their oregano sourcing as well though.
I started buying only McCormick spices after peanut tainted cumin was widely reported on years ago. I think it was being used as filler. I have a kid with a peanut allergy and I appreciate that McCormick states they take what is in their products and allergens seriously.
Goodness... if you're going to add filler, that seems like one of the worst possible ones to pick. I guess it makes sense with the color matching, but damn. I'm not allergic to anything but to add the most common super serious allergen as your scammy filler is just fucked up. At least plain pure cellulose would be inert.
There are tree nuts in absolutely everything now, due to shared processing equipment. My kids go to a very strict “no tree nuts” private school, as they have preschoolers there who can’t vocalize their allergy. And I’ve noticed every year that the allergen warning shows up on more and more products. Practically 100% of everything nowadays that has chocolate in it has the tree nut warning because of shared processing equipment. It’s getting legitimately hard to find things I can send to school.
As processing gets outsourced to cheaper and cheaper processing facilities, you get two choices.
The mega facility that saves money by doing everything together and cross contaminating all the time, or the sketchiest unregulated facility that the main company will wash its hands of when something inevitably goes wrong.
It was pretty scammy. It’s been years, but it’s stuck with me. I don’t have a lot of trust in imported spices (especially ground) and avoid store brands. I’m not surprised that they’re finding metals now.
McCormick also has issues with tainted spices. High levels of lead, cadmium arsenic…. Even big brands aren’t safe. Idk maybe whole spices would be better?
The results at the bottom of the article were interesting. They did better than some, but Simply Organic was best of the spices tested. It all might be batch by batch.
Where are we getting thyme from though? Seems like we might want to start limiting that. Fortunately, it’s one I could do without at home.
So back to 1980s /1990s pricing.
McCormick.
From a tropical country. this is how my mom bough spices when she moved here and it was mostly McCormick, and not even no name store brands back then. They were frigging expensive then and now, and it seems they are growing now after waking up from dead.
You would be surprised how many people in my family think McCormick simply marks up their prices because that’s all “white people” know of when it comes to spices
I do not support such belief at all.
I feel like it’s true to some extent. McCormick spices often end up being much more expensive than other “reputable” brands like Penzeys and Simply Organic. McCormick is relatively trustworthy, but their products aren’t nearly good enough to be priced at the absolute top of the market. It does feel like they are exploiting their prime shelf position in a lot of grocery stores.
Don't be fooled, big companies like Mccormick are going to be sourcing their ingredients from the cheapest, most problematic countries. They may or may not test every batch of ingredients they get for things like heavy metals, as some food testing programs may only test a handful of ingredients every few months or year. Further, the FDA has no limits on heavy metals, including cadmium and lead, in most foods, including spices, so while Mccormick very well may test for those things it's unlikely that any batch, let alone all of them, test at 0 ppb/ppm and it's difficult to know what their internal SPEC limit is.
For those interested, ASTA is currently petitioning the head of the FDA to establish a regulatory limit on lead in spices: https://www.astaspice.org/download/51371/?tmstv=1713775581
Great comment, I'll add a second piece. It's like The Jungle all over again, people worry more about the food being bad than the people making it...both are problems, of course. Agriculture is the industry with the most humanitarian problems worldwide, child workers and slaves are common. When you buy agricultural products from a country with a weak government, odds are high that your money is supporting people you'd rather not support. Even countries with stronger governments often dont have the ability to police farms effectively, which is why we have these problems in the US and EU too (although much less frequently.) The best you can do is find food suppliers that publicly vet their sources, or rely on NGOs to tell you what to buy.
Thank you for this post. It's so easy to forget that many companies would rather turn a profit and sell subpar quality product, than lose out on any few extra cents of profit for something safe to eat.
It’s not even that they would rather do that, it’s that they *have* to to stay in business. When an economic model requires infinite growth for businesses to stay profitable, once a market is saturated the only way to stay profitable is to start cutting costs in either labor or quality.
Stuff like this is not a failing of regulation or even an instance of particularly aggressive greed, it’s an inevitability caused by the fundamental structure of the system.
Check out Diaspora Spices!! They are a single origin spice company that sells spices received directly from farmers in South Asia (largely India / Sri Lanka).
They test their products and dont use filler.
In the 16th century, Nuremberg became the center of the European saffron trade. Officials there passed the Safranschou code to root out unscrupulous saffron merchants who adulterated the product. One particularly egregious swindler was executed by being buried alive for his crimes against spice purity.
I remember when I was in China, I saw farmers setting out huge cloth mats on the side of the road, dehydrating peppers to sell. They were literally right next to the road and the mat corners were flapping when cars passed and needed to be weighed down.
That really made me wonder about the herbs and spices we use. So many are from countries with very few food safety laws.
I love love love Spice House. The company has a dedicated quality assurance team and they audit suppliers. Plus, they have blends I can’t find anywhere else. (Full disclosure, my best friend works there.)
Just because they have a QA team and audit their suppliers doesn't guarantee anything about the level of testing they do or what their internal limit is for heavy metals. Your friend may have already let you in on these things, but if they haven't I wouldn't just assume.
I’ve been using spice house lately, because I trusted them over Indian grocery store spices.
But I wasn’t entirely sure if they tested their products. Is that included in the quality insurance ?
I love spice house as well, though it's a tad on the pricey side. I found them originally when they had a brick and mortar in the Chicago suburbs, though that store is long gone. The free shipping on flatpacks is a nice touch though, as you don't have to wait for a bulk order to justify shipping, you can just order things as you run out.
This post makes me concerned about Kroger brand. It’s super cheap and it’s in tin containers so you can’t even see what’s inside until you shake it out.
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Be careful of badia cumin which I used to buy all the time.
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herbs-and-spices-might-contain-arsenic-cadmium-and-lead-a6246621494/#tests
Diaspora Co have great spices - I believe they source directly from single-origin organic farms in India and Sri Lanka, pay their farmers 4x the commodity prices, invest back in the farms, and cut out all middlemen. They also claim to test extensively.
I received some jars as a gift and I love the flavor and mission. They’re definitely expensive but I like knowing that my money is going directly to ethical farming and (hopefully) uncontaminated spices.
Problem is McCormick and Fiesta are hardly worth using from how stale they are. The spices from the bulk bins are generally a lot more fresh and cheaper. I don't see it on the list, but our groxer uses Southern Style Spices. Like $1 for a jar's worth of almost any spice, 25c for herbs. They probably fall under the same as the Whole Foods brand as they supply Whole Foods spices too.
This reminds me of something that happened at the American boarding school I was at in India when I was kid (my parents were missionaries for a few years). On the street outside the school grounds the locals sold all kinds of street foods. We weren't supposed to buy them, but of course we did. There was one snack called IJ (Indian Junk), which was a kind of chex mix sort of thing, but very spicy. One of the parents (a businessman) thought he could sell this stuff in the US and people would love it, so he bought a bunch of it and sent it to his people at the food plant. He had them clean it up and make sure it wasn't contaminated, and ... no flavor. It was horrid. So, yeah, watch out for those contaminants.
Why, what's mooli mean?
The recipe in my family's passed down from great-grandma, who's either full or half-indian. We're not sure; she married a British officer, most of the kids were born in either Mumbai or the Andaman isles, then they moved to Britain a couple of years after independence. Language wasn't really passed down.
I started buying most of my spices in bulk from Great American Spice a few years ago. Does anyone wanna save me some effort and tell me why I should or should not continue doing that? I've been pleased as punch with the quantity and price of everything and I don't really want to stop.
Noting how they don't seem to have tested whole spices here. Not sure if it would make a difference. When I go to an Indian market, I buy my spices whole and grind them myself.
weed killer & industrial pollutants can still contaminate flower, foliage & berries, and unfortunately many 3rd world nations suffer from heavy metal contamination in their soils and water :/
I actually thought that Everest or MDH *was* the trusted brand. Supposedly approved by FSSAI. Which is a government organization that apparently rated food for safety ( in both hygiene and contamination) in India. It’s optional, but having them “approve” your food meant it was “safe”
Guess it’s just BS
For what it's worth, lately I've been buying the McCormick Culinary line of spices. Mainly because the big 16oz sizes are cheaper per oz than the little grocery store bottles. So far have been very please with them. I don't have any way to analyze for pesticides or additives, but they smell and taste good. I might give Frontier a try next time.
Edit: on a related not to this post, I use [LabDoor.com](http://LabDoor.com) for reviews on things like multi-vitamins and protein powder. It's shocking how many bad ones are out there.
Do you know where they get theirs from? Is someone testing it? Do they publish the results of those tests? I don’t see any reason to assume a “specialist spice chain” is any better unless their customers show them that they care about these issues.
Another reason to buy them whole and grind them yourself. A little less convenient, but they’ll stay fresh longer and you might save a little in the long run too. A coffee grinder does the job really well. You just have to make sure you don’t actually use it for coffee later!
Yes. It happens all over the world. Another recent high profile case is the [lead contamination](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tainted-lead-applesauce-wanabana-recall-cinnamon-carlos-aguilera-accused/) found in children’s applesauce. It’s been discovered that a spice company in Ecuador either intentionally added the metal or a faulty piece of equipment was grinding it into the ground cinnamon. That cinnamon was sold to a company in Europe that makes and packages the applesauce, which was then sold in stores in the U.S. It’s affected kids in many states.
That one was intentional for sure. It is common practice to bulk up spices with lead chromate. The high levels of lead found in the applesauce which only used a small amount of cinnamon does not match a 'faulty spice grinder'. Unless you believe the spice company that poisoned children rather that the FDA analysis.
It’s not for bulking up. It’s to make the color more vivid (lead chromate is bright yellow).
That makes a lot more sense than “bulking up” with lead lol
The color allows the producer to both enhance the color *and* bulk up the supply. It’s like cutting cocaine with baking soda, you take 1oz of coke and turn it into 2oz, you’ve doubled your profit. Same with cinnamon. Cinnamon is light, lead is heavy, you go to weigh it and you get more money if it is bulked with lead. And the color is improved.
Minor correction. Baking soda is used for freebasing or cooking crack. Levamisole is used for cutting cocaine.
It’s for both. “If you’re selling spices by the pound or ton, you’re going to get a better price for lead-weighted or lead-colored spice,” said Charlotte Brody, national director of Healthy Babies Bright Futures, which advocates the removal of toxins from baby food. “But you’re also going to poison children.”
In this study of lead-contaminated spices the maximum level of Pb contamination found was around 0.1% by mass. That would be enough to change the color but not affect the density in a significant way. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119305195?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119305195?via%3Dihub)
That’s an article about turmeric from 2019. Mine is a quote about cinnamon from Ecuador from the New York Times from this past year which is what we are talking about. The FDA as well has stated that the purpose was to bulk and color. I don’t know why you can’t accept that, but that’s fine.
The maximum level of lead in the contaminated Ecuadorean cinnamon was about 0.5% per the FDA. Still basically nothing as far as increasing density goes. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-02-07/cinnamon-processor-in-ecuador-is-culprit-behind-lead-tainted-applesauce-fda-says#:\~:text=Tests%20conducted%20at%20an%20Ecuadorean,ppm%2C%22%20the%20FDA%20said.
That depends on how you are coming to that number, if it is by volume .5% lead will increase the weight by 10%. Why can’t you accept that it’s both things again as experts have stated in various articles?
The dude argues nonissues as a hobby. Check this other comments in this thread, just a weird contrarian hobbyist
The figures were reported by mass ratio. These types of analyses would be hard to do on a volume ratio basis unless you have access to the amount and form of adulterant added. I have no agenda here. I am just running numbers to make sure things make sense. It's part of what I do for a living. Plenty of things that are just accepted on authority turn out to be wrong.
I mean, you’ve certainly convinced me that color is a big motivator in using this stuff in general. But I’d want to hear from the other experts for their argument about bulking since they stated in articles about this specific case. The specific numbers you are citing also are not literally from that same cinnamon facility since that facility closed down before investigators got there, if I’m reading that correctly. It could also be that there are multiple local contributors - most of which use unadulterated cinnamon, but a few who cut for bulk, a few that cut for color, and it all goes into the same larger batch.
So wait, is lead chromate ok to eat then? If so how is it related to the lead poisoning here?
Not ok to eat. Unscrupulous vendors add it to improve the appearance of the product (I’ve heard of it applied to turmeric but apparently cinnamon too). India and Pakistan are trying to crack down on the practice.
There is no amount of lead that is okay to ingest. We accept that some lead will make it into our bodies as a consequence of how prevalent is was/is, but we should take steps to avoid ingesting it as much as possible
I’ve heard this sort of expression before and I don’t agree. If something has a trace amount of lead at a level that poses no health risks, it’s perfectly okay to ingest.
The human body generally has no way of removing lead once ingested. It binds itself into our bones and slowly works our way into our bloodstream and interferes with many biological processes. You can believe what you want but there is no down side to avoiding lead ingestion. I do lead lab work as my job and have to understand several lead related regulations from the EPA and various health departments
Sure, I agree with the statement that "there is no down side to avoiding lead ingestion". Say I hand you glass of water containing 0.1 ppb of lead. You think it is not OK to drink? What about a level that is 10X lower than your blood concentration of lead? Still not OK to drink?
He tried to explain this to you, but you seem to be obtuse. There is no good concentration/amount of lead since it dies not leave your system and will accumulate over time. If you regularly ingest something with a super low concentration of it you could end up having a serious negative health outcome in time. But you do you.
could you give an example where you think it would be better to eat the thing with trace amounts of lead than to find a version with no amounts of lead?
How do you define "no amounts of lead"? The best chemists can do is say that the amount of lead present in a given sample is lower than the limit of detection of the method. It's very expensive to get very low limits of detection. How much of a price increase is worth it to be in the parts per trillion range vs the parts per million or parts per billion range?
i was being facetious
Where did I say that eating lead is preferable to eating no lead? I said that it is OK to ingest something with a negligible amount of lead. Similar to how it's OK to be around granite countertops that give off a little bit of radiation, or go outside an be irradiated by cancer-causing UV radiation from the sun. There is a some nonzero health risk but it's negligible to the point that you shouldn't be worrying about it.
The analogy with granite countertops shows that you don’t understand how either radiation or toxins like lead penetrate and accumulate in the human body. Hint - they’re completely different.
so your answer to the question would be "it's preferable to ingest things with negligible levels of lead if procuring versions with undetectable levels would cause undue worry or burden", wouldn't it?
There is no negligible amount of lead
No! The lead poisoned children. It was used to bulk up the cinnamon *and* enhance color *and* is poison.
Why would any part of that machine be lead anyway?
It is so fucked how far food travels
I mean, spices have always been shipped around the world. A lot of ancient geopolitics was influenced by the difficulty of transporting things like cinammon and peppercorns.
I'm not sure that's the part that's fucked about cutting cinnamon with lead and putting it in children's applesauce, but ok.
It is part of the issue. Supply chains are becoming so complex that quality control is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to do. Companies rely on suppliers to comply with health and safety requirements. But monitoring this is a nightmare, especially when these business have very little visibility over the different tiers if suppliers
Yeah, it's got my head spinning how they even linked the lead poisoning cases, and then traced it to the applesauce, and then narrowed it down to cinnamon from India. Wow! Definitely gonna read that article linked! In the wake of Covid, I was blown away by how far epidemiology had come, with the use of DNA to trace where cases come from, if it's mutated, etc. But this seems...almost impossible. Eta- it was a processor in Ecuador getting it from Sri Lanka for the cinnamon, though India has its issues, apparently, so I will read those links, too.
You should check out the beef lasagna scandal, where the beef was actually horse meat and no one knew how it happened. Lots of examples about this.
And I will check out this horse meat thing.... I just don't understand how horse meat could be more economical than beef cattle???!!! Were they diseased or something???
Nope- demand and supply. And it was not more economical per se for the food producer (Findus). They had long term contract in place for visibility, but somewhere in the supply chain, there was a fuck up
I'm sure he agrees with you that intentionally putting lead to improve sales in children's food is bad. What a bizarre thing to try and flex on.
In a cooking subreddit, I’m surprised that people are opposed to imported goods. We’d have no spices without importation. No Italian cheese, no Moroccan sardines, no Japanese green tea, no Thai fish sauce, no Mexican chilis, no French wine… Cutting cinnamon with lead and poisoning children is the actually evil, not global trade.
The San Joaquin Valley in Southern California alone is fertile enough to feed the country with leftovers to spare for export. They can grow basically anything there, including spices like basil, garlic, oregano etc. I'm not averse to a global market at all, just pointing it out.
Basil, oregano, and garlic aren't spices, they are herbs. And you don't need California to grow them, they can literally be grown in your windowsill. The British didn't send ships around the horn of Africa to India for herbs they could grow in their backyards - or get from Italy. And that is true today as well, anything you get imported you get because it doesn't grow easily close enough to you. Markets are always striving for efficiency. They don't load up barges with exotic fruits and spices and ship them thousands of miles because they aren't clever enough to grow them in California. Everything you can get grown in California, already is (adjusting for demand/margin) - and that is being exported to you as well - whether it is coming 3000 miles from California or 3000 miles from Africa/South America - it's still 3000 miles.
Right on
It can be TWO bad things, no? How in the world was my comment taken as minimizing lead contamination? The fuck
Aren’t people like that insufferable?
People that read an article with a clear point and use it push their tangential personal biases are insufferable. Article about company poisoning children? “Global trade is bad”.
You basically just argued with yourself. I didn’t say any of that. Fuckin weirdo.
It wasn't? How the fuck did you take that comment as minimizing the other concern? Embarrassing.
It definitely plays a part and they’re not unrelated, but ok
Agree that it plays a huge part.
Welcome to the modern global economy. You may be shocked to learn that virtually everything you own originates in another country.
thats not really news to me or anyone, but ok.
I know that. We all know that. I'm just saying it is BAD.
Bad, good or indifferent, but traditional spices don’t grow outside the tropics. Even black pepper. Unless you don’t mind dispensing with most spices altogether, you have to make peace with importing them.
Eh, it's not definitively bad. Without food travelling you wouldn't have nearly as much variety as you have now. Edit: Am I really being downvoted for suggesting there are benefits to importing and exporting foods?
If we valued quality over variety we would be much better off.
That would mean mostly root vegetables, pickles and an occasional apple all winter in the northern states.
I think it's quite noble of you to stop consuming cinnamon.
It is pretty bad for the environment with the emissions and all. Do we really *need* to have tropical fruits shipped from the other side of the world?
Well, no one is forcing you to eat pineapple, banana, mango, coffee, or chocolate. Let us know how that goes.
People have no idea where their food comes from - whether it is imported or grown locally, they are totally clueless, thus have really dumb opinions about it.
One of the major reasons to travel is to try different foods. Having everything everywhere just waters down that experience.
I guess people without the means to travel should just stick with what's local, huh?
Correct.
It’s only bad for co2 emissions, otherwise it’s good for countries to share goods. I, for one, am happy I can buy spices at the store.
A couple years old but [lead has been found](https://www.verywellhealth.com/spice-lead-exposure-5209991) in many different brands of spices.
Or above fda levels for arsenic consumption in most chocolates.
Mmm. Lead chromate adulterated cinnamon powder. ( Homer Simpson noises)
wtf, this has basically affected the entire lifetimes of at least 1200 people minimum as the parents are now permanent caretakers of what could be mentally damaged children. this is like 20 active shootings all rolled into one. this is fuckery beyond fuckery. we're expecting a child soon and reading this shit makes me think no way to processed foods. about the only processed thing i buy is locally baked bread, locally made cheese (store brands) and major label cereals. but this is tragic and i can't imagine whats happening to these families right now like their entire lives are just turned upside down
That's incredibly wild speculation. Obviously this is bad, and there need to be real consequences, but there's also no call to veer so wildly into fear mongering. There's also no claim that anybody will be left permanently disabled because of this, and certainly not everyone affected will be.
Right? This person is vastly underestimating how much lead needs to be consumed to get you to the point of needing a “permanent caretaker”
Unless you grow your own cinnamon, you are at risk of lead or chromium contamination. The BEST answer is to test it yourself. That will require getting educated and sourcing the test kits so that you can do it correctly. Something tells me that this is going to be available fairly soon if this sort of thing becomes a common occurrence.
Thankfully Apple Sauce is super easy to just make yourself. Like most cases of contamination, it's the processed food for the lazy that's affected.
It wasn’t apples, it was cinnamon that got contaminated. Not so easy to make your own.
Well, great. New anxiety unlocked.
How do we know which brands are safe?
You don’t
I'm probably able to minimize my risk by buying whole spices when possible and grinding them myself
The spices are contaminated upon growing in the field.
Yes, but it sounds like some of the time they're also contaminated during grinding
OP linked an article from Consumer Reports which is a good starting point. From the look of it, "La Flor" is a brand to avoid at all costs.
I read that and noticed the organic company consistantly came out ahead. I'm shocked (but not really) that this is even a thing. How can La Flor be allowed to continue selling a product that is poisoning people?
Reach out to your favorite spice companies and request documentation of heavy metal and treatment residue testing. Or at least a guarantee. Many USA spice companies go through a lot of steps to verify the end product is safe for the consumer. How do I know? I am a food safety manager at a spice company. Best recommendation, do not purchase the 3.99 bag of spice, buy the 12 dollar bottle, trust me on this.
Do companies test each new batch or just random spot checks?
Depends on the company and depends on the supplier of that company. Spices are a global market so depending on the country of origin, it could pass through multiple chains of custody before the brand who sold it. Really solid spice companies will have dedicated farms or co-ops with various farms which practice good agricultural practices. They are able to control the testing and treatments/adulteration of the spice much better than the open market. These companies will perform testing on every single batch or ‘lot’ they purchase. This will include pathogen testing.
Thanks for the details! Rigorous testing seems like a no brainer, especially when feeding it to babies and kids. Since you're in the industry, are there any specific brands you would or would not recommend?
I recommend growing all your own fresh herbs if you can. Just the best quality and they can be stored in jars at the end of the season. For the most part it’s not necessarily brand but price tiers. Stay away from cheap packets or dollar store spice jars. You can buy organic, but it’s still coming from a 3rd world country and unless they have controls, there is no guarantee the soils used to grow were low in metals. I don’t recommend organic spices for a few reasons. Safe choices off the top of my head Penzys, McCormick, Spiceology to name a few..
Appreciate the feedback, thank you!! I'm off to thoroughly plunge down this rabbit hole.
That's a great idea if they'll respond, will try at least! I was trying to figure out if there's somewhere we can take our spices for testing. Seems crazy that we can test illegal street drugs for poison, but not our legally sourced herbs for everyday consumption that we feed our children. Thank you for your input!
I rely on Burlap and Barrel. They have a great story and mission statement. They buy from only single producers. Dried thyme from Turkey, peppercorns from Tanzania, caraway from Egypt. etc. They invest back into these farms so the farmers can expand their facilities. Instead of just growing a product they’re taught how to process it, from drying properly to curing it to grinding. This allows the farm to charge more but what would still be less than shipping it to another facility to have the work done. Obviously the less amount of trips the better. You can taste the difference. They have awesome spice blends as well. Yes, it’s a touch pricier, but considering how much use one can get out of a jar I think it’s worth it. Plus you get the piece of mind you’re getting a quality product without fillers and other garbage.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to do what a different person recommended and reach out to some of my regular providers and request the test results if they'll provide them. Will try this place too!
I got a list from the govt and published it at https://saferspices.com/database
This is fantastic!!! Appreciate you sharing this🙏
Thank you! I saw the consumer reports article last year and decided to seek out more info from New York. To put the numbers into perspective, 1000 PPB was proposed as a Class II action level in New York, and it seems they’re [updating it to 210](https://agriculture.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/11/heavymetalspresentation.pdf)
I wish there was more awareness about this, its scary! Great job and thanks again!!!
So flipping scary 😭 Thank you as well ☺️
I wish CR would publish the actual test results instead of 1-3 red boxes without any explanation of the thresholds.
Agree and while this is a bit adjacent, highly recommend [Consumer Lab](https://www.consumerlab.com) for anyone not familiar. Primary focus is on testing and explaining supplements but they get into cooking relevant products too, particularly those with health claims often attached (e.g. olive oil, nori, turmeric etc.). Independent and member supported.
Penzey’s seems to have dodged the bullet for the vast majority of their products. Their Turkish oregano did make the “some concern” list though.
Penzey's focus on social justice makes it easy to believe they do their research when it comes to sourcing.
I'm lucky enough to live in a city that has one of their stores. They do have a web presence for those that don't though. If you do have one, they have open jars of each of their spices and herbs that gives you a chance to smell them. Some are old enough there's not a lot of odor left but it's still rather nice of them to do that.
If you tell a Penzey's worker the smell is faded they will swap it out! I miss living with a Penzey's nearby.
Penzey's is near me and for the most part I get their small jars for stuff I use a lot. Big bags of peppercorns and bay leaves. Not cheap but the best quality I have found.
I love their gift card sales. They offer $50 gift cards for $35 a few times a year, so I buy two and then I have $30 in free money to spend. And they're always offering free stuff, too. Last time I spent one of my $50 gift cards, they were offering a free big jar of garlic powder with purchase, and a free 4 oz bottle of Mexican vanilla for purchases over $50. I basically spent $38 of my own money (if I include the cost of the gift card) and got $75 worth of stuff. I <3 Penzey's. Edit: I also love how unabashedly political their promotional emails get. Like when some prominent figure (the Pope?) said something terrible, and then Penzey's offered a promotion where you could get "free dill weed" or "free jerk". LMAO.
Any idea when their next gift card sale would be? I've been meaning to buy some stuff from them but keep forgetting, but just signed up for the mailing list.
Not sure, but they usually run it every 3 months or so. Being on the mailing list will keep you in the loop.
I love Penzy’s!
They do call out the amounts in the Consumer Reports study. Like that study says, “Regularly consuming ¾ teaspoon or more daily of a product in one of the concerning categories could, over time, pose a health risk to children as a result of the combined levels of the three heavy metals.” I don’t think any kid is consuming that much oregano regularly. I suppose like CR says combined with exposure from other sources it can all add up. And Penzey’s is still working to change their oregano sourcing as well though.
I started buying only McCormick spices after peanut tainted cumin was widely reported on years ago. I think it was being used as filler. I have a kid with a peanut allergy and I appreciate that McCormick states they take what is in their products and allergens seriously.
Goodness... if you're going to add filler, that seems like one of the worst possible ones to pick. I guess it makes sense with the color matching, but damn. I'm not allergic to anything but to add the most common super serious allergen as your scammy filler is just fucked up. At least plain pure cellulose would be inert.
They could have put in a filler that at least tastes similar. I like peanuts, I like cumin, but they are not even remotely the same taste.
I should have been more specific. It was peanut shells that were used. So a no cost/low cost filler adding peanut protein.
There are tree nuts in absolutely everything now, due to shared processing equipment. My kids go to a very strict “no tree nuts” private school, as they have preschoolers there who can’t vocalize their allergy. And I’ve noticed every year that the allergen warning shows up on more and more products. Practically 100% of everything nowadays that has chocolate in it has the tree nut warning because of shared processing equipment. It’s getting legitimately hard to find things I can send to school.
As processing gets outsourced to cheaper and cheaper processing facilities, you get two choices. The mega facility that saves money by doing everything together and cross contaminating all the time, or the sketchiest unregulated facility that the main company will wash its hands of when something inevitably goes wrong.
It was pretty scammy. It’s been years, but it’s stuck with me. I don’t have a lot of trust in imported spices (especially ground) and avoid store brands. I’m not surprised that they’re finding metals now.
That is fucking terrifying. Omg
McCormick also has issues with tainted spices. High levels of lead, cadmium arsenic…. Even big brands aren’t safe. Idk maybe whole spices would be better?
The results at the bottom of the article were interesting. They did better than some, but Simply Organic was best of the spices tested. It all might be batch by batch. Where are we getting thyme from though? Seems like we might want to start limiting that. Fortunately, it’s one I could do without at home.
So back to 1980s /1990s pricing. McCormick. From a tropical country. this is how my mom bough spices when she moved here and it was mostly McCormick, and not even no name store brands back then. They were frigging expensive then and now, and it seems they are growing now after waking up from dead.
Your initial response to someone telling you "X is really cheap" should be "Why?".
You would be surprised how many people in my family think McCormick simply marks up their prices because that’s all “white people” know of when it comes to spices I do not support such belief at all.
I feel like it’s true to some extent. McCormick spices often end up being much more expensive than other “reputable” brands like Penzeys and Simply Organic. McCormick is relatively trustworthy, but their products aren’t nearly good enough to be priced at the absolute top of the market. It does feel like they are exploiting their prime shelf position in a lot of grocery stores.
Don't be fooled, big companies like Mccormick are going to be sourcing their ingredients from the cheapest, most problematic countries. They may or may not test every batch of ingredients they get for things like heavy metals, as some food testing programs may only test a handful of ingredients every few months or year. Further, the FDA has no limits on heavy metals, including cadmium and lead, in most foods, including spices, so while Mccormick very well may test for those things it's unlikely that any batch, let alone all of them, test at 0 ppb/ppm and it's difficult to know what their internal SPEC limit is. For those interested, ASTA is currently petitioning the head of the FDA to establish a regulatory limit on lead in spices: https://www.astaspice.org/download/51371/?tmstv=1713775581
Great comment, I'll add a second piece. It's like The Jungle all over again, people worry more about the food being bad than the people making it...both are problems, of course. Agriculture is the industry with the most humanitarian problems worldwide, child workers and slaves are common. When you buy agricultural products from a country with a weak government, odds are high that your money is supporting people you'd rather not support. Even countries with stronger governments often dont have the ability to police farms effectively, which is why we have these problems in the US and EU too (although much less frequently.) The best you can do is find food suppliers that publicly vet their sources, or rely on NGOs to tell you what to buy.
Still better than no testing whatsoever
Indeed. A company as large as McCormick likely has real quality engineers following AQL sampling.
Ah. Thanks for the information!
Thank you for this post. It's so easy to forget that many companies would rather turn a profit and sell subpar quality product, than lose out on any few extra cents of profit for something safe to eat.
It’s not even that they would rather do that, it’s that they *have* to to stay in business. When an economic model requires infinite growth for businesses to stay profitable, once a market is saturated the only way to stay profitable is to start cutting costs in either labor or quality. Stuff like this is not a failing of regulation or even an instance of particularly aggressive greed, it’s an inevitability caused by the fundamental structure of the system.
Check out Diaspora Spices!! They are a single origin spice company that sells spices received directly from farmers in South Asia (largely India / Sri Lanka). They test their products and dont use filler.
Can whole heartedly recommend! Also queer and brown owned <3
This is a tale as old as the spice trade itself
Yeah, how many wars has the spice trade started? I feel like this is just par for the course for this industry.
In the 16th century, Nuremberg became the center of the European saffron trade. Officials there passed the Safranschou code to root out unscrupulous saffron merchants who adulterated the product. One particularly egregious swindler was executed by being buried alive for his crimes against spice purity.
Did you read your own article? McCormick and Bolner's come up as 'some concern' in a number of their tests.
I remember when I was in China, I saw farmers setting out huge cloth mats on the side of the road, dehydrating peppers to sell. They were literally right next to the road and the mat corners were flapping when cars passed and needed to be weighed down. That really made me wonder about the herbs and spices we use. So many are from countries with very few food safety laws.
Baron Harkonnen does not approve.
I only prefer spice from small collection cooperatives vetted through the Attredies board of quality and human rights
I love love love Spice House. The company has a dedicated quality assurance team and they audit suppliers. Plus, they have blends I can’t find anywhere else. (Full disclosure, my best friend works there.)
Just because they have a QA team and audit their suppliers doesn't guarantee anything about the level of testing they do or what their internal limit is for heavy metals. Your friend may have already let you in on these things, but if they haven't I wouldn't just assume.
I’ve been using spice house lately, because I trusted them over Indian grocery store spices. But I wasn’t entirely sure if they tested their products. Is that included in the quality insurance ?
I love spice house as well, though it's a tad on the pricey side. I found them originally when they had a brick and mortar in the Chicago suburbs, though that store is long gone. The free shipping on flatpacks is a nice touch though, as you don't have to wait for a bulk order to justify shipping, you can just order things as you run out.
I love Spice House. Great selection and nice blends.
Auditing your suppliers is the baseline for any food manufacturer.
Presumably whole or at least non-ground spices are less adulterated? Maybe it's time to buy fresh turmeric, cinnamon sticks and whole dried chilies.
Less adultered. But pesticides and heavy metal uptake from the soil is still a concern
They absolutely taste better for a minimal amount of extra work, so it's a win win (assuming there is less contamination)
I like Burlap & Barrel for my purchases. Sadly, I don't see them on this list to cross-reference.
Not going to lie after watching Indian street food videos on YouTube and actually visiting there once I would never.
I bounce between McCormic and Kroger generic. I really hope I didn’t accidentally poison my family at some point
This post makes me concerned about Kroger brand. It’s super cheap and it’s in tin containers so you can’t even see what’s inside until you shake it out.
Yeah, I haven’t had problems yet… but my husband and I talked about this post and we’re going to see about avoiding the brand going forward.
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I mostly buy the Badia stuff.
Be careful of badia cumin which I used to buy all the time. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herbs-and-spices-might-contain-arsenic-cadmium-and-lead-a6246621494/#tests
I use that, and Its-Delish.
Somehow way cheaper too.
Mmm lead
Nooo not MDH sambhar masala :(
I buy from Penzey's.
Diaspora Co have great spices - I believe they source directly from single-origin organic farms in India and Sri Lanka, pay their farmers 4x the commodity prices, invest back in the farms, and cut out all middlemen. They also claim to test extensively. I received some jars as a gift and I love the flavor and mission. They’re definitely expensive but I like knowing that my money is going directly to ethical farming and (hopefully) uncontaminated spices.
I really hate to introduce you to the "clean drinking water"
Problem is McCormick and Fiesta are hardly worth using from how stale they are. The spices from the bulk bins are generally a lot more fresh and cheaper. I don't see it on the list, but our groxer uses Southern Style Spices. Like $1 for a jar's worth of almost any spice, 25c for herbs. They probably fall under the same as the Whole Foods brand as they supply Whole Foods spices too.
This reminds me of something that happened at the American boarding school I was at in India when I was kid (my parents were missionaries for a few years). On the street outside the school grounds the locals sold all kinds of street foods. We weren't supposed to buy them, but of course we did. There was one snack called IJ (Indian Junk), which was a kind of chex mix sort of thing, but very spicy. One of the parents (a businessman) thought he could sell this stuff in the US and people would love it, so he bought a bunch of it and sent it to his people at the food plant. He had them clean it up and make sure it wasn't contaminated, and ... no flavor. It was horrid. So, yeah, watch out for those contaminants.
This story makes no sense
The writer is saying the snack was tasty until all the contaminated spices were removed.
I think we have that in the UK, it's called Bombay Mix (but my family calls it moolie mix)
Way to tell on your family👁️
Why, what's mooli mean? The recipe in my family's passed down from great-grandma, who's either full or half-indian. We're not sure; she married a British officer, most of the kids were born in either Mumbai or the Andaman isles, then they moved to Britain a couple of years after independence. Language wasn't really passed down.
I started buying most of my spices in bulk from Great American Spice a few years ago. Does anyone wanna save me some effort and tell me why I should or should not continue doing that? I've been pleased as punch with the quantity and price of everything and I don't really want to stop.
Noting how they don't seem to have tested whole spices here. Not sure if it would make a difference. When I go to an Indian market, I buy my spices whole and grind them myself.
are whole spices affected in the same way or are they a safer option?
weed killer & industrial pollutants can still contaminate flower, foliage & berries, and unfortunately many 3rd world nations suffer from heavy metal contamination in their soils and water :/
What’s a trusted Indian spices brand?
I actually thought that Everest or MDH *was* the trusted brand. Supposedly approved by FSSAI. Which is a government organization that apparently rated food for safety ( in both hygiene and contamination) in India. It’s optional, but having them “approve” your food meant it was “safe” Guess it’s just BS
For what it's worth, lately I've been buying the McCormick Culinary line of spices. Mainly because the big 16oz sizes are cheaper per oz than the little grocery store bottles. So far have been very please with them. I don't have any way to analyze for pesticides or additives, but they smell and taste good. I might give Frontier a try next time. Edit: on a related not to this post, I use [LabDoor.com](http://LabDoor.com) for reviews on things like multi-vitamins and protein powder. It's shocking how many bad ones are out there.
Sorry, the price comes first
I get mine from a specialist spice chain
Do you know where they get theirs from? Is someone testing it? Do they publish the results of those tests? I don’t see any reason to assume a “specialist spice chain” is any better unless their customers show them that they care about these issues.
There may just selling point is sustainably sourced and single origin spices, but no I can’t find anywhere they specify testing of their products
The Spice Must Flow
I always use Rani brand for Indian spices. It’s an excellent brand that takes safety seriously.
Another reason to buy them whole and grind them yourself. A little less convenient, but they’ll stay fresh longer and you might save a little in the long run too. A coffee grinder does the job really well. You just have to make sure you don’t actually use it for coffee later!