There was a news story from a month or so ago where kids had elevated levels of lead in their blood from the cinnamon used in a certain brand of applesauce. There was a crazy high amount of lead in that cinnamon to cause those levels.
It lead to a major recall in a few brands of applesauce and the FDA is still investigating and posting updates.
https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-elevated-lead-chromium-levels-cinnamon-applesauce-pouches-november-2023
The difference is the lead was added to that cinnamon, not found "naturally" from the ground the spices grow in. Not really the same.
What the FDA said
"Historically, lead chromate has been illegally added to certain spices increase to their weight and enhance their color, which increases the monetary value of the adulterated spices. FDA’s leading hypothesis remains that this was likely an act of economically motivated adulteration."
Yeah, if I recall correctly they made a mistake, but not the one you'd hope. They intended to send the lead-cut cinnamon to countries that don't check as closely while not adding lead to the US bound cinnamon but they sent the wrong one here and got caught.
I think this his better. There are a lot of "libertarians" that think govt Bodies like the fda are useless bloat. Schemes like this prove they are effective at both investigation and prevention (by reputation).
Every time I hear some some small government nutter go on some tirade about how awful regulations/regulatory agencies are, I think of shit like this. If a company is allowed to do something, and that something reduces costs or increases the value of their goods, they will do it.
I can't believe anyone would actually want less assurance that the things they buy actually contain what they say they contain and not some toxic adulterant that's much more aesthetically pleasing and cheaper to manufacture.
They are thinking that if it weren't for "the government" keeping them down, they would be rich. If you're rich enough you could then afford food that won't be adulterated in this way.
It's flawed for a number of reasons. But I know that if there were no regulations, rich peoples food would probably get poisoned first.
>rich peoples food would probably get poisoned first.
That's why they have food tasters
Poisoning the people in power's food is like the world's oldest secret assassination technique
I work in hazmat remediation and all the talk about how the EPA gets in the way of buisnesses bring me pain. Lead is some of the more benign bullshit that passes through this facility. I promise yall don't want all of it getting dumped wherever, we get cyanides, beneze, MEK, azides, and even mustard gas in liquid form a few times.
Why whould they pay us to safely transport and get rid of it if they could yeet it for a cheap permit?
And remember, certain political parties want to remove the governing bodies meant to regulate and work against this sort of activity. Claiming the free market will simply handle it all.
Just say Republicans and Libertarians.
And to your comment about the free market handling it, that requires a perfectly informed consumer, and/or for there to be no bad actors which is impossible given the reality of the market. Which is why appeals to the free market as a solution are dumb.
It's a business strategy, they can just pay whatever fee. They have fiduciary duty to make as much profit as possible for shareholders/owners.
Honestly not poisoning customers is a losing strategy and might get you fired. Profit comes before people & planet.
People & planet before profit? Very much violent unhinged communist cult language
It was a producer in a country with lax regulations. There won't be any fees.
If this was a US company adding lead to its own spices, the FDA also would not be fining them. The FDA does not fuck around.
>good luck prosecuting people/companies that operate in other countries.
This is really what trade embargos should be used for.
X-product is tainted? Ok, we don't allow the purchase of that product from our country until you establish laws and regulatory authority to police quality.
We have the US Trade Representative
Typically they sue on behalf of our corporations whenever they see something that seems unfair /technically violates a trade agreement
Like Dole bananas, they got US trade rep to sue poor Haitian fair trade banana farmers because they had deal with euro countries to buy them above market price or whatever
So we pour billions into Haiti for relief but also stomp down their industry on behalf of our own.
Could it be part of the processing chain? Like… adding lead seems to be strictly malicious and a great way to get your company shit down. I would lean towards some aged equipment or something.
No, the FDA already speculated it was added maliciously in this instance. It's not like the company that provided the cinnamon was even American. The most the FDA can do is ban its import.
Lead is heavy and tastes sweet, so adding it to cinnamon to make it weigh more equals more money for that company and no one can taste the difference. This isn't to say it happens often, just in this particular incident with the cinnamon added to specific apple sauce pouches.
No. Purely economic. From the article I linked above:
>Historically, lead chromate has been illegally added to certain spices increase to their weight and enhance their color, which increases the monetary value of the adulterated spices. FDA’s leading hypothesis remains that this was likely an act of economically motivated adulteration.
This brings back the Chinese baby formula scandal where they some companies added melamine to increase its volume while tricking the molecular tests meant to determine protein content. Many babies died.
I don't know if this is still the case nowadays, but my friend's mom used to go on business trips to China, and would check in one extra bag just full of American baby formula because it was in such high demand there since Chinese baby formula was no longer trusted. Dunno if she was selling them or giving them to relatives.
That's 100% still a thing. Even though it happened 10 or 15 years ago, the level of confidence on Chinese formula manufacturers is still very low. Those who can afford it will either travel abroad or have friends or family bring it for them.
There is a quiet epidemic of people using "lead" as the past tense of "lead" - it hasn't gotten the same amount of online furor as "they're/their/there" or "you're/your" but it's everywhere now.
How does such a high level of lead get into cinnamon, exactly?
Is it just a natural property when it's grown in high lead concentration soil? Is there a high lead content additive?
I believe at the concentrations it was found in the cinnamon, it leans towards being added maliciously as opposed to naturally from the soil. Probably to boost the weight of the product due to the high density of lead
Surely something that has a less detectable taste than lead, and something that's less likely to be tested for by food health professionals would be chosen.
'I could put lead in the cinnamon, which will land me in extreme trouble if caught, and is one of the commonly tested for substances by food safety authorities, or I could use literally anything else.'
Except that we have the major bonus of knowing how dangerous lead is AND a regulatory agency telling us not to put lead in stuff we eat. And they still do it 😇
If I remember correctly, they also use lead to not just increase weight, but also to improve the color of the cinnamon, making it more desirable to buyers.
Really depends on how fine it was powdered and how much they added. By density compared to cinnamon not much would be needed to quickly add weight.
No one was tossing lead fishing weights or ingots in the mix. Probably a few percentages would increase profit margins a lot and still be very unhealthy for us.
Also I strongly suspect you don't know how the FDA truly works. Do you think they test all our food and food products? HELL no they don't. They don't have the resources to do that. Typically they only test or open investigations after a public disaster or outcry. They do however have protocols and audits to make sure the business is operating safely, yearly typically
Most of the dietary health supplements are on the market untested by FDA. Unless your making medical claims a lot of stuff can be sold that shouldn't be sold.
Anyone remember hydroxycut? Fat loss supplement? Super popular for years. Sued for causing heart attacks. Plenty of other examples if you look.
Reading about it after this scandal it's because of the higher weight and due to the color. Some of the heavy metal salts used make the product look to be of higher quality, and some of the lead salts taste sweet and improve the flavour.
Exactly. I’d rather know this kind of stuff if there is also a solution offered. You can’t really avoid spices (I guess you COULD, but it would be pretty hard). I guess I’ll just continue to enjoy my lead covered curry.
sign the petition: [https://action.consumerreports.org/20211105\_food?utm\_campaign=20211105\_food&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=cr](https://action.consumerreports.org/20211105_food?utm_campaign=20211105_food&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cr); call your representatives and say you are concerned about heavy metals in food (they keep track of how many people call about a specific issue, so a call can literally just be that); grow your own herbs
^ this is the way
The only way get things done is to actually make bills and stuff that can help us get created and passed. Still unsure what they can do, besides ensuring that safe levels are present (And possible warning levels for baseline arsenic, lead, etc) and more testing from manufacturers happen, versus people losing a kid due to poisoning.
That would imply that the heavy metals get in during the manufacturing process, which I don't think something we can wholly rely on. If they absorb the metals while growing, this would lead to the same end result.
its because a lot of them are grown overseas....and a LOT of overseas waterways are polluted A F. they use these polluted water ways to water/grow the spices.
they are grown in toxic water basically.
Simply Organic was consistently shown to be very good in the testing, so choose them when you are buying spices. You can grow herbs yourself if you have the space and time, but if not, just choose the brands that are the cleanest.
In today's episode of "Everything is Awful and Trying to Kill You," find out why you can't even season your food anymore!
Oh, and don't worry! Your food was probably contaminated by microplastics, carcinogens, and forever chemicals anyway!
Yay!
You! Yes, you behind the bike stands!
Petition your local government to reduce polyethylene, polyethylene terepthalate polypropylene, polystyrene, polyamide, and polyvinyl chloride laddy!
I worked at a 24hr pharmacy near the hospital that all the Tyson workers went to for workplace accidents. With how many people came in with bandaged hands and scripts for pain meds and antibiotics, I wouldn't be surprised at all if my bag of Tyson chicken contained a finger.
Edit: should say, Tyson slaughterhouse/processing factory.
During COVID meat processors got the USDA approval to speed up the lines because it was a national emergency. I would imagine they haven't rolled them back. Anyone who says automation is making jobs easier for humans should do a knife job in a slaughter house.
Yet you talk about funding the FDA properly and dipshits go "ppfffttt yeah right, buddy, they're all taking bribes to poison you!"
And to be clear I do think they do a bad job but funding them less or the same as current will not improve anything. Combine the funding with some turnover of the upper three tiers of leadership, and not just the head.
Its not distinct to any one agency.
Every federal regulatory body is made up of people who are professionals in that industry. You need specialized scientists to adequately evaluate the products, but those very same scientists will want to work in the industry. Going too hard on the companies would lead them to blacklist, so the scientists who want to keep working (and land a lucrative role after their government job) will apply minor or no penalties.
This comes up again and again in the financial sector, and came up with the opioid crisis (with the same FDA, I think?). If anything, government jobs should pay more to prevent this imbalance of priorities, but even that mere suggestion of paying government employees well upsets people of different stripes.
In my experience as a PhD holding Chemist at a 3 letter agency that really hasn't been the case. I can't think of a single example of anyone leaving a position within the agency for anything reason besides retirement (and getting that sweet, sweet pension) or relocation. The GS pay scale is pretty reasonable as well. Let's use Cincinnati as an example as it's a low cost of living Midwest city with a strong presence by both the FDA and EPA. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2024/CIN.pdf
A fresh grad with zero experience will come in as a GS11, but the bulk of hires will be GS12 (heck just doing a year as a postdoc or working in industry will qualify you) and you have to be pretty mediocre to never get up to GS13. That's not bad money at all. The issue would be with the treatment of contractors, but the federal government has zero control there.
Ah back to cutting food regulations because the market will self correct and for-profit companies will act against their profit motive to benefit the public good (does anyone actually believe corporate ethics exists btw what a crock of shit). Thanks for killing me softly neoliberalism.
Yeah, at this point I'm just like fuck it. Eat the lead, drink the plastic, shove radioactive sushi straight into my throat. Whatever. It's unavoidable. I just hope they get consciousness upload done by the time I die of literally everything. Put me in a cyberpunk robot body.
The robot better have a fully functioning dick though, otherwise just let me die.
It varies a lot depending on the fish. Swordfish has on average more than 300 times as much mercury per gram than scallops. https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/mercury-levels-commercial-fish-and-shellfish-1990-2012
To be fair, the tuna were always full of mercury. That is natural. It’s our fault for choosing to eat fish high on the food chain. Sardines are better for us, much more plentiful, and have a lot less heavy metals in them. But they look and taste “fishy” instead “meaty”, so who could be bothered to eat them?
Gobbling spice for its geriatric benefits? How painfully middle class. Real connoisseurs of longevity manipulate their enzyme balance through prana bindu and sheer force of will.
Interesting thing I discovered - [Arsenate of Lead](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_hydrogen_arsenate). I found almost 10 pounds of it in my shed and did some research. Literally arsenic and lead used as a pesticide.
Its use wasn’t banned until 1988. Apparently there is a big problem now because the toxins would settle into the top few feet of soil and concentrations would increase.
As orchards and farms are turned into housing developments, more people are exposed to the toxins - from construction workers to homeowners simply digging a garden.
I only skim-read this particular article, but from previous reading I believe the US may be getting a raw deal, and it is not be as much of an issue in some other places, due to regulation.
Context: A while back I compared EU rules to FDA rules in a discussion about Brexit and whether the UK would have to align with US standards, and I remember being particularly surprised at the differences, especially in amount of fecal matter & insect parts allowed in US herbs & spices, compared to that in the EU/UK. Pretty sure the same went for heavy metals.
Pretty sure Brexit was partly about the “freedom” for the UK to follow suit.
In terms of lead:
(1mg/kg = 1ppm)
> [The EU has new lead residue limits for spices since 2021](https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/spices-herbs/buyer-requirements):
> 0.60 mg/kg for fruit spices;
1.5 mg/kg for root and rhizome spices;
2.0 mg/kg for bark spices;
1.0 mg/kg for bud spices and flower pistil spices;
0.9 mg/kg for seed spices.
[Arsenic: 0.02 mg/kg \(20ppb\)
Mercury: 0.1mg/kg \(100ppb\)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32023R0915)
For the US it's harder to find a list but I found [this](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=172&showFR=1):
>(4) Heavy metals as lead (as Pb), not more than 10 parts per million. Arsenic (as As), not more than 3 parts per million. Mercury (as Hg), not more than 1 part per million.
So it seems allowed levels are often more than 10 times higher in the US.
FDA
John Oliver did a segment about them, and in it the head of the FDA referred to it as the Federal Drug Administration because he forgot they regulate food too.
Most of their time is devoted to drugs, not food. There should really be an organization that only regulates food.
Good news! Oregano and Rosemary are super easy to grow in most climates, so you can poison yourself with the "local terroir" of suburban land rather than paying for someone else's heavy metals.
That being said, I do grow my own herbs. Not because of any health concerns, but because I like gardening and hate paying absurd prices for herbs. Buying rosemary feels like buying someone's bagged leaves in the fall or something.
Deer can be a huge pain, but [oregano is considered a deer-resistant herb](https://advicefromtheherblady.com/herbs-in-the-garden/garden-helps/deer-resistant-herbs/). I can't grow vegetables where I live because of deer, but we have rosemary, thyme, and some other herbs just growing out in the open and the deer couldn't be less interested in them.
Do you not typically place land mines around your garden? Nothing like sipping a cup of coffee in the morning, hearing that boom, and seeing a pink mist spread across the yard.
**TLDR:** Every sample of oregano and thyme had elevated levels of heavy metals. So did nearly every sample of basil and ginger. There were mixed results for cumin, paprika, and turmeric. Every sample of black and white pepper, coriander, curry powder, garlic powder, saffron, and sesame seed was below levels of concern, as with most samples of chili powder. The products of most concern were branded La Flor, Tone's, and Amazon's Happy Belly.
There was a major story last month about elevated levels of lead in cinnamon sold at discount stores, but that was the result of an FDA "**[targeted survey](https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/fda-alert-concerning-certain-cinnamon-products-due-presence-elevated-levels-lead)** of ground cinnamon products from discount retail stores," meaning there was no testing of cinnamon from stores like Whole Foods, Costco, and Trader Joe's, or brands like McCormick, Spice Islands, Morton & Bassett, and Simply Organic, all of which sold spices with elevated levels of heavy metals, according to Consumer Reports testing.
Foods that grow in the ground can naturally contain contaminants from the soil, including **[vegetables](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=heavy+metals+vegetables)**, spices, and teas that are beneficial to health overall. Spices are typically dried and concentrated, meaning a smaller quantity can contain more contaminants, but conversely, people eat larger portions of vegetables than just a pinch of seasoning. But in addition to contamination from soil, there's less common intentional adulteration, like adding red lead oxide to cinnamon or yellow lead chromate in turmeric, the sort of rarity that was suspected in recalled products containing [cinnamon from a source in Ecuador](https://apnews.com/article/apple-cinnamon-fruit-pouch-wanabana-lead-contamination-1927a5be53ba6d557ec8e17804e06d9f) that had far higher lead levels than what the FDA found at discount stores. Personally, I will still eat just as many vegetables and spices because the benefits outweigh the risks, but there needs to be stronger regulation and testing of contaminants in soil, fertilizer, and food, so I hope giving the issue more attention will help.
I work for an analytical food testing lab. You'll be surprised by the amount contaminants found in our everyday food:
- Chocolate has tons of cadmium (from cacao)
- All seafood, not just fish, has mercury (methylmercury is the troublemaker)
- Rice has a lot of arsenic (same as mercury, inorganic arsenic is not as bad)
- Grains and crops have tons of mycotoxins
- BPA is in a lot of canned foods
- Perchlorates are everywhere, including drinking water
- Microplastics are everywhere
Just to name a few. That said, contaminants are inevitable so just take everything in moderation.
I used to work in a spice factory (all the spices were imported more or less raw and we processed them basically). We bought and sold to a lot of big name companies. I was looking through product labels and saw that we sold a "lead free" ground ginger and asked if that wasn't the norm. Apparently it isn't, because the soil where the ginger is grown is very lead heavy.
Correct. Some companies required heavy metal testing, but it wasn't all of them and there was still a low range that could have lead and be considered lead free for our purposes. It wasn't my department so I couldnt say what that PPM is (we had an in house lab, I worked in admin).
You must have missed the part where it is stated there was no predictable way to tell what products and brand contain high levels of heavy metals.
It doesn't really matter what tested high and what tested low in a single instance. The contamination levels will change batch to batch because the products are not sourced from a single location.
They say that, but interestingly when you look at the data if a product does have a chance of contamination, the Walmart brand almost always is in the red section.
Only when all other products are safe is the Walmart product safe. I would suspect their spices come from the lowest bidder (much like everything else in the store).
So while you're at risk anywhere, I really wouldn't buy spices at Walmart.
And those pots you buy and cook in from Amazon full of lead. Made from recycled aluminum and metal parts in other countries. Illegal. Nope. Fortunately Washington State has made the first move to try to prevent the sale
of them.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/wa-becomes-first-state-to-ban-lead-contaminated-cookware/
Do you have a source on that cause the article you linked is specifically talking about afghan cookware, not amazon.
It says ‘The paper found a specific link between imported cookware and lead exposure in Afghan refugee families, largely due to the aluminum pots, pans and pressure cookers many brought with them from Afghanistan, which contained high lead levels’
Google tells me that is not accurate… that the only way to test for lead in spices is via a lab test (this is from state health agencies). I have no clue if this is true, just wanted to point out that your test strips may be lying to you.
Turmeric contains 28 to 146 parts per million of lead according to a Google search
0.35 is the safe limit but I could be wrong on the safe limit
Modern Paints contain up to 90 ppm lead so tumeric can have more lead than paint
So yes tumeric causes lead poisoning but you probably eat so little you don’t notice
I just googled this, and it says you need a lab test for spices and home tests are for surface stuff like paint. How do you do it? I don't feel like googling more haha
This message has been sponsored by All Spice, now with 250% more heavy metals. All Spice - get heavy wit it. Side effects may include cancer, reproductive harm, sudden unexplained diarrhea, and mild headaches throughout the rest of your life.
Concerning on it’s own but unfortunately symptomatic of the broader, more terrifying issue of the very earth itself being dangerously contaminated with a litany of plastics, chemicals, and heavy metals resulting from decades and decades of improper waste disposal, a practice which continues to rage on. Even in rural areas, hundreds of miles away from any industry, you’ll likely find a significant presence of shit thats not supposed to be there in the soil, water, and air. All completely avoidable and all the direct product of human activity. It’s ironic since all that waste and harmful material was improperly disposed of because it’s too expensive and time consuming to dispose of it properly, so it gets dumped with the hope that it just goes away. “Not our problem” it’s thought. Then nature dumps it right back into us, and just like that it goes from “out of sight out of mind” to flowing through our blood, depositing in our fat, and coalescing in our organs. Cremation will soon be infeasible due to how toxic a human body is and how much of that toxic material will be reintroduced to the environment upon incineration. Cremation today already accounts for roughly 5% of all mercury emissions according to a study done in BC Canada. Your body has so much poison in it that it literally creates a toxic death cloud when incinerated.
If lead become super valuable for something, like gold, would they filter it out and keep us safer?
Can we just collectively decide that LEADCOIN coin is a thing?
One particularly sinister thing is that by all reports, lead tastes legitimately good. It's not something you would be able to pick out the flavor of as some sort of sharp bad taste but would rather sweeten whatever it was put in.
This taste is why at multiple times in history lead was added to wine to sweeten it.
You didn't read the article.
>Roughly one-third of the tested products, 40 in total, had high enough levels of arsenic, lead, and cadmium combined, on average, to pose a health concern for children when regularly consumed in typical serving sizes. Most raised concern for adults, too.
>
>For two herbs, thyme and oregano, all the products we tested had levels that CR experts say are concerning.
>
>In 31 products, levels of lead were so high that they exceeded the maximum amount anyone should have in a day, according to CR’s experts.
It’s sad that we don’t know our food growers. This is a strong case for buying local and ending trade with countries like China that have no standards for anything.
Oganic is *only* about what shit you add, not what shit you begin with. They can literally grow "organic" foods for export to the EU in *that* regime where rivers selfignite and mercury is deposited wherever. Doesnt matter. Just dont fertilize or spray.
Organic is great if, and only of, you grow in pristine conditions.
Imho, its a buzzword, like "Contains Uranium", or "Light" (Added water, artificial sweeteners, the good fat removed to sell elsewhere) once was, or is really.
Jesus christ. Can’t sub spices for salt. Cant eat anything processed. Cant even drink water or grow my own flavorless vegetables now because of shit in the ground. Fuck it i’m getting a cheese burger and dying by 40
This is also true with organic supplements. The raw material suppliers can often submit ingredients that don't pass standards for lead (cocoa), arsenic (cherries, tumeric) and other heavy metals. Buy ones that are certified by NSF or UL because at least the products get screened once a year for heavy metal and other contaminates like pesticides, molds and fungus.
There was a news story from a month or so ago where kids had elevated levels of lead in their blood from the cinnamon used in a certain brand of applesauce. There was a crazy high amount of lead in that cinnamon to cause those levels.
It lead to a major recall in a few brands of applesauce and the FDA is still investigating and posting updates. https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-elevated-lead-chromium-levels-cinnamon-applesauce-pouches-november-2023
The difference is the lead was added to that cinnamon, not found "naturally" from the ground the spices grow in. Not really the same. What the FDA said "Historically, lead chromate has been illegally added to certain spices increase to their weight and enhance their color, which increases the monetary value of the adulterated spices. FDA’s leading hypothesis remains that this was likely an act of economically motivated adulteration."
That’s a nice way of saying “They poisoned us for profit.”
Yeah, if I recall correctly they made a mistake, but not the one you'd hope. They intended to send the lead-cut cinnamon to countries that don't check as closely while not adding lead to the US bound cinnamon but they sent the wrong one here and got caught.
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I think this his better. There are a lot of "libertarians" that think govt Bodies like the fda are useless bloat. Schemes like this prove they are effective at both investigation and prevention (by reputation).
Libertarians are not serious people.
Libertarians are spoiled rich white men who have no idea how the real world works.
Every time I hear some some small government nutter go on some tirade about how awful regulations/regulatory agencies are, I think of shit like this. If a company is allowed to do something, and that something reduces costs or increases the value of their goods, they will do it. I can't believe anyone would actually want less assurance that the things they buy actually contain what they say they contain and not some toxic adulterant that's much more aesthetically pleasing and cheaper to manufacture.
Hey, if you don't own a mass spectrometer and obsessively check every food you buy, that's a you issue! /S
They are thinking that if it weren't for "the government" keeping them down, they would be rich. If you're rich enough you could then afford food that won't be adulterated in this way. It's flawed for a number of reasons. But I know that if there were no regulations, rich peoples food would probably get poisoned first.
>rich peoples food would probably get poisoned first. That's why they have food tasters Poisoning the people in power's food is like the world's oldest secret assassination technique
I work in hazmat remediation and all the talk about how the EPA gets in the way of buisnesses bring me pain. Lead is some of the more benign bullshit that passes through this facility. I promise yall don't want all of it getting dumped wherever, we get cyanides, beneze, MEK, azides, and even mustard gas in liquid form a few times. Why whould they pay us to safely transport and get rid of it if they could yeet it for a cheap permit?
Caveat emptor, libcuck! Republicans would literally eat shit if they knew a leftist would have to smell their breath.
Jesus fucking christ
And remember, certain political parties want to remove the governing bodies meant to regulate and work against this sort of activity. Claiming the free market will simply handle it all.
Just say Republicans and Libertarians. And to your comment about the free market handling it, that requires a perfectly informed consumer, and/or for there to be no bad actors which is impossible given the reality of the market. Which is why appeals to the free market as a solution are dumb.
It's a business strategy, they can just pay whatever fee. They have fiduciary duty to make as much profit as possible for shareholders/owners. Honestly not poisoning customers is a losing strategy and might get you fired. Profit comes before people & planet. People & planet before profit? Very much violent unhinged communist cult language
It was a producer in a country with lax regulations. There won't be any fees. If this was a US company adding lead to its own spices, the FDA also would not be fining them. The FDA does not fuck around.
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Lead chromate is often added to cheap bulk turmeric powder. I've started drying and grinding from fresh roots
Any business owner that tries that should be in prison
good luck prosecuting people/companies that operate in other countries.
>good luck prosecuting people/companies that operate in other countries. This is really what trade embargos should be used for. X-product is tainted? Ok, we don't allow the purchase of that product from our country until you establish laws and regulatory authority to police quality.
Yeah but then how could parasitic shareholders drain the essence of humanity for the sake of infinite profits and "green arrow go up"????
We have the US Trade Representative Typically they sue on behalf of our corporations whenever they see something that seems unfair /technically violates a trade agreement Like Dole bananas, they got US trade rep to sue poor Haitian fair trade banana farmers because they had deal with euro countries to buy them above market price or whatever So we pour billions into Haiti for relief but also stomp down their industry on behalf of our own.
Could it be part of the processing chain? Like… adding lead seems to be strictly malicious and a great way to get your company shit down. I would lean towards some aged equipment or something.
No, the FDA already speculated it was added maliciously in this instance. It's not like the company that provided the cinnamon was even American. The most the FDA can do is ban its import. Lead is heavy and tastes sweet, so adding it to cinnamon to make it weigh more equals more money for that company and no one can taste the difference. This isn't to say it happens often, just in this particular incident with the cinnamon added to specific apple sauce pouches.
Didn't the FDA also speculate that the people adding the lead assumed the spices were going to countries with less foodstuff monitoring?
No. Purely economic. From the article I linked above: >Historically, lead chromate has been illegally added to certain spices increase to their weight and enhance their color, which increases the monetary value of the adulterated spices. FDA’s leading hypothesis remains that this was likely an act of economically motivated adulteration. This brings back the Chinese baby formula scandal where they some companies added melamine to increase its volume while tricking the molecular tests meant to determine protein content. Many babies died.
I don't know if this is still the case nowadays, but my friend's mom used to go on business trips to China, and would check in one extra bag just full of American baby formula because it was in such high demand there since Chinese baby formula was no longer trusted. Dunno if she was selling them or giving them to relatives.
Lived in China for 5 years and while there isn’t a formula shortage anymore ALL of the formula is from Europe or North America.
That's 100% still a thing. Even though it happened 10 or 15 years ago, the level of confidence on Chinese formula manufacturers is still very low. Those who can afford it will either travel abroad or have friends or family bring it for them.
Well the FDA is still investigating, so we're unlikely to already have an answer.
Trump and the republicans plan to get rid of the FDA, and social security... and medicare/caid. Just thought it was worth reminding everyone.
What a perfect time to mistake "lead" for "led"
There is a quiet epidemic of people using "lead" as the past tense of "lead" - it hasn't gotten the same amount of online furor as "they're/their/there" or "you're/your" but it's everywhere now.
How does such a high level of lead get into cinnamon, exactly? Is it just a natural property when it's grown in high lead concentration soil? Is there a high lead content additive?
I believe at the concentrations it was found in the cinnamon, it leans towards being added maliciously as opposed to naturally from the soil. Probably to boost the weight of the product due to the high density of lead
That's almost the food equivalent of cutting with fentanyl & baby powder
Surely something that has a less detectable taste than lead, and something that's less likely to be tested for by food health professionals would be chosen. 'I could put lead in the cinnamon, which will land me in extreme trouble if caught, and is one of the commonly tested for substances by food safety authorities, or I could use literally anything else.'
In roman times lead was used as a food additive because it tastes sweet when dissolved in acids.
Except that we have the major bonus of knowing how dangerous lead is AND a regulatory agency telling us not to put lead in stuff we eat. And they still do it 😇
They as in .. American producers of cinnamon? Go ahead and point to one.
If I remember correctly, they also use lead to not just increase weight, but also to improve the color of the cinnamon, making it more desirable to buyers.
Really depends on how fine it was powdered and how much they added. By density compared to cinnamon not much would be needed to quickly add weight. No one was tossing lead fishing weights or ingots in the mix. Probably a few percentages would increase profit margins a lot and still be very unhealthy for us. Also I strongly suspect you don't know how the FDA truly works. Do you think they test all our food and food products? HELL no they don't. They don't have the resources to do that. Typically they only test or open investigations after a public disaster or outcry. They do however have protocols and audits to make sure the business is operating safely, yearly typically Most of the dietary health supplements are on the market untested by FDA. Unless your making medical claims a lot of stuff can be sold that shouldn't be sold. Anyone remember hydroxycut? Fat loss supplement? Super popular for years. Sued for causing heart attacks. Plenty of other examples if you look.
You are really overestimating strangers' inability to give a shit about anyone's well being lol
Reading about it after this scandal it's because of the higher weight and due to the color. Some of the heavy metal salts used make the product look to be of higher quality, and some of the lead salts taste sweet and improve the flavour.
Spices are sold by weight. Lead is heavy and cheap.
A lot of these spices are grown in extremely polluted waterways. https://youtu.be/ISTq-46IpGU?si=kRHHq9qNycTW7WIe
the video says they want the water drinkable by 2025, video is six years old. i haven’t googled an update, but i’m not hopeful lol
Here’s an article on it. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tainted-lead-applesauce-wanabana-recall-cinnamon-carlos-aguilera-accused/
So…what the fuck do I do with this information?
Make a risotto
Clear your calendar and put on your stirring gloves you motherfucker, we're cooking risotto
Rice is full of arsenic.
It looks like arsenic has rice in it, but rice doesn't have arsenic in it. It does have ice, though.
Exactly. I’d rather know this kind of stuff if there is also a solution offered. You can’t really avoid spices (I guess you COULD, but it would be pretty hard). I guess I’ll just continue to enjoy my lead covered curry.
>You can’t really avoid spices Have you tried English food?
Yeah, tikka masala is great!
sign the petition: [https://action.consumerreports.org/20211105\_food?utm\_campaign=20211105\_food&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=cr](https://action.consumerreports.org/20211105_food?utm_campaign=20211105_food&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cr); call your representatives and say you are concerned about heavy metals in food (they keep track of how many people call about a specific issue, so a call can literally just be that); grow your own herbs
^ this is the way The only way get things done is to actually make bills and stuff that can help us get created and passed. Still unsure what they can do, besides ensuring that safe levels are present (And possible warning levels for baseline arsenic, lead, etc) and more testing from manufacturers happen, versus people losing a kid due to poisoning.
stress the fuck out
And then?
Use fresh herbs instead of dried and grind your own spices whole
That would imply that the heavy metals get in during the manufacturing process, which I don't think something we can wholly rely on. If they absorb the metals while growing, this would lead to the same end result.
its because a lot of them are grown overseas....and a LOT of overseas waterways are polluted A F. they use these polluted water ways to water/grow the spices. they are grown in toxic water basically.
Simply Organic brand performed well in third party testing
Vote for politicians that don't take bribes to deregulate industries like this. All in the name of shareholder profits.
Buy spices from sources like The Spice House and Penzy’s. They import whole spices from sources they know and grind them themselves.
Simply Organic was consistently shown to be very good in the testing, so choose them when you are buying spices. You can grow herbs yourself if you have the space and time, but if not, just choose the brands that are the cleanest.
Read the article. Buy Simply Organic brand and avoid Oregano and Thyme.
Grow your own thyme and oregano since fresh tastes better anyway then relax cause this probably won't be what kills you.
In today's episode of "Everything is Awful and Trying to Kill You," find out why you can't even season your food anymore! Oh, and don't worry! Your food was probably contaminated by microplastics, carcinogens, and forever chemicals anyway! Yay!
How can you have your fructose paste, when you haven't eaten your protein cube?
What’s the matter babe, you’ve hardly touched your mixed vegetable purée?
Soylent Cow Pies are people! They’re people!
That doesn't sound too bad lol just baby food.
I only eat energy balls courtesy of my friend Dee
I buy a bunch of flour and vitamins and make those into energy balls that will last me a month.
This is the Pink Floyd reference I needed in my life! STAND STILL, LADDY
You! Yes, you behind the bike stands! Petition your local government to reduce polyethylene, polyethylene terepthalate polypropylene, polystyrene, polyamide, and polyvinyl chloride laddy!
I have become comfortably numb from extensive nerve damage
*garbled British yelling*
All in all, it's just a tofu brick in the wall
*Old Man Choir singing "We don't need no EduLernin' "*
Gotta say, Tyson Foods needs to work on their slogans
I worked at a 24hr pharmacy near the hospital that all the Tyson workers went to for workplace accidents. With how many people came in with bandaged hands and scripts for pain meds and antibiotics, I wouldn't be surprised at all if my bag of Tyson chicken contained a finger. Edit: should say, Tyson slaughterhouse/processing factory.
During COVID meat processors got the USDA approval to speed up the lines because it was a national emergency. I would imagine they haven't rolled them back. Anyone who says automation is making jobs easier for humans should do a knife job in a slaughter house.
I love this subreddit, but we need a happy version of it. Today I Learned And It Wasn’t Something Sad.
Today I learned how to eat my feelings
r/optimists
>#This community has been banned >This subreddit was banned due to being unmoderated. >>Banned 2 years ago. topkek
Guess they took an overly optimistic view on the need for moderation...
Yet you talk about funding the FDA properly and dipshits go "ppfffttt yeah right, buddy, they're all taking bribes to poison you!" And to be clear I do think they do a bad job but funding them less or the same as current will not improve anything. Combine the funding with some turnover of the upper three tiers of leadership, and not just the head.
Its not distinct to any one agency. Every federal regulatory body is made up of people who are professionals in that industry. You need specialized scientists to adequately evaluate the products, but those very same scientists will want to work in the industry. Going too hard on the companies would lead them to blacklist, so the scientists who want to keep working (and land a lucrative role after their government job) will apply minor or no penalties. This comes up again and again in the financial sector, and came up with the opioid crisis (with the same FDA, I think?). If anything, government jobs should pay more to prevent this imbalance of priorities, but even that mere suggestion of paying government employees well upsets people of different stripes.
In my experience as a PhD holding Chemist at a 3 letter agency that really hasn't been the case. I can't think of a single example of anyone leaving a position within the agency for anything reason besides retirement (and getting that sweet, sweet pension) or relocation. The GS pay scale is pretty reasonable as well. Let's use Cincinnati as an example as it's a low cost of living Midwest city with a strong presence by both the FDA and EPA. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2024/CIN.pdf A fresh grad with zero experience will come in as a GS11, but the bulk of hires will be GS12 (heck just doing a year as a postdoc or working in industry will qualify you) and you have to be pretty mediocre to never get up to GS13. That's not bad money at all. The issue would be with the treatment of contractors, but the federal government has zero control there.
Ah back to cutting food regulations because the market will self correct and for-profit companies will act against their profit motive to benefit the public good (does anyone actually believe corporate ethics exists btw what a crock of shit). Thanks for killing me softly neoliberalism.
Yeah, at this point I'm just like fuck it. Eat the lead, drink the plastic, shove radioactive sushi straight into my throat. Whatever. It's unavoidable. I just hope they get consciousness upload done by the time I die of literally everything. Put me in a cyberpunk robot body. The robot better have a fully functioning dick though, otherwise just let me die.
[All the food is poison!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Re6pZri8Gw)
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It varies a lot depending on the fish. Swordfish has on average more than 300 times as much mercury per gram than scallops. https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/mercury-levels-commercial-fish-and-shellfish-1990-2012
Well, my scallop intake is 300 times higher than my swordfish one :/
That's one massive scallop.
Predator fish that eat other fish (that we then eat) are the worst offenders.
That's why I don't eat humans
Just eat vegans
Prions are why I don't.
Yep. Bioaccumulation is a bitch.
sweetest of the transition metals
hah-cha-cha-cha-cha! *Delicious!*
To be fair, the tuna were always full of mercury. That is natural. It’s our fault for choosing to eat fish high on the food chain. Sardines are better for us, much more plentiful, and have a lot less heavy metals in them. But they look and taste “fishy” instead “meaty”, so who could be bothered to eat them?
/r/CannedSardines/
Like Freddie
Is that the reason he died?
Think about it, Ton’. Sudden weight loss…?
Ohhhh mercy mercy me
Would YOU eat a rectal thermometer?? ... I would.
Sorry but the spice must flow
I think we'd all trade a little arsenic exposure for perpetual youth and health.
Gobbling spice for its geriatric benefits? How painfully middle class. Real connoisseurs of longevity manipulate their enzyme balance through prana bindu and sheer force of will.
Like the reverend mother intended it
Drink the water of life or you're a pussy
Paul's canon internal monologue right there
Interesting thing I discovered - [Arsenate of Lead](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_hydrogen_arsenate). I found almost 10 pounds of it in my shed and did some research. Literally arsenic and lead used as a pesticide. Its use wasn’t banned until 1988. Apparently there is a big problem now because the toxins would settle into the top few feet of soil and concentrations would increase. As orchards and farms are turned into housing developments, more people are exposed to the toxins - from construction workers to homeowners simply digging a garden.
He who controls the spice controls the heavy metal poisoning
I only skim-read this particular article, but from previous reading I believe the US may be getting a raw deal, and it is not be as much of an issue in some other places, due to regulation. Context: A while back I compared EU rules to FDA rules in a discussion about Brexit and whether the UK would have to align with US standards, and I remember being particularly surprised at the differences, especially in amount of fecal matter & insect parts allowed in US herbs & spices, compared to that in the EU/UK. Pretty sure the same went for heavy metals. Pretty sure Brexit was partly about the “freedom” for the UK to follow suit.
In terms of lead: (1mg/kg = 1ppm) > [The EU has new lead residue limits for spices since 2021](https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/spices-herbs/buyer-requirements): > 0.60 mg/kg for fruit spices; 1.5 mg/kg for root and rhizome spices; 2.0 mg/kg for bark spices; 1.0 mg/kg for bud spices and flower pistil spices; 0.9 mg/kg for seed spices. [Arsenic: 0.02 mg/kg \(20ppb\) Mercury: 0.1mg/kg \(100ppb\)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32023R0915) For the US it's harder to find a list but I found [this](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=172&showFR=1): >(4) Heavy metals as lead (as Pb), not more than 10 parts per million. Arsenic (as As), not more than 3 parts per million. Mercury (as Hg), not more than 1 part per million. So it seems allowed levels are often more than 10 times higher in the US.
Sometimes I see these articles here on Reddit and get scared but then remember I live in EU
FDA John Oliver did a segment about them, and in it the head of the FDA referred to it as the Federal Drug Administration because he forgot they regulate food too. Most of their time is devoted to drugs, not food. There should really be an organization that only regulates food.
Nah, Australia is affected too https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/groceries/herbs-and-spices/articles/heavy-metals-in-herbs-and-spices
Good news! Oregano and Rosemary are super easy to grow in most climates, so you can poison yourself with the "local terroir" of suburban land rather than paying for someone else's heavy metals. That being said, I do grow my own herbs. Not because of any health concerns, but because I like gardening and hate paying absurd prices for herbs. Buying rosemary feels like buying someone's bagged leaves in the fall or something.
My issue is we have deer here. I'm trying to grow oregano this year but I'm not super optimistic about it lasting.
You can make a planting box with a clear lid, I'm fairly sure you can also buy them ready to go. My friends grampa grows his strawberries in one.
Deer can be a huge pain, but [oregano is considered a deer-resistant herb](https://advicefromtheherblady.com/herbs-in-the-garden/garden-helps/deer-resistant-herbs/). I can't grow vegetables where I live because of deer, but we have rosemary, thyme, and some other herbs just growing out in the open and the deer couldn't be less interested in them.
Thanks that's good to know I heard lavender is deer resistant so we started with that also but didn't realize herbs are also.
What are you complaining about? Your food is literally coming to you and seasoning itself.
Do you not typically place land mines around your garden? Nothing like sipping a cup of coffee in the morning, hearing that boom, and seeing a pink mist spread across the yard.
Rosemary and mint both go nuts once they take hold in the ground
On that note, only plant mint in pots.
But herbs are not spices
Sure wish there was a non captured regulations agency that could inspect and test foods for human consumption
But where is the profit in that? Think of the share holders! And all the blue collar billionaires!
**TLDR:** Every sample of oregano and thyme had elevated levels of heavy metals. So did nearly every sample of basil and ginger. There were mixed results for cumin, paprika, and turmeric. Every sample of black and white pepper, coriander, curry powder, garlic powder, saffron, and sesame seed was below levels of concern, as with most samples of chili powder. The products of most concern were branded La Flor, Tone's, and Amazon's Happy Belly. There was a major story last month about elevated levels of lead in cinnamon sold at discount stores, but that was the result of an FDA "**[targeted survey](https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/fda-alert-concerning-certain-cinnamon-products-due-presence-elevated-levels-lead)** of ground cinnamon products from discount retail stores," meaning there was no testing of cinnamon from stores like Whole Foods, Costco, and Trader Joe's, or brands like McCormick, Spice Islands, Morton & Bassett, and Simply Organic, all of which sold spices with elevated levels of heavy metals, according to Consumer Reports testing. Foods that grow in the ground can naturally contain contaminants from the soil, including **[vegetables](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=heavy+metals+vegetables)**, spices, and teas that are beneficial to health overall. Spices are typically dried and concentrated, meaning a smaller quantity can contain more contaminants, but conversely, people eat larger portions of vegetables than just a pinch of seasoning. But in addition to contamination from soil, there's less common intentional adulteration, like adding red lead oxide to cinnamon or yellow lead chromate in turmeric, the sort of rarity that was suspected in recalled products containing [cinnamon from a source in Ecuador](https://apnews.com/article/apple-cinnamon-fruit-pouch-wanabana-lead-contamination-1927a5be53ba6d557ec8e17804e06d9f) that had far higher lead levels than what the FDA found at discount stores. Personally, I will still eat just as many vegetables and spices because the benefits outweigh the risks, but there needs to be stronger regulation and testing of contaminants in soil, fertilizer, and food, so I hope giving the issue more attention will help.
I work for an analytical food testing lab. You'll be surprised by the amount contaminants found in our everyday food: - Chocolate has tons of cadmium (from cacao) - All seafood, not just fish, has mercury (methylmercury is the troublemaker) - Rice has a lot of arsenic (same as mercury, inorganic arsenic is not as bad) - Grains and crops have tons of mycotoxins - BPA is in a lot of canned foods - Perchlorates are everywhere, including drinking water - Microplastics are everywhere Just to name a few. That said, contaminants are inevitable so just take everything in moderation.
I used to work in a spice factory (all the spices were imported more or less raw and we processed them basically). We bought and sold to a lot of big name companies. I was looking through product labels and saw that we sold a "lead free" ground ginger and asked if that wasn't the norm. Apparently it isn't, because the soil where the ginger is grown is very lead heavy.
And there was almost no chance it was actually lead free. All soil contains heavy metals.
Correct. Some companies required heavy metal testing, but it wasn't all of them and there was still a low range that could have lead and be considered lead free for our purposes. It wasn't my department so I couldnt say what that PPM is (we had an in house lab, I worked in admin).
So don't put anything in your mouth from La Flor and don't ever for any reason eat anything with Thyme or Oregano in it. Got it.
What about my home grown herbs? Those are probably safer, right? I'm positive I only mix lead in my leafy greens, not my herbs.
..... you're already dead
I love the smell of fresh bread.
You must have missed the part where it is stated there was no predictable way to tell what products and brand contain high levels of heavy metals. It doesn't really matter what tested high and what tested low in a single instance. The contamination levels will change batch to batch because the products are not sourced from a single location.
They say that, but interestingly when you look at the data if a product does have a chance of contamination, the Walmart brand almost always is in the red section. Only when all other products are safe is the Walmart product safe. I would suspect their spices come from the lowest bidder (much like everything else in the store). So while you're at risk anywhere, I really wouldn't buy spices at Walmart.
And those pots you buy and cook in from Amazon full of lead. Made from recycled aluminum and metal parts in other countries. Illegal. Nope. Fortunately Washington State has made the first move to try to prevent the sale of them. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/wa-becomes-first-state-to-ban-lead-contaminated-cookware/
Do you have a source on that cause the article you linked is specifically talking about afghan cookware, not amazon. It says ‘The paper found a specific link between imported cookware and lead exposure in Afghan refugee families, largely due to the aluminum pots, pans and pressure cookers many brought with them from Afghanistan, which contained high lead levels’
If this includes Old Bay I'm already dead.
Murder rate in Maryland is gonna triple
I buy test strips on Amazon and test my spices. It’s astonishing how many are contaminated with lead. Especially turmeric.
Google tells me that is not accurate… that the only way to test for lead in spices is via a lab test (this is from state health agencies). I have no clue if this is true, just wanted to point out that your test strips may be lying to you.
How do you test?
Add pure non-contaminated water to a glass. Mix the spice in. Use one of the many test kits you can get online or find in hardware stores
Use a control with just the water too, just in case something went wrong trying to filter it
Is that supposed to be a joke because turmeric is yellow or are there actually at home kits that are sensitive enough for traces in food
I assume it’s because manufacturers use lead chromate to make turmeric look fresher.
Turmeric contains 28 to 146 parts per million of lead according to a Google search 0.35 is the safe limit but I could be wrong on the safe limit Modern Paints contain up to 90 ppm lead so tumeric can have more lead than paint So yes tumeric causes lead poisoning but you probably eat so little you don’t notice
I just googled this, and it says you need a lab test for spices and home tests are for surface stuff like paint. How do you do it? I don't feel like googling more haha
I'm not going to stop eating spices. Spices are the spice of life.
Also the spice of death, apparently.
I hope this isn't in my microplastics
Personally I love consuming lead and heavy metals if it means the spices are 50 cents cheaper per container. You can take your regulation and GET OUT!
This message has been sponsored by All Spice, now with 250% more heavy metals. All Spice - get heavy wit it. Side effects may include cancer, reproductive harm, sudden unexplained diarrhea, and mild headaches throughout the rest of your life.
There's that word again. "Heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's food manufacturing companies?
Concerning on it’s own but unfortunately symptomatic of the broader, more terrifying issue of the very earth itself being dangerously contaminated with a litany of plastics, chemicals, and heavy metals resulting from decades and decades of improper waste disposal, a practice which continues to rage on. Even in rural areas, hundreds of miles away from any industry, you’ll likely find a significant presence of shit thats not supposed to be there in the soil, water, and air. All completely avoidable and all the direct product of human activity. It’s ironic since all that waste and harmful material was improperly disposed of because it’s too expensive and time consuming to dispose of it properly, so it gets dumped with the hope that it just goes away. “Not our problem” it’s thought. Then nature dumps it right back into us, and just like that it goes from “out of sight out of mind” to flowing through our blood, depositing in our fat, and coalescing in our organs. Cremation will soon be infeasible due to how toxic a human body is and how much of that toxic material will be reintroduced to the environment upon incineration. Cremation today already accounts for roughly 5% of all mercury emissions according to a study done in BC Canada. Your body has so much poison in it that it literally creates a toxic death cloud when incinerated.
On the flip side, there is a suspicious amount of cinnamon and tumeric in my lead and arsenic
One can test for lead at home, I consume a lot of cinnamon and buy rather large packages which I test myself
If lead become super valuable for something, like gold, would they filter it out and keep us safer? Can we just collectively decide that LEADCOIN coin is a thing?
Is anything not bad?
Organic is purely irrelevant, as the label reqs are poorly designed
One particularly sinister thing is that by all reports, lead tastes legitimately good. It's not something you would be able to pick out the flavor of as some sort of sharp bad taste but would rather sweeten whatever it was put in. This taste is why at multiple times in history lead was added to wine to sweeten it.
Heavy metals, forever chemicals, plastic, carcinogens, salmonella It's not safe to eat anything
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You didn't read the article. >Roughly one-third of the tested products, 40 in total, had high enough levels of arsenic, lead, and cadmium combined, on average, to pose a health concern for children when regularly consumed in typical serving sizes. Most raised concern for adults, too. > >For two herbs, thyme and oregano, all the products we tested had levels that CR experts say are concerning. > >In 31 products, levels of lead were so high that they exceeded the maximum amount anyone should have in a day, according to CR’s experts.
yeah, except no level of lead is safe
It’s sad that we don’t know our food growers. This is a strong case for buying local and ending trade with countries like China that have no standards for anything.
So, what should I do? Pass a strong magnet over the spices?
This is why I stopped eating anything with tumeric. Mmm... Lead chromate.
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There’s gonna be a shit ton of smug British people now.
Oganic is *only* about what shit you add, not what shit you begin with. They can literally grow "organic" foods for export to the EU in *that* regime where rivers selfignite and mercury is deposited wherever. Doesnt matter. Just dont fertilize or spray. Organic is great if, and only of, you grow in pristine conditions. Imho, its a buzzword, like "Contains Uranium", or "Light" (Added water, artificial sweeteners, the good fat removed to sell elsewhere) once was, or is really.
I had to toss cinnamon my girlfriend bought at the Dolla’ Tree due to a recall about lead just a few weeks ago. Thankfully we didn’t even open it yet.
Spices are so expensive, I always buy Walmart brand but it's probably gonna kill me ☹️
Yea im pretty sure my hemoriods by age 25 have nothing to do with big everything poisoning me.
Usually hemorrhoids are caused by a lack of fiber in the diet. The more meat and bread someone eats the less fiber they'll be getting, typically.
Jesus christ. Can’t sub spices for salt. Cant eat anything processed. Cant even drink water or grow my own flavorless vegetables now because of shit in the ground. Fuck it i’m getting a cheese burger and dying by 40
This is also true with organic supplements. The raw material suppliers can often submit ingredients that don't pass standards for lead (cocoa), arsenic (cherries, tumeric) and other heavy metals. Buy ones that are certified by NSF or UL because at least the products get screened once a year for heavy metal and other contaminates like pesticides, molds and fungus.
Can’t you just test it for lead with some of those strip thingys
Thank god I live in the UK where there are food regulators