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Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

consumerreports.org

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Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#81

Post by fer »

Eelongate wrote: post #9
smegger001 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean you expect the government to fund themselves enough to actually do there job?

How much did CR spend to buy these spices? A few hundred dollars? A thousand at most? I don't know how much the tests themselves cost to run, but I can find lead test kits on Amazon for under $20. The biggest cost would doubtlessly be manpower so.. put some interns on the job? But yes, I expect the FDA's lame excuse will be "Gee wiz we wish we could do our jobs but we need another billion dollars for what you're sugg…

Amazon test kits have nowhere the sensitivity to reach meaningful detection.

In my country the legal limit for water is 10µg/L, and these tests start detecting at 10-20 mg/L.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#83

Post by nimih »

gruez wrote: post #19
malwarebytess wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What am I supposed to do? Nothing, probably. Heavy metals come from natural sources in the ground as well as from the air which then settles into the topsoil. They also come from decades old insecticides/pesticides or old infrastructure left to rot on farms. Cadmium and arsenic in particular are among the most abundant substances on the Earth. Every bit of food you eat likely has them both. If you are worried and wa…

>If you are worried and want to reduce exposure, probably the best you can do is buy local instead of imports. Know the land your food comes from and its history. from the article: >Also troubling: There was no single predictor of which products contained higher levels of heavy metals—for example, brand name didn’t matter, and neither did “organic” or “packed in USA” claims. I'm also not sure how feasible it is to "K…

Well, you could start by growing as many of your own herbs as possible for home use. Basil, thyme, and oregano (to pick examples which are called out in the article as especially concerning) are relatively straightforward to grow in decent quantity, even for apartment dwellers. Since the harms here are from chronic and cumulative exposure, even a couple container-dwelling basil bushes on a balcony or a small DIY hydroponic setup in a closet could plausibly make a meaningful impact in the amount of consumed heavy metals, and a modestly sized garden plot can produce all a typical home cook will need if it's diverse, well-tended, and harvested regularly.

Alternatively, yes, you could go to your local farmer's market and ask the folks selling fresh herbs if they have their soil tested for heavy metals. That seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do, honestly.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#84

Post by GekkePrutser »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #78
_abox wrote: post #13

> 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. Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day. It's cumulative and harmful and we don't need it for anything. > Think twice about bringing back herbs and spices from travel abroad. Heavy metal content can be much higher in those products, according to other research.…

> I'm pretty sure the EU has stricter food safety regulations than the US. Interestingly, the US is notable for having just about the highest food safety and quality standards in the world, and these regulations systematically block the import of many food goods into the US. Per this source [0], the US is second after Canada; other sources move the countries around a bit but the US is always right up around the top.…

I thought the US was not as good because of the conditions locally in slaughterhouses, using "pink slime" in burgers etc. Those things definitely don't fly in the EU. I read about these in "Fast Food Nation".

I have a feeling the US is stricter when it comes to importing foods but not as strict with locally produced items. But I don't have a good reference of this. If I'm wrong I'm sorry.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#85

Post by citrin_ru »

doitLP wrote: post #41
refurb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kids have always been exposed to this stuff, it's unavoidable. Focus on the big wins and don't worry about the small stuff - law of diminishing returns. Eliminating ppb of lead isn't going to move the needle versus getting your kid immunized. You'll drive yourself crazy otherwise.

Thanks. I generally agree but the definition ‘small stuff’ is in relation to how harmful it is. I cook a lot at home and I use a lot of spices — including the brands that tested high for heavy metals. Lead is not safe in any amount particularly for babies. The hard thing to know is what things I should and shouldn’t be paying attention to.

> Lead is not safe in any amount particularly for babies.

One molecule is safe, 1000 too. There must be an amount small enough to not cause any detectable changes. And I expect this level to be higher than when most people start to worry and stress causes more harm than a tiny amount of lead present in food or environment.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#86

Post by nimih »

donatj wrote: post #52

> Grow and dry your own. That might be a particularly good idea if you use a lot of basil Growing your own food to avoid heavy metals is actually horrible advice. To be done safely you need to get your soil tested; especially in more urban areas your soil is often just as bad or worse than the soil these were grown in. Remember, burying used motor oil after an oil change rather than recycling it was common practice l…

Testing your soil is relatively inexpensive[1] and pretty straightforward to do. Further, if the goal is to grow herbs, you can easily stick to gardening in containers or raised beds, where you get to completely control the growing medium. If you're in an urban area, those are probably the most realistic options for you anyways.

[1] https://www.sites.google.com/site/healthygardeners/testing-l... reports that costs range from $10-$200, depending on the accuracy and range of tests you're interested in.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#87

Post by Bayart »

bitwize wrote: post #56
refurb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kids have always been exposed to this stuff, it's unavoidable. Focus on the big wins and don't worry about the small stuff - law of diminishing returns. Eliminating ppb of lead isn't going to move the needle versus getting your kid immunized. You'll drive yourself crazy otherwise.

The small stuff bioaccumulates and fucks with your endocrine system. If you have kids, one of the best things you can do for them is work towards the dismantling of Western civilization and establishment of a permaculture-based society.

I hope you have no illusions that at scale it would be accompanied by social collapse, mass death, rape and pillaging.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#88

Post by cinntaile »

stephen_g wrote: post #36
doitLP wrote: post #28

I hate this. I’m up to my eyeballs trying to keep my newborn away from all the toxic shit that’s in every part of his life, BP* in plastics, flame retardants in clothes and mattresses and rugs, heavy metals in baby food and now in herbs, micro plastics in food, radioactivity and mercury in farmland around coal fired power plants, etc etc etc. The negative externalities on dangerous chemicals is so very high; what am…

I hate it too. The one thing that does make me a bit optimistic is that firstly that for quite a few of the big issues, things are gradually getting better (leaded petrol having been phased out, PBDEs are on the way out, average quantities of things like phthalates and PFOA in people's blood I believe are dropping in most places). The shift away from fossil fuels could be another massive health improvement - studies…

I think a big problem is that we invent so many new chemicals each year where the long term consequences are unknown. [0] Sure when we notice that their downsides outweigh their upsides, they usually get regulated away. But by then they may already have caused a lot of damage and it could take many years before they are completely gone.

[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-falling-wo...

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#89

Post by Cthulhu_ »

doitLP wrote: post #28

I hate this. I’m up to my eyeballs trying to keep my newborn away from all the toxic shit that’s in every part of his life, BP* in plastics, flame retardants in clothes and mattresses and rugs, heavy metals in baby food and now in herbs, micro plastics in food, radioactivity and mercury in farmland around coal fired power plants, etc etc etc. The negative externalities on dangerous chemicals is so very high; what am…

Best thing to do is to not worry about it too much, because stressing about it won't fix it. It's not in quantities that cause concern unless you overfeed yourself and your kids on these things (like, pounds), same with most other dangerous things in food.

They start to flag things up as dangerous WELL before it even comes close to being dangerous even if you eat extremely high consumption of products.

Re: Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead

#90

Post by diordiderot »

Pelam wrote: post #65
quadrifoliate wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...what am I supposed to do, test my fucking pepper? I think a large part of the USA keeps electing politicians whose philosophy seems to be absolutely that – you "get the choice" to test your pepper or not, and market forces will eventually drive out the bad pepper companies. This can be backed up by the fact that one of the past administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency was a thinly veiled oil and gas…

Maybe add to the list some kind of long term campaign to have true multi party system (N > 2). Get rid of the first past the post etc. A separate green party is pretty universal in those. It is probably hard to prove, but it would make sense that the calculated manipulation by commercial ”special interests” is harder and more expensive when it has to influence multiple parties (instead of 2).

I've been really high on the idea that the simplest (legally/politically viable) solution is to put a cap on the number of people a representative can represent. That's a lot more hands to grease for lobbyist and a lot more ears for constituents.

I think there was one rep per 25k people in 1776.

The large number doesn't matter because reps don't read, right, or debate details of the f*n bills. ALEC, and party lawyers do.

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