Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an ABCD, likewise. My mom told me to specifically buy turmeric at western grocery stores (as opposed to other spices, which could be had for better prices at Indian grocery stores) because of concerns around lead.
What is an ABCD?
Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
31–40 of 217 posts
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#32See also "Ground Turmeric as a Source of Lead Exposure in the United States": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415259/ The problem with lead in tumeric seems to extend beyond Bangladesh.
Yeah! I read this maybe a couple years ago and now lead test anything w/ turmeric in it (tea, actual turmeric, etc.) Haven't come up positive yet though, thank goodness.
Can recommend just lead testing things. Test kits are cheap, it's very easy to do, you really want to know if you're eating/drinking lead (especially if you have kids). Also can recommend getting a water filter. It doesn't really fix dishwashing but for drinking or making things w/ water it's very easy -- you can get pretty big tanks where you could conceivably even make a pot of spaghetti and such.
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#33Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#34I'm a little surprised at the initial confusion about the source of lead, or perhaps it's the way the article has been written. As someone who grew up in India, our school textbooks in the 90s had a list of common food adulterants, and turmeric adulteration with lead chromate was common knowledge to middle schoolers. I recall the curriculum included how to detect adulteration with simple at home tests. After turmeric…
What sort of test would you do for this? Did you have to buy a test kit?
1. The Water Test: Take a glass of warm water and add a teaspoon of your turmeric powder to it. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes. If the turmeric powder settles down, it is pure. If it doesn’t settle to the bottom and leaves a dark yellow colour, it is adulterated.
2. The Palm Test: Take a pinch of your turmeric powder and rub it into the palm of your hand for a few seconds, then turn your palm over. Pure turmeric will stick to your palm and leave a yellow stain, whereas adulterated turmeric will mostly fall off.
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#35The broad outline of these facts has been known for decades (that spice processors intentionally adulterate turmeric with the yellow pigment, lead chromate). These are sold in the First World as well, and are culpable e.g. for acute lead poisoning in children in the USA:
https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2017/high-levels-of-lea... (2017)
- "The study, in Public Health Reports, the official journal of the US Public Health Service and the US Surgeon General, also describes several cases of child lead poisoning in the US that have been linked to consumption of spices, including turmeric."
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#36I'm a little surprised at the initial confusion about the source of lead, or perhaps it's the way the article has been written. As someone who grew up in India, our school textbooks in the 90s had a list of common food adulterants, and turmeric adulteration with lead chromate was common knowledge to middle schoolers. I recall the curriculum included how to detect adulteration with simple at home tests. After turmeric…
What sort of test would you do for this? Did you have to buy a test kit?
I recall we did simple tests like this in school - we had to bring in samples of foodstuffs from home to do the tests, and the school would provide a positive control. This must have been the seventh grade or so?
https://www.vasantmasala.com/blog/how-to-check-adulteration-...
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#37See also "Ground Turmeric as a Source of Lead Exposure in the United States": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415259/ The problem with lead in tumeric seems to extend beyond Bangladesh.
Yikes. Are their any trustworthy, mainstream sources of spices in the U.S.? E.g., if I buy turmeric from Walmart or Whole Foods, can I safely assume that they're monitoring the product streams for lead? EDIT: I just saw a sibling comment about a company named "American Turmeric". I'm curious about more mainstream sellers, who might possibly monitor other spices as well. I'd prefer to not play whack-a-mole on a spice-…
Some supplement companies/nootropic companies purport to do 3rd party certificate of analysis with microbe, and heavy metal testing. You can find them on Reddit. Can you believe the companies? I kinda do.
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#38tl;dr:
Color matters to turmeric purchasers, and turmeric that is more vibrantly yellow typically sells for higher prices. The Stanford University team learned that this color-linked perception of quality may have started in the 1980s, when a flood interrupted the drying process, turning rhizomes brown and moldy.
To mask flawed turmeric, some processors began dusting the roots with lead chromate — an orange-yellow industrial pigment used to color plastics and furniture. From the interviews, Forsyth learned that this coloration step continued for four decades after the flood and that most processors weren’t aware that the pigments were toxic
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#39They could have just asked.... Most who grew up in the subcontinent know this.
Re: Turmeric’s unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
#40See also "Ground Turmeric as a Source of Lead Exposure in the United States": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415259/ The problem with lead in tumeric seems to extend beyond Bangladesh.
Yikes. Are their any trustworthy, mainstream sources of spices in the U.S.? E.g., if I buy turmeric from Walmart or Whole Foods, can I safely assume that they're monitoring the product streams for lead? EDIT: I just saw a sibling comment about a company named "American Turmeric". I'm curious about more mainstream sellers, who might possibly monitor other spices as well. I'd prefer to not play whack-a-mole on a spice-…
- "E.g., if I buy turmeric from Walmart or Whole Foods, can I safely assume that they're monitoring the product streams for lead?"
You can safely assume absolutely nothing.
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herb...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29375003 ("Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead (consumerreports.org)") (2021)
- "The lack of regulation leaves much of the monitoring of heavy metal levels to companies. [Consumer Reports] contacted all the ones with products in our tests to see how they limited heavy metals."
- "Of the companies that replied to our questions—Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Costco, Bolner’s Fiesta, Gebhardt, Litehouse, McCormick, Roland Foods, Spice Islands, Target, and Whole Foods—a few said they require their suppliers to have a program for controlling or testing for heavy metals. But only three—Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Bolner’s Fiesta, and McCormick—specifically said they test products in their manufacturing plants for heavy metals."