Wish there were some way to detect impurities like this at home.
Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
51–60 of 229 posts
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#52I immediately tested the 5 year old Sadaf tumeric in my kitchen cabinet using a 3M lead testing kit I happened to have in my house. Thankfully it came out negative!
There is a much easier and reliable way to test it -> https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#:~:text=Test%2014%20%3A%2...
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#53there has to be a way for us as a society to introduce a level of accountability into our so called "food" supply chain without the burden of regulation... perhaps it's as simple as spending more educating our kids about agriculture amendment: seems to be an unpopular take... my point being regulation is a workaround for a population that is worst than uneducated, miseducated, especially in regards to agriculture and…
So rather than have government do the testing and holding producers to account we get every consumer to do it? That sounds pretty inefficient.
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#54I wonder if this has survived the recent cutbacks to USAID? And recently they are celebrating some big news on the lead fighting front: This week, UNICEF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a new $150 million initiative to combat lead poisoning
The announcement organizations are different from the funding org, Lead Exposure Action Fund, which is funded by Gates Fnd and others.
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#55I grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those are usually really bright yellows. Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is probably lead paint tainted turmeric.
I don't think you need to worry buying it from a store that's imported it properly - the article says it was found in the US in Bangladeshi communities where it had been brought back to the US in their suitcases. The difference could be due to sun-drying (I assume?) on your family's farm vs. industrial scale freeze/spray drying, for example. Or some (non-lead, non-colouring) additive that prevents it oxidising and du…
No, it's definitely in the US supermarket supply chain (though it's not nearly as bad as in SEA),
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herb... ("[Consumer Reports] tested 126 products from McCormick, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other popular brands. Almost a third had heavy metal levels high enough to raise health concerns")
You may (or not) be surprised that there's actually no general testing for heavy metals in US foods, even in categories seriously affected by them—neither by the FDA, nor the private sector.
> "Currently, about two dozen spice companies from 11 countries are subject to import alerts for lead contamination, which signal to regulators that they can detain those products. But that represents a fraction of the herbs and spices shipped to the U.S. In addition, the limited testing the FDA has done on spices has been focused on harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, not heavy metals, Ronholm says."
> "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."
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#56What I got by reading the paper: loose tumeric powder and polished tumeric root are the main "culprits" because they are contaminated with Lead Chromate (chemical used in paintings for yellow color.)
If you're using branded/packaged tumeric powder, or natural unpolished tumeric root, you're still good as a tumeric consumer in South Asia (though the paper differentiates branded vs packaged tumeric in Table 2, but does not explicitly explain the difference.)
Also, Patna in Bihar is the major source of Lead-adulterated tumeric (in the forms mentioned above) in India, and any exports of tumeric to other places from Patna could be harmful. Lead contamination in Guwahati, Assam is mostly found in imported tumeric from Patna.
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#57I think this NPR article is too quick to put a positive spin on this. They have made a nice little story here with a happy ending. Farmers had blackened turmeric -> they used a random yellow die they found -> massive lead spike in everyone's bloodstream -> Americans came in with a xray gun and saved the day -> no more lead in the blood.
But if you ascribe even the slightest but of agency to any of the non-Americans involved, you have to wonder if this problem will come back.
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#58I grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those are usually really bright yellows. Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is probably lead paint tainted turmeric.
Can someone validate the water test for lead adulterated turmeric? https://youtu.be/tXWPf0HQd5U?si=-SkT4EQB9SvMx7io
I don't follow youtube links during work hours as a personal policy but an India government webpage outlines the water test for whole tumeric:
https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/
> Test 14 : Detection of lead chromate in turmeric whole > Testing Method: > * Add small quantity of turmeric whole in a transparent glass of water. > * Pure turmeric will not leave any colour. > * Adulterated turmeric appears to be bright in colour and leaves colour immediately in water.
Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#59I grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those are usually really bright yellows. Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is probably lead paint tainted turmeric.
Can someone validate the water test for lead adulterated turmeric? https://youtu.be/tXWPf0HQd5U?si=-SkT4EQB9SvMx7io
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Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to introduce a level of accountability... without the burden of regulation Why? What's wrong with regulation? The whole point of regulation is safety and accountability and fairness. Yes things can be over-regulated, but then the solution is to regulate properly, not over-regulate. The reason we don't have libertarian or anarchist societies is because they fundamentally can't solve the problems around safety, accou…
my point is that regulation is a burden, not that it isn't the next step... from my point of view regulation is a workaround for our nightmare of an education system where giving kids a proper schooling is considered dangerous and a threat to national security
What sort of proper schooling allows one to detect lead in ground turmeric?
I guess proper schooling would help one understand the analysis techniques, but the machines are pretty expensive and most people don't have one at home.
Regulations that require food products to be regularly surveyed for heavy metals or other contaminants seem more effective than requiring every household to own and operate analysis machines.
Regulations that require foods to be tracked with origin and batch information makes it a lot easier to find out where contaminants entered the system, rather than requiring kids to go around playing Carmen Sandiego. It also helps save money with recalls when there's specific evidence to include only specific batches.