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For some reason I’ve been solving recaptchas in vain only to be asked to solve a recaptcha again.
I think it has to do with archive.is and cloudflare dns being incompatible
How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
21–30 of 200 posts
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#22Title is misleading: it's lead chromate (that producers mix into turmeric power) that does the killing, not turmeric.
Very well identified, the cropping up of such an article should not be taken at face value.
Consider such scenarios too which impact profit of specific industries namely Pharma
1. Demand for curcumin has greatly increased leading to an inflation of its market price in recent years
2. Turmeric is an age old go to antiseptic and antibiotic. During Covid it was very common for Indian families to consume turmeric flavored milk as a way of keeping the virus out.
Almost all health, medicinal, sensational articles irrespective of their source publication have to be put under the critical lens of global corporate profit motive
Am I saying there is no adulteration, am not. Just that the publishing intent is no saint either.
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#23> Yet adulterated turmeric looks like a major culprit almost everywhere, chiefly owing to poor practice in India, which produces 75% of the spice. It’s really shocking to me that in the year 2023 people could be intentionally adding lead to food products at this scale. Is this mainly due to greed and corruption? Ignorance? Distrust of modern medicine and health advice? I suppose it’s similar to the problem of people…
This is a common practice. There are deception at every level. See my comments from before - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=JaDogg
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#24It's not just India or Bangladesh. Lots of brands sold in the US are tainted with lead: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2016/08/six-brands-of-turmeri... There are tests you can do at home, like leaving the powder in water and seeing if it leaves a yellow streak separate to the powder.
This sounds like a one-off incident that was caught by testing. Given increased awareness of the issue, it seems unlikely that any turmeric you buy in the US today would be contaminated.
Given the FDA’s funding history over the decades since Reagan I’d hazard a guess that the number of randomized tests of imported turmeric for lead contamination per year is somewhere between zero and NaN.
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#25> Yet adulterated turmeric looks like a major culprit almost everywhere, chiefly owing to poor practice in India, which produces 75% of the spice. It’s really shocking to me that in the year 2023 people could be intentionally adding lead to food products at this scale. Is this mainly due to greed and corruption? Ignorance? Distrust of modern medicine and health advice? I suppose it’s similar to the problem of people…
It is reminiscent of the Austrian antifreeze wine scandal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Austrian_diethylene_gly...
That was only a few wineries though, and it was pretty quickly caught and harshly punished. This is apparently a whole industry where the practice of poisoning consumers with lead is normalized.
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rather a large number of things are contaminated with heavy metals, because the food industry tends not to test for them and there's little regulation: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herb... ( "Your Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead: CR tested 126 products from McCormick, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other popular brands. Almost a third had heavy metal levels high en…
> ”Rather a large number of things are contaminated with heavy metals” Sure, but usually it’s because products are grown in contaminated soil and “naturally” pick up traces from their environment. Pretty much all rice contains arsenic, for example, but the concentration varies significantly depending on where it’s grown and how it’s processed. The turmeric problem is different because lead has been deliberately added…
Except that pretty much no plants bioaccumulate lead. The biggest lead vector for plant-based food is the soil that hitches a ride on the outside. So peeling potatoes, carrots, beets etc and washing your other fruits and veggies is really all that is needed.
It's actually a little unfortunate that no plants we know of will take up lead because this would be a way to clean up soil. Plant a lot of plant X. Pull out the plant and discard. Repeat until the lead has been pulled out of the soil.
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#27> Yet adulterated turmeric looks like a major culprit almost everywhere, chiefly owing to poor practice in India, which produces 75% of the spice. It’s really shocking to me that in the year 2023 people could be intentionally adding lead to food products at this scale. Is this mainly due to greed and corruption? Ignorance? Distrust of modern medicine and health advice? I suppose it’s similar to the problem of people…
> Is this mainly due to greed and corruption?
Greed, since consumers are fooled into believing they're buying a fresher, more yellow product.
The Indian government has a webpage dedicated to detecting adulteration in various kinds of food, including turmeric[1].
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#28Reminds me of the China milk scandal.
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#29>Recent estimates suggest a staggering 815m children—one in three of the global total—have been poisoned by the metal. This is insane, hard to believe tumeric is the main culprit. But then again lots of these children probsbly live in India, where the leadtumeric seems to be most popular.
The wording they used was 'major' culprit. They also said "The poisoning has many causes."
Re: How to stop adulterated turmeric from killing people
#30These people have little to no regard to human life when they're adding lead chromate to an international spice.
We all have likely eaten Turmeric in the last year alone it's added to many foods aside from curries i.e. processed snacks and as a filler for foods.
Capital punishment would be too good these folk.