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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

#71

Post by HWR_14 »

giantg2 wrote: post #43
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…

Honestly, don't worry about this. We use plenty of spices and my kid's lead level was extremely low (undetectable if I remember right). They will test your kid at some point too. This, and other potential sources, are only a problem if the test shows there's a problem.

> This, and other potential sources, are only a problem if the test shows there's a problem.

While true, at that point it's a problem with no good solution.

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

#72

Post by jdougan »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #62
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lived in a house with lead for a few years. I had my kids tested every six months. I even made sure I understood which type of test they were conducting. My thought was that this is a long term problem; if levels start rising, then we would take immediate action. Kind of a pull vs. push model. It worked, we never saw elevated lead levels. Way easier than worrying about every little thing and monitoring them at all…

Unless they were eating paint flakes you never were going to see elevated levels.

ISTR that lead dust from wear and tear can be an issue as well though obviously less of one unless you're sanding the paint.

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

#73

Post by foreigner »

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 gave up on this when I caught my kid licking the bottom of his shoes . They survive.

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

#74

Post by saxonww »

marklubi wrote: post #63
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lived in a house with lead for a few years. I had my kids tested every six months. I even made sure I understood which type of test they were conducting. My thought was that this is a long term problem; if levels start rising, then we would take immediate action. Kind of a pull vs. push model. It worked, we never saw elevated lead levels. Way easier than worrying about every little thing and monitoring them at all…

> We lived in a house with lead for a few years. I had my kids tested every six months. > It worked, we never saw elevated lead levels. How does testing them for lead levels result in them not inhaling or ingesting lead?

It doesn't. They meant that their plan to take action if the lead levels rose was a workable one, i.e. they were able to execute the plan. They also said that lead levels in their children never rose. The sentence might have been more clear with an 'and' after the comma, although it was clear enough in context (IMO) without it.

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by hinkley »

refurb wrote: post #39
BostonEnginerd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if those plants are just particularly good at leaching lead from soil. Phytoremediation is an area of active study for cleaning toxic soils.

Arsenic in rice is due to exactly that, pulling naturally occurring arsenic from the water used for irrigation.

Not the only source. American rice is grown sometimes on old cotton fields, which were sprayed with arsenic to control boll weevils.

Apparently washing the rice does remove quite a bit.

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

#77

Post by zamfi »

oasisbob wrote: post #27
_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.…

> Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day That's very easy to say, but it's another thing to require that products with lead above the level of detection should be kept from markets and destroyed. Start clearing products with any detectable heavy metal content, and you'll start clearing shelves.

> Start clearing products with any detectable heavy metal content, and you'll start clearing shelves.

Great. And maybe then producers will take it more seriously?

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

#78

Post by jandrewrogers »

_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. The US has long been accused, correctly in my view, of being obsessed with excessively sterile and verifiably clean food supply chains beyond any statistically reasonable health concern, which has precluded the import of many popular products from the EU to the US.

The US has many problems but strict regulation of food quality is not one of them, they are aggressively skeptical by default. I don’t know if it is constructive but it is definitely a thing the US does.

[0] https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-sec... (sort by quality and safety)

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

#79

Post by Natsu »

OneLeggedCat wrote: post #24
Eelongate wrote: post #3

> CONSUMER REPORTS tested 126 herbs and spices from 38 brands for arsenic, cadmium, and lead. (We did not test spices that tend to be used in baking, such as cinnamon and nutmeg.) We tested two or three samples from different lots of each product. This testing is frustratingly sparse, couldn't they find garlic powder in Trader Joe's? They're missing many brands for many of these spices. And I don't think you can bake…

> This testing is frustratingly sparse A very common problem with Consumer Reports. Very. They also never make that shitty data's origins easily available for critique. I have subscribed to them for over twenty years. This has always been a problem with them. Good intentions (that's my belief), but poor statistical execution and evidence.

Looking at the reports, it seems more like the problem is with certain spices especially basil, ginger, oregano, and thyme more than any particular brand. Some of those seem to be all red or very close to it.

That said, there are a few spices where some brands are just terrible compared to all others. And I do see that there are a few common brands like "Great Value" that seem rather below average, failing where many others succeeded, which may be worth avoiding.

But yeah, I wish they had more consistent tables of these spices.

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