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Comment by natdempk | Hacker News Reader

See 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.

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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-by-spice basis.

Yeah I've also been wondering this. Would love it if anyone has similar knowledge, especially about other spices beyond Tumeric.

I posted this above. ConsumerLab does this testing on all sorts of products and foods. They are a non-profit. The annual fee you pay supports the research and testing directly.

They tested many brands of both spice and supplement for lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury, and published the amounts they found in each brand:

https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/turmeric-curcumin-supple...

Of great importance lately was their discovery of benzene in many common sunscreens which forced many product recalls. I used their findings to change brands for my entire family.

Thanks for the ConsumerLab pointer.

The link you provided doesn't work for me. Is [0] the right article?

[0] https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/turmeric-curcumin-supple...

Sorry:

https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/turmeric-curcumin-supple...

If you're consuming it as a supplement it's a lot cheaper (and safer) to just make it yourself. The process is basically: cut it up into thin slices, dry it out in the oven, grind it up.

If you're not taking it in supplement quantities, then I'm not sure I'd be tremendously worried about any other contamination...

Doesn't help at all if the roots themselves are dusted, as per the article. Right?

Good question. Most turmeric roots I've bought aren't nearly as bright orange as the powered stuff. I _assume_ that means they're not applying the same chromate brightening agent but it's not impossible.

I guess I'll have to start growing it myself...

After reading that article I personally won't trust any I buy from anywhere unless it's from a reputable source and actually states that it's tested/lead-free. Yikes.

"Lead free" may be impossible, there is natural levels of lead in the soil that is taken up by plants.

However there's orders of magnitude difference between those natural levels, and adulterated spices with lead deliberately added for coloring.

Try googling the lead content of an average carrot, for example.

I buy from thespicehouse.com - they seem to be careful, but I haven't inquired about turmeric. I should send them an email. (I prefer them over Penzey's, which is the same family, because they have dried fenugreek leaves.)

seconded - high quality and friendly service. Hard to ask for more.

Unless you maybe want to ask for proof that they test their products for lead. That seems pretty easy.

I buy from there too.

Here's their answer and it's disappointing. tl;dr: they import the whole spice and have it ground in the US.

https://www.thespicehouse.com/pages/ingredients-and-allergy-...

forget trusted suppliers; they should be running lab tests on random samples

If you don't have or provide any insight into their testing processes, I don't think a recommendation is relevant here.

I emailed Bill Penzey a few years ago, asking if they did testing for lead in their turmeric, got no response.

Burlap and Barrel I believe has a good reputation with their spice sourcing.

https://www.burlapandbarrel.com/products/turmeric

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.

- "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."

ConsumerLab tested many brands of both spice and supplement for lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury, and published the amounts they found in each brand:

https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/turmeric-curcumin-supple...

Paywall

What an article to put behind a paywall

If you want food safety inspection results to be paywall-free, make your government do them.

I don’t understand. If someone gets lead poisoning from regularly using a spiked batch of theirs, can’t they sue the everlasting piss out of these companies?

It'd be impossible to prove that the poisoning was from the lead in any one manufacturers food. Lead contaminates everything around us. Americans have been spoon feeding lead and other heavy metals directly into the mouths of their infant children for ages (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-food-toxins-government-rep...). Only recently has the FDA even come up with non-binding guidelines on how much poison companies can put into baby food.

The harm is cumulative, and so singling out any single company or product as the one who put you over the "tipping point" to some set of symptoms is next to impossible and any corporation you tried to take to court would likely have a team of high paid lawyers so good luck convincing a carefully selected jury.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be able to sue companies into the ground for mass poisonings, but even when we can prove a company poisoned us, AND can prove that they knew they were doing it, AND even when we can prove they tried to cover that fact up so they could make more money by doing it, companies haven't ever faced meaningful consequences. Not the tobacco industry, not DuPont, certainly not spice manufacturers.

I've always wondered to what extent I've been doing myself a disservice by buying McCormick- surely the cheap powdered stuff isn't able to compete on flavor- but seeing this makes me glad my budget sense beats my foodie sense.

It's hard to go wrong with Penzey's : https://www.penzeys.com/pages/consumer-reports

Only for half of the company, according to their CEO

Spicewalla (out of Asheville) should be reputable

If they don't publish them, email and ask for a COA (certificate of analysis) with heavy metal data. If you know your lot #, include that too. It's not perfect, you're trusting not only the company but wherever they sourced their spices from, but they DO have the info, and it's better than nothing. p.s. "random" testing is a joke. Also will second the burlap and barrel rec for turmeric specifically. Source: worked in spices for a bit.

A few more:

"Lead in Spices, Herbal Remedies, and Ceremonial Powders Sampled from Home Investigations for Children with Elevated Blood Lead Levels — North Carolina, 2011–2018": https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6746a2.htm

"Analysis of Lead in Spices Obtained from Bulk Food Stores" (PDF): http://libjournals.unca.edu/ncur/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/...

"Heavy Metals in Cultural Products": https://www.epa.gov/children/heavy-metals-cultural-products

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.

Where can I find those test kits?

Amazon. There are even strips. Now can we trust the manufacturer of the tests themselves given amazons sometimes shitty vendor quality? Who knows.

I have a gas engineer test my appliances every year. Last year he also fitted a CO alarm and he said he would test it every year. I asked if he had a CO aerosol to test the alarm. No, he said, I just press the button. Who knows if the alarm actually detects CO? Anyway, if you want to test your lead test, introduce it to some lead.

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