Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

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 enough to raise health concerns.")

Just from this month, there's a major recall of children's food in the United States that's contaminated with "extremely high concentrations of lead"—enough to cause acute toxicity. No one had ever tested these food products. This contamination was found after the fact, very late, because multiple children in North Carolina were chronically lead-poisoned, to the degree that state public health did an epidemiological investigation and tracked down the culprits.

https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investi... ("Investigation of Elevated Lead Levels: Applesauce Pouches (November 2023)")

> ”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 during processing, and it’s been found in relatively huge quantities - as much as 2-10% by weight in some cases!

The Consumer Reports spice article I linked looks at turmeric too and found products on shelves, in 2021, in the highest category of concern.

I'm not convinced that these (turmeric with lead chromate pigment) are rare, one-off incidents. I think this "this is a South Asian problem" might be an American problem, too, to a lesser degree: we just don't have enough visibility and testing to notice it.

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.

That's going to take a while; when you discard the plant, the lead will go back into the soil. You'd need to store the leady plant somewhere.

Sunflowers and Indian mustard do bioaccumulate lead (especially with a chelating agent).

Some kinds of mushrooms take up lead And other toxic materials.

I only found this out because edible mushrooms grew in my yard, but they are warned in literature that they may contain heavy metals, as my well water contains 3ppb lead I wasn’t confident to eat them.

I also found this article for you, https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2019/03/05/mushrooms...

I grow my own turmeric and ginger with reverse osmosis filtered water indoors, perfectly lead free, and it tastes amazing when it’s fresh

Yeah this is kinda "well known" in the protein powder circles: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-hidden-da....

(essentially condensing down milk products that don't have a large % of heavy metals but this gets condensed down and the heavy metals are more likely to stay behind - 200 liters of milk to make 1kg of protein powder).

I thought XRF guns could go down to the ppb range? Why doesn't every food manufacturer test every batch?

Because nobody force them to, and they can get away with selling tainted food? Testing means testing costs plus throwing away lots that don't pass. So unless coerced they tend not to (some good companies do anyway but they are rare).

Talk to your legislators and regulatory bodies about making it happen.

I would like to know if the EU (or, in particular, Finland) is any better in this regard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com