47% of 160 Top Selling Protein Powders Tested Exceed P65 Limit for Toxic Metals [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

47% of 160 Top Selling Protein Powders Tested Exceed P65 Limit for Toxic Metals [pdf]

cleanlabelproject.org

74 pointsclumsysmurf58 comments

This isnt a scientific report, its an advertisement for "clean label evaluated" products. ostensibly those brands that are most engaged with the clean label organization are featured with their logo at the end of the PDF.

you arent supposed to glean enough independent information from this PDF to make an informed decision about anything except the clean label group (that they are good.)

I hate this and came to same conclusion. Here I thought I was going to get some third party tested results of popular brands as a public service. Smh

Very strange that, throughout the report, it is noted that there are "no comprehensive federal regulations specifically targeting dietary exposure to heavy metals" and yet in all their results they present violations as exceeding "federal or state" regulations. What federal regulations are they evaluating if there are none?

Looks like Prop65 lead limits are 20x lower than conventional USP limits, so even exceeding 2x Prop65 puts you 10x below USP limits [1] for daily exposure. A serving of protein powder is ~10% or more of daily caloric needs so this seems perfectly reasonable.

[1] https://goop.com/what-is-prop-65/

I think the key word is “comprehensive”. There are definitely federal regulations of heavy metals in food products.

See:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...

https://www.compliancegate.com/heavy-metal-regulations-unite...

I'm also confused that it seems that CA OEHHA which sets these limits has separate "No Significant Risk Level" and "Maximum Allowable Dose Level" values for lead, and the NSRLs are 15-58 micrograms/day depending on compound, and the MADL is 0.5 micrograms/day.

Why for lead is the maximum allowable dose much smaller than the no significant risk level? For other cases (e.g. benzene) where there are values for both levels, the MADL is higher than the NSRL.

https://oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/general-info/proposition...

For those interested, the EU recommendations for food products in general were updated Dec/24 and 1/1/25: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/915/oj

For articles (hardware): https://www.compliancegate.com/heavy-metal-regulations-europ...

Please reconsider citing Gwyneth Paltrow's scammy goop.com.

>What federal regulations are they evaluating if there are none?

"Federal _or state_". They are evaluating against state regulations.

Exactly. The inclusion of federal in this statement is vacuous and therefore misleading. You may as well put "federal, state, or galactic".

Well, the galactic regulations have been publicly available for some time now. We can't help that you didn't find them in the cellar in a cabinet drawer found in the lavatory behind the sign that reads "beware of the leopard"

>This site has been reported as unsafe

>Hosted by cleanlabelproject.org >Microsoft recommends you don't continue to this site. It has been reported to >Microsoft for containing phishing threats which may try to steal personal or >financial information.

You might as well not even publish the report if you're not listing the offending protein powders.

Pfft, didn't you check their website?

https://cleanlabelproject.org/the-best-worst-protein-powder-...

Oh... the "worst protein powders" section is just a link to:

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/nutrition-healthy-eat...

I wouldn't be surprised if they have zero data and it's just a money grab for their "certification badge".

> Oh... the "worst protein powders" section is just a link to:

> https://www.consumerreports.org/health/nutrition-healthy-eat...

paywalled.

I wonder how they determined which ones to test? I thought Orgain was a huge brand of protein powder but I couldn't find it listed.

I am not sure anyone outside of an enormous media giant or a government could publish such a report. You would need millions for legal fees in reserve.

Little food fraud research ever publishes the offenders unless they are small restaurants and I suspect it is for that reason.

I don't buy it. Posting data measurements would be even more objective than reviewing products yet scathing product reviews aren't litigated, so where is this hunch coming from?

Can you post examples of litigation from revealing measurements of branded food products? It doesn't seem to stop anyone from posting heavy metal content in chocolate bar brands.

Most notable case was in Canada.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/subway-defamation-lawsuit-c...

CBC was sued by Subway for figuring out that their chicken was less chicken than one might think.

Honestly, like they published every single statistic, except the actual offenders.

If it’s such an important mission for them, then why not publish the offenders?

I looked into similar projects and the business model seems to be that you pay for certification, they do the test, and they certify your product if it passes.

So if they publish poor performers, then it kills their business model because nobody would want to pay for certification if they risk getting revealed as a poor performer.

BTW ICP-MS lab tests are like $100/pop which is probably why nobody has a table of real data.

Gotta pay the bills somehow, apparently.

Just list them. Why won’t they list them??!?

Reeks of “this one surprising common household object will cause instant death, watch at 10 to find out which.”

Fear of retaliation is why they're not naming and shaming. I use labdoor.com for any supplements because they show their work.

They seem like yet yet another certification cash grab.

https://labdoor.com/rankings/protein

Are those just the 15 protein powder companies who filled out this form? https://labdoor.com/enterprise/certifications/get-a-quote

There's def a probability of conflict of interest but I haven't found a better site. Are you aware of one?

They'll very likely get sued if they do.

For making factual statements? In CA? On a matter of public concern? That suit gets dismissed in days.

Then why bother making this site?

Recently discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42675538

It would be nice if they actually listed the companies and products that were toxic. That would be useful.

I’ve been using Dymatize for a while. They submit their product batches for testing of banned and harmful substances. https://choice.wetestyoutrust.com/about/certification-proces...

Elite 100% whey certified since 2013. https://choice.wetestyoutrust.com/supplement-search/dymatize...

Isn't this essentially a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42675538 ?

The project annoys me every time it pops up.

All that work and no simple table of results?

Here's what the "Best protein powders" button hidden on their site links to: https://cleanlabelproject.org/product-categories/?refinement...

WTF is that UI? And where's the data? What are the measurements? And why isn't it a list of protein powders?

This is my biggest gripe at the moment. I can't find any information on which brands contained which amount of containments.

Given the margins on supplements, I assume it is to avoid a battalion of lawyers suing them into the ground.

Well, of course - it's P65 after all. 99% of the products on Earth exceed many of its nonsensical limits.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42675538

It's criminal that they did not include a list

We apparently get enough protein due daily consumption and the avg sporty person doesn't need protein powder.

The only significant and obvious thing to take is creatin.

Lots of esoteric believe in the strength/ gym sport.

No you do not need to eat rice and chicken and broccoli every single day for gains just because a steroids taking gym bro does it.

Go to the gym 2-3 times a week, do enough weight that you can't repeat the exercise after 5-15 reps and do 3 sets min.

Magic

> We apparently get enough protein due daily consumption and the avg sporty person doesn't need protein powder.

I don't know what that means. The amount of protein people get varies dramatically. Chicken is a remarkably efficient way to get protein. Greek yogurt is also pretty good.

If you haven't measured your protein intake (with an app like myfitnesspal) you should try it.

I always thought I was a pretty knowledgable person when it came to nutrition and my eating habits competely changed when I bothered to look up the calorie and macro count of everything I ate. I also dropped 40 pounds and put on a lot of muscle.

Someone I know uses them for weight control. Their nutritionist recommended one small glass per day to help control hunger.

But geeze these protein shake/dietary websites are the most dark pattern sites. countdown clocks, hurry only 3 items left and one disappears while you are looking at it, sneaky monthly addons, extra fee at the end. Look I just want to buy a bucket of whatever protein garbage you are selling that will last 2 months. That they have extra junk in them that should not be there, is unsurprising.

That's what I thought too. But after 5 years of gym, I wasn't neither bigger nor leaner.

The diet at home was "good enough" - because every unchecked diet is "good enough", regardless of composition. That's what everyone says about their diet.

Turns out diet is 60% of gym gains. I'm saying this with no steroids at all.

And then you started taking protein powder and started gaining again?

Story is longer than that. Got married. Did't go to the gym for 9 years. Moved countries. Re-taked gym, along with better diet, started on protein powder + creatine. 1.5 years in and I'm already over what I couldn't accomplish in 5 years. And I'm not even taking the diet too seriously.

Twice the P65 level is 1 ppm lead. That translates to 35 micrograms per serving.

Lead is a naturally occuring element. Clean dirt contains 15 to 40 ppm lead.

You grow plants in dirt. Guess what happens? They take up a little bit of lead. Ideally I would like to eat 0 micrograms of lead, sure, but I'm not worried about tiny unavoidable amounts of lead from my food.

There is no amount of lead that's considered safe for consumption. Anything that's not zero is bad for you, doesn't matter what dirt or whatever has in it.

We can't compare against the ideal though we can only compare against the world we have. So the comparison against dirt is pretty apt.

Yes. There's also no world where you don't take up miniscule amounts of toxic, naturally occuring chemicals.

Still I would rather consume less than more. If half the protein powders manage to not contain alarming levels of toxins I would much rather have those than the ones that do contain toxins. Not really a difficult concept.

It's only "alarming" because it's presented in an alarmimg way. If the headline had said "Protein powders found to contain 2.5% as much lead as undisturbed dirt" you would not have found it alarming.

This whole argument is silly. People generally don't go around eating dirt off the ground so how much lead is in dirt doesn't matter. It's alarming because lead is incredibly unhealthy for you.

The point is not that you are eating dirt. The point is that you are constantly surrounded by small amounts of things that are not good for you. Take a plane? Eat a banana? You are exposed to radiation. Drink water in certain parts of the country? You are exposed to small amounts of uranium. Is any of that good? No, but it's unavoidable to be exposed to small amounts of naturally occuring toxins and it's not worth worrying about.

The PR guys have arrived.

Nope, just an analytical chemist who's worked in 3rd party testing labs.

Oh well, enjoy your lead consumption anyways.

I will! It's nature's sweetener, I've always said :)

> You grow plants in dirt. Guess what happens? They take up a little bit of lead.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2016/02/02/risk-of-lead-pois...

This study disputes this except for root vegetables.

No, it does not.

>plants actually take up very little lead in their stems and leaves, and are safe to eat

They might have, for instance, lead on the level of 1 ppm, which poses no significant harm to your health.

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