I get your joke, but the thesis here isn't that Neanderthals were exposed to more lead. Instead, the claim is that we might have evolved a mutation that protects our brain against lead to some extent.
I really wanted to like Huel. I like the idea of their meals, like chilli, but I didn't like it. Their Soylent type drink wasn't good either. Soylent 1.5 was the best.
What, did they have a lead contamination issue?
A report recently came out that found lead in nearly every brand of protein powder, especially plant-based ones.
It seems to be from lead naturally occurring in the soil where crops are grown. There is a similar problem with arsenic in rice.
Any time you collect a bunch of plants, dehydrate them, and pulverize them you’ll end up with a powdered concentration of whatever was in the plants. Since many plants can fix lead and because lead is everywhere you’ll get a little lead. It won’t be much, barely more than 1000x lower than the safe level, but some. Also cadmium probably.