gastropod

It sounds like in their clarification they're saying exactly that

Between this and the oleato it seems like Starbucks is really trying to use strange novelty drinks to generate free publicity.

Could I ask for the recipe for this, or if you don't have one handy, just a description of how you prepare the sweet potatoes?

I don't think there's any routine testing of foods for heavy metal contamination, so I'm not sure the FDA could really enforce that in practice, even if they wanted to. Maybe they'll do something after this report but I don't think that has happened after similar reports about other foods, and I suspect they don't have the resources to do that. I believe they have actually attempted to enforce limits on heavy metals in baby food, but I think that might be the only product category where they have done so. I do agree that spices might not actually be that big a concern for adults compared to other foods because of the quantities typically being used. Stuff like cocoa and chocolate (which was also recently reported to have a major problem with heavy metal contamination) where you would typically be using a larger quantity is probably more of a concern.

I guess that would be useful if you only have worn nonstick pans available for whatever reason. Personally I agree with AlaMoi that if you're going to use nonstick pans, it makes the most sense to just buy a cheap one and plan on replacing it as soon as it starts to wear out.

Even if you could theoretically somehow season a nonstick pan, wouldn't that defeat the purpose because the resulting surface would only be as nonstick as a cast iron pan, which is less nonstick than PTFE?