Heavy metals in spices

[gfweb]

https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a38413337/heavy-metals-found-in-herbs-spices/

 

Not sure Popular Mechanics or even CR is trustworthy...but for what its worth....

[AAQuesada]

I don't really use anything of the dried herbs or spices that might be problematic but even if I did this seems alarmist due to the minute amount most people consume. If I was a parent I'd look more into the lead claims because that is pretty serious but I find it hard to believe the FDA allows lead to be sprinkled into your dinner. 

[liuzhou]

I don't know but it seems to me to be mostly aimed at selling the soil testing kit advertised at the end of the article (for which they earn a commission.)

 

 

[chromedome]

7 hours ago, AAQuesada said:

I don't really use anything of the dried herbs or spices that might be problematic but even if I did this seems alarmist due to the minute amount most people consume. If I was a parent I'd look more into the lead claims because that is pretty serious but I find it hard to believe the FDA allows lead to be sprinkled into your dinner. 

I expect this article attempted to capture clicks in the wake of a recent recall of children's fruit puree, which did indeed cause serious harms and which eventually proved to be due to tainted cinnamon used in their manufacture. We've commented on it on other threads.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/chromium-found-in-lead-tainted-fruit-pouches-may-explain-contamination/

While the FDA doesn't (as you say) allow lead to be sprinkled onto your dinner, there's little it can do about what a middleman in South America buys from a spice vendor in South Asia, or how it's handled as it passes through the supply chain. That being said, it's reportedly more of an issue in places like India, where spices are used with a heavy hand and are often adulterated (turmeric in particular).

[blue_dolphin]

4 hours ago, chromedome said:

While the FDA doesn't (as you say) allow lead to be sprinkled onto your dinner, there's little it can do about what a middleman in South America buys from a spice vendor in South Asia, or how it's handled as it passes through the supply chain.

Years ago, a chemist friend of mine worked for one of the big meat curing/processing companies in the US doing testing of their raw materials and he said that the spice business was the dirtiest business in the world.  Vendors would present clean samples for approval of an order and deliver all sorts of adulterated crap.  It required constant testing to prevent tainting their products. 

 

4 hours ago, chromedome said:

That being said, it's reportedly more of an issue in places like India, where spices are used with a heavy hand and are often adulterated (turmeric in particular).

Yes, I remember when I read that Consumer Reports spice/metals article when it came out that the folks drinking mass quantities of turmeric chai for their health might want to at least vary their spice usage. 

[chromedome]

21 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Yes, I remember when I read that Consumer Reports spice/metals article when it came out that the folks drinking mass quantities of turmeric chai for their health might want to at least vary their spice usage. 

Also, the evidence for the efficacy of turmeric/cucurmin as an anti-inflammatory all more or less flowed back to one single researcher, and 30-odd of his papers have been retracted over various forms of fakery and data manipulation.

 

https://retractionwatch.com/2022/10/03/frankincense-extract-paper-is-30th-retracted-by-former-md-anderson-researcher-who-once-threatened-to-sue-retraction-watch/

Edited February 19 by chromedome (log)

[gfweb]

2 hours ago, chromedome said:

Also, the evidence for the efficacy of turmeric/cucurmin as an anti-inflammatory all more or less flowed back to one single researcher, and 30-odd of his papers have been retracted over various forms of fakery and data manipulation.

 

https://retractionwatch.com/2022/10/03/frankincense-extract-paper-is-30th-retracted-by-former-md-anderson-researcher-who-once-threatened-to-sue-retraction-watch/

 

And even if true, the data was tissue paper thin and not enough to base practice on.

[gastropod]

On 2/18/2024 at 11:18 PM, AAQuesada said:

I don't really use anything of the dried herbs or spices that might be problematic but even if I did this seems alarmist due to the minute amount most people consume. If I was a parent I'd look more into the lead claims because that is pretty serious but I find it hard to believe the FDA allows lead to be sprinkled into your dinner. 

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.