4 ms·

> In 31 products, levels of lead were so high that they exceeded the maximum amount anyone should have in a day, according to CR’s experts. Uhh there is no amo

by _abox 5y ago

> In 31 products, levels of lead were so high that they exceeded the maximum amount anyone should have in a day, according to CR’s experts. Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day. It's cumulative and harmful and we don't need it for anything. > Think twice about bringing back herbs and spices from travel abroad. Heavy metal content can be much higher in those products, according to other research. U.S. companies may buy the highest-quality herbs and spices to import, Ronholm says, which could leave lower-quality versions to be sold in the country of origin. Depends from where of course. I'm pretty sure the EU has stricter food safety regulations than the US. Though enforcement varies by country.

oasisbob 5y ago
> Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day That's very easy to say, but it's another thing to require that products with lead above the level of detection should be kept from markets and destroyed. Start clearing products with any detectable heavy metal content, and you'll start clearing shelves.
- zamfi 5y ago
  > Start clearing products with any detectable heavy metal content, and you'll start clearing shelves. Great. And maybe then producers will take it more seriously?
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    Clean, pre-industrial air contains about 1 ng lead per m³ which is easily detectable. This means you can detect lead in any thing that lives or has lived.
nradov 5y ago
Lead is present in the natural environment. Avoid it as much as you reasonably can, but it's impossible to eliminate it entirely from your diet.
refurb 5y ago
Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day. Unless you want to isolated yourself from everything, you're going to be exposed to things like arsenic, lead and other toxins from natural sources. That's why we have minimal allowable exposure limits.
jandrewrogers 5y ago
> I'm pretty sure the EU has stricter food safety regulations than the US. Interestingly, the US is notable for having just about the highest food safety and quality standards in the world, and these regulations systematically block the import of many food goods into the US. Per this source [0], the US is second after Canada; other sources move the countries around a bit but the US is always right up around the top. The US has long been accused, correctly in my view, of being obsessed with excessively sterile and verifiably clean food supply chains beyond any statistically reasonable health concern, which has precluded the import of many popular products from the EU to the US. The US has many problems but strict regulation of food quality is not one of them, they are aggressively skeptical by default. I don’t know if it is constructive but it is definitely a thing the US does. [0] https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/Index https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-sec... (sort by quality and safety)
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I thought the US was not as good because of the conditions locally in slaughterhouses, using "pink slime" in burgers etc. Those things definitely don't fly in the EU. I read about these in "Fast Food Nation". I have a feeling the US is stricter when it comes to importing foods but not as strict with locally produced items. But I don't have a good reference of this. If I'm wrong I'm sorry.
  - diordiderot 5y ago
    Don't listen to Americans on 'food safety' the majority of our 'food' contains fillers and food additives that cause cancers and birth defects but you _can't_ buy sausages and cheese that Europeans have been eating for centuries
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    The US has prohibited a number of meat products from the EU for import into the US expressly because many EU slaughterhouses did not meet US standards. As a well-known example, Iberico ham was banned from the US for decades because Spanish slaughterhouses could not pass certification by US inspectors. Historically the workaround for this was to send animals to countries like Denmark, which had slaughterhouses that could pass US certification but that made everything much more expensive. The US import standards are essentially the same as the domestic standards -- certain kinds of food are very difficult to produce in the US too (in recent decades they've been easing up on that to allow some "traditional" foods). The US definitely has its share of highly-processed and engineered food products of dubious value. On the other side, things like high-quality meat are cheap in the US compared to the EU, so people generally don't bother with oddly processed meat unless you are buying something that is explicitly expected to be highly processed. This is also very regional. The US produces vast amounts of agricultural goods of all types; depending on where you live, the local agricultural goods approximately round to "free" for the average consumer. As cheap as beef is in the US generally, for example, if you travel to where it is produced you can get amazing -- better! -- product for almost no money. Similarly, when my parents lived in Alaska, crab and salmon was essentially free.

by _abox 5y ago

oasisbob 5y ago

> Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day That's very easy to say, but it's another thing to require that products with lead above the level of detection should be kept from markets and destroyed. Start clearing products with any detectable heavy metal content, and you'll start clearing shelves.

zamfi 5y ago
> Start clearing products with any detectable heavy metal content, and you'll start clearing shelves. Great. And maybe then producers will take it more seriously?
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Clean, pre-industrial air contains about 1 ng lead per m³ which is easily detectable. This means you can detect lead in any thing that lives or has lived.

nradov 5y ago

Lead is present in the natural environment. Avoid it as much as you reasonably can, but it's impossible to eliminate it entirely from your diet.

refurb 5y ago

Uhh there is no amount of lead anyone should have in a day. Unless you want to isolated yourself from everything, you're going to be exposed to things like arsenic, lead and other toxins from natural sources. That's why we have minimal allowable exposure limits.

jandrewrogers 5y ago

> I'm pretty sure the EU has stricter food safety regulations than the US. Interestingly, the US is notable for having just about the highest food safety and quality standards in the world, and these regulations systematically block the import of many food goods into the US. Per this source [0], the US is second after Canada; other sources move the countries around a bit but the US is always right up around the top. The US has long been accused, correctly in my view, of being obsessed with excessively sterile and verifiably clean food supply chains beyond any statistically reasonable health concern, which has precluded the import of many popular products from the EU to the US. The US has many problems but strict regulation of food quality is not one of them, they are aggressively skeptical by default. I don’t know if it is constructive but it is definitely a thing the US does. [0] https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/Index https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-sec... (sort by quality and safety)

GekkePrutser 5y ago
I thought the US was not as good because of the conditions locally in slaughterhouses, using "pink slime" in burgers etc. Those things definitely don't fly in the EU. I read about these in "Fast Food Nation". I have a feeling the US is stricter when it comes to importing foods but not as strict with locally produced items. But I don't have a good reference of this. If I'm wrong I'm sorry.
- diordiderot 5y ago
  Don't listen to Americans on 'food safety' the majority of our 'food' contains fillers and food additives that cause cancers and birth defects but you _can't_ buy sausages and cheese that Europeans have been eating for centuries
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  The US has prohibited a number of meat products from the EU for import into the US expressly because many EU slaughterhouses did not meet US standards. As a well-known example, Iberico ham was banned from the US for decades because Spanish slaughterhouses could not pass certification by US inspectors. Historically the workaround for this was to send animals to countries like Denmark, which had slaughterhouses that could pass US certification but that made everything much more expensive. The US import standards are essentially the same as the domestic standards -- certain kinds of food are very difficult to produce in the US too (in recent decades they've been easing up on that to allow some "traditional" foods). The US definitely has its share of highly-processed and engineered food products of dubious value. On the other side, things like high-quality meat are cheap in the US compared to the EU, so people generally don't bother with oddly processed meat unless you are buying something that is explicitly expected to be highly processed. This is also very regional. The US produces vast amounts of agricultural goods of all types; depending on where you live, the local agricultural goods approximately round to "free" for the average consumer. As cheap as beef is in the US generally, for example, if you travel to where it is produced you can get amazing -- better! -- product for almost no money. Similarly, when my parents lived in Alaska, crab and salmon was essentially free.