5 ms·

>What am I supposed to do? Nothing, probably. Heavy metals come from natural sources in the ground as well as from the air which then settles into the topsoil.

>What am I supposed to do? Nothing, probably. Heavy metals come from natural sources in the ground as well as from the air which then settles into the topsoil. They also come from decades old insecticides/pesticides or old infrastructure left to rot on farms. Cadmium and arsenic in particular are among the most abundant substances on the Earth. Every bit of food you eat likely has them both. If you are worried and want to reduce exposure, probably the best you can do is buy local instead of imports. Know the land your food comes from and its history.

gruez 5y ago
>If you are worried and want to reduce exposure, probably the best you can do is buy local instead of imports. Know the land your food comes from and its history. from the article: >Also troubling: There was no single predictor of which products contained higher levels of heavy metals—for example, brand name didn’t matter, and neither did “organic” or “packed in USA” claims. I'm also not sure how feasible it is to "Know the land your food comes from and its history". What are you supposed to do, go to the farmers market for all your herbs, interview the farmers, and then somehow determine heavy metal concentrations from that?
- malwarebytess 5y ago
  It's feasible. Perhaps not for everyone. If you're serious about this (and I don't think you ought to be) the only way you're going to control it is by making sure the land your food comes from is accountable to you. You can certainly find out whether the agricultural land your food is grown on was once something else. You can certainly reasonably guess if there may be high concentrations of pollutants deposited in the soil by examining the history of the land. Maybe the land being used was once near heavy industry, maybe it was a site that once heavily used insecticides, etc. For example, perhaps the farmland you're looking at is adjacent to an interstate. Leaded gas used for decades will have polluted the topsoil to a greater extent here than on other, more remote, land. You could choose not to buy produce from the interstate farm. This is easy enough to do. Sourcing is one of the most basic skills people ought to have. I don't think people ought to be worried and go out of their way, to be honest. A great way to do this at home is to grow your own produce in raised garden beds with good, clean, fresh, topsoil.
- nimih 5y ago
  Well, you could start by growing as many of your own herbs as possible for home use. Basil, thyme, and oregano (to pick examples which are called out in the article as especially concerning) are relatively straightforward to grow in decent quantity, even for apartment dwellers. Since the harms here are from chronic and cumulative exposure, even a couple container-dwelling basil bushes on a balcony or a small DIY hydroponic setup in a closet could plausibly make a meaningful impact in the amount of consumed heavy metals, and a modestly sized garden plot can produce all a typical home cook will need if it's diverse, well-tended, and harvested regularly. Alternatively, yes, you could go to your local farmer's market and ask the folks selling fresh herbs if they have their soil tested for heavy metals. That seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do, honestly.
Eelongate 5y ago
It's not just a matter of heavy metals in the soil getting accidentally sucked up by the plants. From this PDF linked from the article: http://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/surveys/Consumer_Reports_Test_Methodology_for_Herbs_Spices_November_2021 http://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/s... > In addition, we investigated possible adulteration, specifically the addition of bulking and/or coloring agents, in four of the 15 spices that are commonly adulterated in these ways. So at least in some of the cases, deliberate adulteration with heavy metal containing dyes/etc is a real possibility. This should be (probably is?) a criminal matter but it seems the FDA isn't particularly concerned about it. This disturbs me.
deleted 5y ago
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ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"buy local instead of imports. Know the land your food comes from and its history." I am happy to study history of all 300,000 square kilometers of farmland, but are the producers of this toxic crap going to pay for my time or health damage they inflict?

gruez 5y ago

>If you are worried and want to reduce exposure, probably the best you can do is buy local instead of imports. Know the land your food comes from and its history. from the article: >Also troubling: There was no single predictor of which products contained higher levels of heavy metals—for example, brand name didn’t matter, and neither did “organic” or “packed in USA” claims. I'm also not sure how feasible it is to "Know the land your food comes from and its history". What are you supposed to do, go to the farmers market for all your herbs, interview the farmers, and then somehow determine heavy metal concentrations from that?

malwarebytess 5y ago
It's feasible. Perhaps not for everyone. If you're serious about this (and I don't think you ought to be) the only way you're going to control it is by making sure the land your food comes from is accountable to you. You can certainly find out whether the agricultural land your food is grown on was once something else. You can certainly reasonably guess if there may be high concentrations of pollutants deposited in the soil by examining the history of the land. Maybe the land being used was once near heavy industry, maybe it was a site that once heavily used insecticides, etc. For example, perhaps the farmland you're looking at is adjacent to an interstate. Leaded gas used for decades will have polluted the topsoil to a greater extent here than on other, more remote, land. You could choose not to buy produce from the interstate farm. This is easy enough to do. Sourcing is one of the most basic skills people ought to have. I don't think people ought to be worried and go out of their way, to be honest. A great way to do this at home is to grow your own produce in raised garden beds with good, clean, fresh, topsoil.
nimih 5y ago
Well, you could start by growing as many of your own herbs as possible for home use. Basil, thyme, and oregano (to pick examples which are called out in the article as especially concerning) are relatively straightforward to grow in decent quantity, even for apartment dwellers. Since the harms here are from chronic and cumulative exposure, even a couple container-dwelling basil bushes on a balcony or a small DIY hydroponic setup in a closet could plausibly make a meaningful impact in the amount of consumed heavy metals, and a modestly sized garden plot can produce all a typical home cook will need if it's diverse, well-tended, and harvested regularly. Alternatively, yes, you could go to your local farmer's market and ask the folks selling fresh herbs if they have their soil tested for heavy metals. That seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do, honestly.

Eelongate 5y ago

It's not just a matter of heavy metals in the soil getting accidentally sucked up by the plants. From this PDF linked from the article: http://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/surveys/Consumer_Reports_Test_Methodology_for_Herbs_Spices_November_2021 http://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/s... > In addition, we investigated possible adulteration, specifically the addition of bulking and/or coloring agents, in four of the 15 spices that are commonly adulterated in these ways. So at least in some of the cases, deliberate adulteration with heavy metal containing dyes/etc is a real possibility. This should be (probably is?) a criminal matter but it seems the FDA isn't particularly concerned about it. This disturbs me.

deleted 5y ago

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ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"buy local instead of imports. Know the land your food comes from and its history." I am happy to study history of all 300,000 square kilometers of farmland, but are the producers of this toxic crap going to pay for my time or health damage they inflict?