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Study finds elevated levels of toxic metals in some juices and soft drinks
- koalacola 3y agoWell that's horrifying
- tppiotrowski 3y agoThe headline or the data?
- okamiueru 3y agoThis is beverage sold in the US. It might sound a bit arrogant, but food safety and standards in the US are much lower than certain places. I hope research like this helps improve the situation.
- vuln 3y ago> but food safety and standards in the US are much lower than certain places. It is arrogant. You make a claim then do not show any evidence or data. You do not name those _certain places_. Which places and what data do you have to back up the claim?
- lioeters 3y agoI neither support nor refute the claim, but one data point is the Global Food Security Index. In their 2022 report, the rating/ranking was: Finland Ireland Norway France Netherlands Japan Sweden Canada United Kingdom Portugal Switzerland Austria United States ... https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/ https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-sec... --- On the other hand: Why There is Nothing Wrong With American Food Standards - https://techround.co.uk/business/american-food-standards/ https://techround.co.uk/business/american-food-standards/
- guhcampos 3y agoIf you sort the index by "Quality and Safety", which sounds like the most appropriate for this context, the US comes in 3rd place, behind only Canada and Denmark, which I actually found to be quite surprising. On the other hand, what we perceive as the low quality of food in the US might be more geared towards the "healthiness" of that food and not its safety. For instance, I will often eat fast food for a couple days while recovering from food poisoning because I feel it's generally safer than fresh food. That thing is absent of any nutrition, but it's also almost sterile.
- morsch 3y agoInteresting link! That seems to be the overall ranking, though, not the one for the category "Quality and Safety". Food safety is a subcategory of that, and "relevant food safety legislation" a sub-sub-category. The US scores a (perfect?) 100 in that sub-sub-category. It also scores 100 in nutrition labeling, which I found suprising, because my impression was that the nutrition and ingredient labels in the US are pretty subpar compared to the EU. But what do I know. https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/explore-countries/united-states https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-sec...
- outworlder 3y agoOne more reason to stop consuming those. Freshly squeezed fruit juice is already not amazing, but ok in small amounts. It's better to just consume the fruits. What they are selling in the supermarket can hardly be qualified as fruit juice, and are basically differently flavored soda. Some of them even manage to have more sugar than a Coke.
- yamtaddle 3y agoThe weirdest part to me is that the flavor in many fruit juices is artificial (or "natural", but that can also mean what most people would call "artificial", because our labeling laws are designed to enable fraud). Pasteurization and such take so much of the flavor out, that they have to add it back in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice#Not_from_concentrate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice#Not_from_concentr...
- MBCook 3y agoThey’re also mostly apple and possibly pear juice because those are so cheap, with other flavors/colors added. Grape juice is absolutely not normally grape juice plus possibly sugar. That would be too expensive.
- floxy 3y ago>Grape juice is absolutely not normally grape juice plus possibly sugar. How sure are we on that? It has been a while, but I recall something like Welch's tasting like grape juice. https://www.welchs.com/juices/100-percent/concord-grape https://www.welchs.com/juices/100-percent/concord-grape
- gnicholas 3y agoJust to clarify, they were measuring the juices and sodas against the standards for water, not food in general. It's still not great, but I believe the standards for water are much stricter than for food because it is consumed in such great quantities. So this isn't as big a deal as when rice is found to have too much arsenic, or chocolate has high levels of heavy metals — measured against food standards.
- armchairhacker 3y agoStill not good for the people who chug several 64oz bottles of Diet Coke a day
- olliej 3y agoThat’s why I stick to cans of non-diet soda :D :D
- DANmode 3y agoAre cans still coated?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoI think they were making a joke which presumes that they are. (I also wish I could answer your question but I do not know.)
- olliej 3y agoI was making a joke :D But to answer the question I believe that they are -- I still see periodic demonstrations of dissolving a full can of soda with acid leaving the soda contained (first yt hit: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xIVONw9Pr4w https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xIVONw9Pr4w)
- yamtaddle 3y agoYeah, and so are e.g. canned veggies or beans or fruit. More food touching plastic, but somewhat less botulism and spoilage than before we did that.
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoI don't know the chemistry but it would be great to have cheap home tests for this stuff. The only available accurate cheap tests are for lead, for more comprehensive heavy metal tests you're looking at $200-400 and weeks of waiting.
- zo1 3y agoSure, but isn't this the kind of thing we expect the government or "FDA" to monitor regularly? It's peanuts for them to regularly have each company that sells more than X million dollars per year to send them a representative sample of their products for testing.
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoI agree, for food, though it would still be nice to be able to "trust but verify". But the more common use case is testing water from old sketchy pipes.
- 83 3y agoMinor nit, but you really don't want to trust companies to send a sample. You would need to ensure samples are acquired through the consumer supply chain by the FDA.
- photochemsyn 3y agoNot really possible. The simplest setup for analyzing metals in foods and juices (and supplements) is atomic absorption spectroscopy, which involves digesting the sample in strong nitric acid IIRC. AAC setups appear to range from $5,000 to $25,000 (depending on features like multi-sample processing automation etc.) at present. A lab capable of safely handling nitric acid digestion (fumes a bit) needs an effective chemical fume hood, which are at least $20,000 for a fairly basic small hood, and each metal you want to test for requires a separete protocol. See for example: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-12/documents/7000b.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-12/documents/70... You can do a bunch of different metals at once with ICP-MS but those systems cost around 10X as much as AAC.
- aresant 3y agoSame issues endemic in bottled water -> https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/whats-really-in-your-bottled-water-a5361150329/ https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/whats-really-i... Anybody know of a beverages brand that prioritizes filtration / actual health of their consumers? I would LOVE to fund a startup that focused on that from a CPG perspective or alternatively some actual scientifically relevant and ongoing standards labeling for food, beverages, etc
- antoniuschan99 3y agoThere’s this video on Zephyr Water but it’s now owned by Nestle. https://youtu.be/3XA9hElPJNs https://youtu.be/3XA9hElPJNs
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- semiquaver 3y agoTopo Chico? Say it ain’t so!
- zackangelo 3y agoThey’ve since reduced PFAS levels by half but still not great: https://www.consumerreports.org/bottled-water/topo-chico-cuts-pfas-levels-by-more-than-half-a4286812129/ https://www.consumerreports.org/bottled-water/topo-chico-cut...
- ben7799 3y agoBetter to just drink tap water that's filtered. Even if you don't filter the water tap water is already held to a higher standard and it's easier to get your local test data. I get test data mailed to me quarterly about my tap water without having to ask for it or sign up. I've never seen any test data to speak of for any bottled water. And the tap water is not stored in plastic bottles.
- andrewl 3y ago
- somethoughts 3y agoSeems like this study was conducted primarily in Louisiana. "A total of 60 beverage samples purchased from local supermarkets/retail stores in New Orleans, Louisiana, were refrigerated and homogenized..." Louisiana is not quite known for its strict environmental standards (including water quality). [1] Presumably most soft drinks and juices are bottled at plants locally using local water supplies as carrying liquids long distances is not economically advantageous. Its unclear (to me at least) if any of these findings are applicable to soft drinks/juices in other states with stricter water quality standards. [Edit] Definitely not saying soft drinks/juices aren't toxic, I'm mostly pointing out this is a local/regional study and I feel therefore its implications are therefore local/regional. I'd prefer: - more local/regional studies for my location or - a randomly sampled nation wide study or - a control group against local/regional bottled water before I make broad conclusions/make a change in lifestyle. That said I mostly don't drink soft drinks/bottled water. [1] https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2022-09-29/louisiana-ranks-4th-in-the-nation-for-industrial-water-pollution-new-report-says https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2022-09-29/louisiana-ranks...
- ars 3y agoYou might not realize this, but it actually rains in Louisiana.
- selimthegrim 3y agoThey also have things like national grocery chains!
- InCityDreams 3y agoAs a Europeon, I'm not sure if your comment would be regarded as a positive, or negative.
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoAs a reminder, Louisiana is a lot wealthier than you think it is: https://fee.org/articles/most-of-europe-is-a-lot-poorer-than-most-of-the-united-states/ https://fee.org/articles/most-of-europe-is-a-lot-poorer-than...
- Rebelgecko 3y agoKind of annoying that the study doesn't name the actual drinks, it just breaks them down by categories and lists results for the worst soft drink/sports drink/juice
- HPsquared 3y agoFruit juices and soft drinks are acidic, and will tend to corrode and dissolve whatever metals they come in contact with - e.g. the pipes and valves and containers. This produces a bunch of metal ions, will end up dissolved in the liquid. Along similar lines, acidity (well, really not enough alkalinity) was a big factor in the municipal water problems at Flint, Michigan: the water in the pipes was allowed to become too acidic, causing it to react with the lead pipes - significantly increasing the amount of lead dissolved in the water. Whereas if the water had been more alkaline (higher pH), the lead in the pipes would not have ended up in the water to nearly the same extent.
- Scoundreller 3y agopH control is one method of stabilizing lead, orthophosphate is another (which Flint didn’t bother with). > Most important, the treated Flint River water lacked one chemical that the treated Detroit water had: phosphate. “They essentially lost something that was protecting them against high lead concentrations,” Giammar says. Cities such as Detroit add orthophosphate to their water as part of their corrosion control plans because the compound encourages the formation of lead phosphates, which are largely insoluble and can add to the pipes’ passivation layer. … > The treated Flint River water had a relatively low pH that decreased over time. According to monthly operating reports from the Flint treatment plant, the city’s water had a pH of about 8 in December 2014, but then it slowly dropped to 7.3 by August 2015. Environmental engineers say that if water pH drifts too low in the absence of orthophosphate, the water can start to leach high levels of lead from pipes. > The pH drop over time seems to indicate that plant operators in Flint didn’t even have a target pH as part of a corrosion plan, Edwards says. Water utilities usually find a pH that’s optimal for preventing corrosion in their system. For example, in Boston, another city with old lead pipes, average water pH held steady around 9.6 https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i7/Lead-Ended-Flints-Tap-Water.html https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i7/Lead-Ended-Flints-Tap-Wat...
- HPsquared 3y agopH is the fundamental thing, phosphate is the chemical patch that allows low pH water to be used. Basically they switched water source to something less alkaline than what they'd used previously - and didn't do anything to mitigate this. The phosphate is kind of a "patch" to the problem of low pH. Fruit juice and cola is of course much, much more acidic than the Flint water - orange juice for example is about pH 4 (that is, 1000 times more H+ ions than pH 7)
- ipython 3y agoDoes anyone have access to the actual research to share the brands and other information? I tried searching sci-hub but came up empty. The paywalled link is https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2023.105230 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2023.105230
- Unbeliever69 3y agoThe study included no mention of specific brands.
- dataangel 3y ago> These soft drinks are often consumed in smaller quantities than water Incorrect for lots of people.
- 226_ebro_treaty 3y agoYikes, considering I consume 2 L of Coke Zero every day almost...
- chillbill 3y agoThis is seriously bad for your health and wallet.
- 226_ebro_treaty 3y agoI was messed up before doing this to begin with, so, eh. I don't smoke or drink otherwise. Literally my only addiction.
- spadros 3y agoI buy my 2Ls for $1 on sale. $30 a month for pop is very affordable. RE your health; the components of diet pop are some of the most studied and consumed chemicals and sweeteners on the planet. The worst thing it’ll do is possibly wear your tooth enamel. So, I’d say it’s fine for their health and wallet.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoExcuse me but what the fuck?
- crazygringo 3y agoCoke Zero is literally 99+% water. Some people like flavored/bubbly water over plain flat water. Some people do Perrier, some do LaCroix, some do Coke Zero. All of these are essentially nutritionally identical. Really just a question of whether you think the artificial sweetener has an adverse effect on your health, which in these quantities it doesn't seem to. And if you want caffeine -- the caffeine in a liter of Coke Zero is the same as a single cup of coffee, so this is the same as a fairly normal 2 cups of coffee per day.
- gottebp 3y agoDoes the FDA not randomly sample and test for this sort of thing? Why does it take a university study to discover it?
- dylan604 3y ago$$$$$ whether the amount they don't have in a budget or the amount they receive from lobbyists to prevent it from happening
- justin66 3y agoFDA doesn't have defined safe levels for some of these toxins in food, hence the reliance by the paper's authors on EPA's defined safe levels in water. It's not an accident, and it's not like it never occurred to anyone that we might want to pay attention to heavy metal levels in food. Who do you think has more money to spend on lobbyists and campaign contributions, the people who want FDA to pay attention to this or the people who don't? https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821 https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-l...
- judge2020 3y agoThe FDA likes to rely on well-supported, highly controlled studies before they put tons of resources into performing long term testing of products. Remember that the FDA not only does consumer food but also pharmaceutical drugs, medical implants, vaccines, etc. with only a $3.4 Billion yearly budget.
- crazygringo 3y agoI'm curious -- are these just the levels of metals that are generally present in any natural soil? That has been in all of food through all of mankind, but are elevated in juices because plants concentrate it? Or is this all a relatively new problem, whether from industrial pollution or fertilizer contamination or farm equipment or whatnot?
- simonsarris 3y agoMany soils have contamination for various historical reasons. For example some cotton (and some tobacco?) fields in southern states formerly used arsenic as a pesticide, then later switched to rice production, and this rice has significantly more arsenic in it than rice grown in California, which had no such history. I assume some of the arsenic in these juice samples is from a similar pattern of usage.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nortonham 3y agoit's too bad they don't name the brands
- 1970-01-01 3y agoThe study's infographic is here: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0889157523001047-ga1_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S08891575230010...
- rootusrootus 3y agoMaybe putting "some", as in the original headline, would have made it too long for HN? Certainly changes the meaning a bit. It was less than 10% of samples tested. Not great, most beverages did not pose a problem. I'd like to see a list of the ones that tested postitive.
- dang 3y agoOK, we've squeezed out the mixed fruits and put 'some' juices in instead. Thanks!
- blueyes 3y agoWhich are almost as harmful as the sugar that most of those drinks use to addict their consumers.
- glyphy177 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]