3 ms·

It's important to understand that intention is not required. Spice processing machinery is often made out of metal with lead. For example brass, whichcan have h

It's important to understand that intention is not required. Spice processing machinery is often made out of metal with lead. For example brass, whichcan have higher lead concentration on the outside to make it easier to machine into its final form or more uniform to make the metal less brittle. It's possible that their machinery got degraded or even that it was re-coated with a lead based paint. There are cases where lead has been used as a food coloring ingredient for curcumin and it's also possible something like that could have happened. The intention is not specifically to add lead, but the fact that lead is being added for some other purpose is being ignored. There's a lot of minor lead contamination going on with these kinds of mechanisms. What happened in this case is that for some unknown reason the lead contamination was major rather than minor.

denton-scratch 3y ago
> What happened in this case is that for some unknown reason the lead contamination was major rather than minor. Lead salts taste sweet. I'm with the FDA; I doubt this is inadvertent contamination from machinery. This looks to me like deliberate adulteration. Also: those sachets are made from metallized plastic, and cannot be recycled. They are pure pollution, and should be banned.
- gregwebs 3y ago
  Apple sauce tastes sweet as well though so I am not following the logic here. It's always possible this is intentional, but it's more likely this kind of statement is a tactic to distract from the widespread minor lead contamination in these kinds of things and make people not question what the FDA or corporations are doing about lead contamination. Plastic and glass recycling is also a source of lead contamination! You are starting to take materials of unknown origin in a way where it is really difficult to assume any consistency from testing. If they are turned into a glass or plastic bottle and in particular if someone puts acid in them you have lead leeching. Plastic recycling is mostly a fantasy anyways. Much of the plastic that goes into a recycling stream is just thrown away. If it is recycled that's only at most for one more use. We could be making returnable, washable jars, but probably someone will say we can't because it's not safe because someone could have intentionally poisoned a jar with lead before they returned it!
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > Apple sauce tastes sweet as well though so I am not following the logic here. Sorry. My implication was that either the manufacturer was using apples that weren't sweet enough, or that the added sweetness made them more palatable than they could achieve using just fruit (and who knows how many legal additives). [Edit] Glass isn't made with lead, unless it's lead crystal (and even that doesn't use lead nowadays). I'm with you on plastic bottles, and packaging generally; even if it's "recyclable", you can only really recycle virgin plastic, not recycled plastic. And most of it isn't recycled anyway. The only legitimate use for plastic nowadays is to make things that are meant to survive basically forever.
    - gregwebs 3y ago
      Although crystal has an absurd amount of lead, most glass that isn’t clear has lead in it. For example the green San pelligrino bottles: https://tamararubin.com/2017/04/pellegrino-green-glass-water-bottle-116-ppm-lead-please-click-read-to-learn-more/ https://tamararubin.com/2017/04/pellegrino-green-glass-water... A lot of clear glass has lead in the paint or markings, even in baby bottles. Here’s various test results: https://tamararubin.com/2020/04/this-post-is-linked-to-all-of-my-posts-about-glass-bottles-including-baby-bottles-water-bottles-amber-bottles-green-bottles-blue-bottles-etc/ https://tamararubin.com/2020/04/this-post-is-linked-to-all-o...
gregwebs 3y ago
For anyone else coming across this thread, here is an article about the general issue of heavy metal contamination in baby food and how it keeps getting ignored. [1] https://tamararubin.com/2021/02/the-heavy-metals-in-baby-food-conversation-simplified-what-parents-need-to-know/ https://tamararubin.com/2021/02/the-heavy-metals-in-baby-foo...

denton-scratch 3y ago

> What happened in this case is that for some unknown reason the lead contamination was major rather than minor. Lead salts taste sweet. I'm with the FDA; I doubt this is inadvertent contamination from machinery. This looks to me like deliberate adulteration. Also: those sachets are made from metallized plastic, and cannot be recycled. They are pure pollution, and should be banned.

gregwebs 3y ago
Apple sauce tastes sweet as well though so I am not following the logic here. It's always possible this is intentional, but it's more likely this kind of statement is a tactic to distract from the widespread minor lead contamination in these kinds of things and make people not question what the FDA or corporations are doing about lead contamination. Plastic and glass recycling is also a source of lead contamination! You are starting to take materials of unknown origin in a way where it is really difficult to assume any consistency from testing. If they are turned into a glass or plastic bottle and in particular if someone puts acid in them you have lead leeching. Plastic recycling is mostly a fantasy anyways. Much of the plastic that goes into a recycling stream is just thrown away. If it is recycled that's only at most for one more use. We could be making returnable, washable jars, but probably someone will say we can't because it's not safe because someone could have intentionally poisoned a jar with lead before they returned it!
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > Apple sauce tastes sweet as well though so I am not following the logic here. Sorry. My implication was that either the manufacturer was using apples that weren't sweet enough, or that the added sweetness made them more palatable than they could achieve using just fruit (and who knows how many legal additives). [Edit] Glass isn't made with lead, unless it's lead crystal (and even that doesn't use lead nowadays). I'm with you on plastic bottles, and packaging generally; even if it's "recyclable", you can only really recycle virgin plastic, not recycled plastic. And most of it isn't recycled anyway. The only legitimate use for plastic nowadays is to make things that are meant to survive basically forever.
  - gregwebs 3y ago
    Although crystal has an absurd amount of lead, most glass that isn’t clear has lead in it. For example the green San pelligrino bottles: https://tamararubin.com/2017/04/pellegrino-green-glass-water-bottle-116-ppm-lead-please-click-read-to-learn-more/ https://tamararubin.com/2017/04/pellegrino-green-glass-water... A lot of clear glass has lead in the paint or markings, even in baby bottles. Here’s various test results: https://tamararubin.com/2020/04/this-post-is-linked-to-all-of-my-posts-about-glass-bottles-including-baby-bottles-water-bottles-amber-bottles-green-bottles-blue-bottles-etc/ https://tamararubin.com/2020/04/this-post-is-linked-to-all-o...

gregwebs 3y ago

For anyone else coming across this thread, here is an article about the general issue of heavy metal contamination in baby food and how it keeps getting ignored. [1] https://tamararubin.com/2021/02/the-heavy-metals-in-baby-food-conversation-simplified-what-parents-need-to-know/ https://tamararubin.com/2021/02/the-heavy-metals-in-baby-foo...