11 ms·
Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)
- khelavastr 1y agoLack of firearms regulations stops public action against lead poisoners. In South America, where street gangs are far more common, you don't see rampant lead pollution the same way. Nobody dumps lead in narco territories because order of law is so much better enforced than relatively lawless democratic countries like Bangladesh.
- tim333 1y agoMeh - we don't have much lead in Sainsburys in the UK in spite of having quite strict gun control. I don't think street gangs are the answer to improving health and safety.
- amriksohata 1y agoI can imagine big american pharma pushing this - no doubt lead might have leaked in but they would not want something natural to pip their profits
- loopdoend 1y agoWish there were some way to detect impurities like this at home.
- pfdietz 1y agoHand held x-ray fluorescence spectrometer?
- unixhero 1y agoBut of course!
- perihelions 1y agoI think those cost more than my entire kitchen.
- pfdietz 1y agoHey, if Nile Red can use one, so can you!
- jpmattia 1y agoAnd just like that, there was a mad rush of mass-spectrometer-for-home-use startups.
- fuzzfactor 1y agoX-ray fluorescence detects elements based on their characteristic electromagnetic spectrum when irradiated with x-rays. Not very much like a mass-spectrometer which creates a characteristic pattern of masses resulting from the test material as it is manipulated by the electron ionization or chemical ionization process. Where ions are detected across the atomic mass range of the particular spectrometer, forming a characteristic pattern or "spectrum" across that range. Actually more jewelers and gold dealers than ever are using the x-ray guns professionally for bulk assay on an everyday basis. There are some handhelds which may be sensitive enough for trace analysis in food, but that requires a whole nother level of dedication beyond identification of metal objects, not just in technique and training but "laboratory" preparation as well. The first obstacle would be convincing an owner of an instrument having capable specs, to embrace usage for things other than gold and silver assay. Then seriously pursue mastery of the instrument more so than ever to accomplish decent detection of low levels of lead and other metals like chromium, mercury, cadmium, etc.
- pfdietz 1y agoThe concentrations of lead being discussed here are as much as 1000 ppm or even higher.
- kragen 1y agoQuoting perihelions's comment above: [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/ ("Contaminated turmeric is a potential source of lead exposure for children in rural Bangladesh" / "Results: Lead concentrations in many turmeric samples were elevated, with lead concentrations as high as 483 ppm")
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoThere are very sensitive indicator drops used for identifying ceramic glazes containing lead on antique porcelain. There are also handheld scanners that cost more than a car. And yes, people in the community scan every imported toy and or food item they see to start the FDA ban process when necessary. Should buy local when you can anyway. =3
- account42 1y agoTumeric isn't something grown locally in most places. And for powder you are pretty much always getting imports.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoI think you mean it isn't unrealistically cheap locally, or from reputable certified organic farmers. Have a great day =3
- account42 1y agoNo I mean it isn't grown locally for sale at all.
- bluGill 1y agoI have found lead detection kits. However they are somewhat expensive and I'm not sure how well they work.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoReally? Lead test kits are $10 on amazon, and will include several dozen tests. The better kits will include paper to verify the tests still are working (short shelf life in the open.) The sodium rhodizonate tests usually turn pink in the presence of traces of lead. These tests are intended for testing paints/ceramics, and may have false positives in the presence of zinc or copper etc. Our local Griefers seem to have strong feelings about this information, but talk with your chemistry teacher if you want to understand the details about testing. If a credible 3M brand test shows possible contamination, than consider sending a sample into a lab to figure out the details. =3
- account42 1y agoThose tests are not sensitive enough to check for food contamination.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoThe contamination is powdered paint containing white lead pigment, and many of these 20ppm to 500ppm test kits are designed for paint surface testing. If you are color blind and cant see pink very well, than get someone to help or go the lab test route. Best of luck =3
- account42 1y agoI think you're the one in need of luck if you're going to rely on paint tests for food safety.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoNormal people don't consider paint food, and don't eat the test kits. The "Do not ingest" labels are on the side for people that may assume otherwise. lol =3
- whiw 1y agoI am not a chemist, so take this with a pinch of salt: wouldn't lead chromate + sodium bicarbonate make lead carbonate, a white precipitate? Sodium bicarbonate is likely in your kitchen cupboard already.
- whiw 1y agoI meant lead carbonate, not lead oxide.
- BenjiWiebe 1y agoNot a chemist either but lead oxide is actually more soluble in water than lead chromate, so a double replacement reaction won't favor lead chromate -> lead oxide.
- adrianN 1y agoPretty hard to see precipitated dust at concentrations in the ppm range.
- kragen 1y agoWP tells me lead chromate's solubility in water is 0.00001720 g/100 mL, so, no, it won't.
- ashwinsundar 1y agohttps://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#:~:text=Test%2014%20%3A%20Detection%20of%20lead%20chromate%20in%20turmeric%20whole https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#:~:text=Test%2014%20%3A%2...
- gitaarik 1y agoThis Indian gov YouTube channel has all kinds of videos for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWPf0HQd5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWPf0HQd5U
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- vasusen 1y agoI grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those are usually really bright yellows. Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is probably lead paint tainted turmeric.
- genewitch 1y agoarticle says "you can't tell when it's ground" - that is, specifically, they put lead chromate in the "buff" stage, so the roots look like they were dried properly. In the same way that a lot of apples and the like will be buffed and then a soft wax coat applied so lots of apples are very shiny at the store. if the turmeric is ground before sale i doubt there's any reason to use lead chromate.
- ashwinsundar 1y agoNo I think the opposite conclusion is correct - turmeric starts out whole, and can be either ground down at that point or dried and sold whole. In the whole state, it's much easier to detect that lead chromate was applied. If the turmeric is ground before sale, it's even easier to apply lead chromate and make the whole version "appear" healthier to the next processor who grinds it down and then sells the powder. If you buy it whole, then you can more easily see the color of the original root.
- genewitch 1y agoThen why isn't this an issue in Bharat, as mentioned in the article?
- ashwinsundar 1y agoI don't know why you're obsessed with whether India has the same problem. Maybe it hasn't been studied as extensively, or the turmeric there is healthier and hence doesn't need to be colored, or something else. Also the article doesn't say that India doesn't have this problem.
- genewitch 1y ago<nevermind>
- hoegarden 1y agoThere are other instances of lead poisoning and not all turmeric is poisoned.. Therefore everything is a lie?
- genewitch 1y agoThere's been several turmeric related stories this past week (not here, but i've seen several elsewhere). The title is "Turmeric is the culprit in a global lead poisoning ..." That is editorializing. It is a lie. they found that some markets use lead chromate to improve the product's beauty before sale. The title leads one to believe that all or even most turmeric has lead in it, which just isn't the case.
- hoegarden 1y agoYou can find links on this site going back years to the fact that adulterating turmeric is a common thing if you think you can get away with it and many think they can even do that on exports. I'm so sorry you aren't a child in a middle income country? Most children can be poisoned eventually by a food contamination even if only some percentage of the food is contaminated because most childhoods are years long and most parents don't procure exactly the same supplies..
- ashwinsundar 1y agoSince billions of people eat turmeric every day (not the same set, but >1 billion each day, surely), if this was an issue we'd have known about it before now. Yes we have known this is an issue for several years (https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/09/lead-found-turmeric https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/09/lead-found-turmeri...). Maybe you weren't aware.
- genewitch 1y ago
- prairieroadent 1y agothere has to be a way for us as a society to introduce a level of accountability into our so called "food" supply chain without the burden of regulation... perhaps it's as simple as spending more educating our kids about agriculture amendment: seems to be an unpopular take... my point being regulation is a workaround for a population that is worst than uneducated, miseducated, especially in regards to agriculture and "food" supply chain... if kids were provided with an actual education and not miseducated on the subject then the demand for on-demand food testing would go up, and prices for said testing would eventually go down after supply rises to meet demand increasing competition thus encouraging technological innovations to come in and lower prices amendment ii: in a competitive market where all participants are thoroughly educated and the consumer is armed with the ability to test their food frequently then a market would likely emerge where consumers buy directly from farmers who out of market forces publish test alongside their crop
- pirate787 1y agoI support oversight with subscriptions to Consumer Reports and Consumer Labs. I do think government must play a role-- rather than regulate, just regularly test everything and publish the results and ban/recall unsafe products.
- salawat 1y ago...You mean, regulating? Literally the meaning of the word.
- doodlebugging 1y ago>ban/recall unsafe products. So you want regulations but you don't want to have to call them regulations. Pretty funny.
- downrightmike 1y agoFDA and USDA are supposed to do that. It has to be government lead, because we know business will cheat
- 1y ago
- ashwinsundar 1y agoYou can buy dried whole turmeric at Indian stores. Take it home and grind it to powder in a magic bullet. Based on the article, it's harder to hide the bright yellow lead chromate coloring when it's used on whole turmeric, versus ground turmeric.
- OJFord 1y agoArticle explicitly says it was being added to the whole root during buffing, before grinding. It doesn't seem like something people need to worry about buying it at shops abroad imported properly though - when it was found in the US it was people bringing it home in their luggage.
- ashwinsundar 1y agoYes but the coloring is easier to visually detect on the whole root, versus the powder (according to article). If you see bright yellow whole turmeric at a store, run away! FYI real, fresh turmeric is a dull orange color with a tan papery skin. It still stains the hands and cutting board when chopped, but that's normal. As the root dries, it turns a dull yellow-orange.
- OJFord 1y agoI know; it stains teeth and toothbrushes too, requiring a mad amount of brushing and mouthwash to get approximately nowhere. ('My friend' hasn't bought it fresh since!)
- OJFord 1y agoAnd @dead commenter, yes I'm well aware it's botanically a rhizome, just like ginger. Colloquially, even culinarily, that's not common and it's not particularly helpful to say, many people not knowing what it is, and it's certainly not an important distinction to make here. I also know tomatoes are fruits, but in the comment section on the importance of eating fruits it would hardly be helpful to give as an example 'yes it's very important to eat plenty of fruit, such as tomato' - it's needlessly confusing when 'apple' would suffice.
- LarsDu88 1y agoI immediately tested the 5 year old Sadaf tumeric in my kitchen cabinet using a 3M lead testing kit I happened to have in my house. Thankfully it came out negative!
- perihelions 1y agoThat doesn't sound technically plausible to me—there aren't any inexpensive tests. Do you mean something like this 3M product[0], that's intended for paint not food, and is documented as "LeadCheck™ Swabs reliabily detect lead in paints at 0.5% (5,000 ppm). 3M™ LeadCheck™ Swabs may indicate lead in some paint films as low as 0.06% (600ppm)."? If so, those aren't remotely suited for this purpose—those detection lower-bounds represent astronomically high amounts of lead, for a food item. The highest end of Pb contamination in turmeric in Bangladesh (as in OP) is, from a cursory search, maybe 483 ppm [1]. Regulatory limits in the US are in the low parts-per-billion [2]. This metal bioaccumulates over a lifetime. [0] (.pdf) https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1581338O/3m-leadcheck-instruction-manual-english.pdf https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1581338O/3m-leadcheck-in... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/ ("Contaminated turmeric is a potential source of lead exposure for children in rural Bangladesh" / "Results: Lead concentrations in many turmeric samples were elevated, with lead concentrations as high as 483 ppm") [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/babies-kids/baby-food/fda-proposes-new-limits-for-lead-in-baby-foods-a2167994237/ https://www.consumerreports.org/babies-kids/baby-food/fda-pr...
- LarsDu88 1y agoThanks for this heads up. This will be useful information for other people with the same idea I had.
- peterbecich 1y agoA lab such as https://aihlabs.com/ https://aihlabs.com/ may be able to test food
- 1y ago
- tomalpha 1y agoI wonder if this has survived the recent cutbacks to USAID? And recently they are celebrating some big news on the lead fighting front: This week, UNICEF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a new $150 million initiative to combat lead poisoning
- lejalv 1y ago"It is long overdue that the world is coming together," says Samatha Power <https://www.usaid.gov/organization/samantha-power>, who runs USAID. That is a 404. And the homepage has a Notification of Administrative Leave As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally (...)
- adolph 1y agoThe announcement organizations are different from the funding org, Lead Exposure Action Fund, which is funded by Gates Fnd and others. https://www.leadexposureactionfund.org/about-us/ https://www.leadexposureactionfund.org/about-us/
- biohcacker84 1y agoLed, mercury, cadmium and arsenic are showing up in so many foods. In rice in spinach and obvious in fish. Microplastics and PFAS in fruits and fish and everything else. And the most recent TV report on cadmium in spinach, I watched, told me to have a diversified diet. Diversified into WHAT?
- account42 1y agoA diet with balanced between cadmium, lead, mercury, arsenic, microplastics and PFAS obviously.
- mandown2308 1y agoWhat I got by reading the paper: loose tumeric powder and polished tumeric root are the main "culprits" because they are contaminated with Lead Chromate (chemical used in paintings for yellow color.) If you're using branded/packaged tumeric powder, or natural unpolished tumeric root, you're still good as a tumeric consumer in South Asia (though the paper differentiates branded vs packaged tumeric in Table 2, but does not explicitly explain the difference.) Also, Patna in Bihar is the major source of Lead-adulterated tumeric (in the forms mentioned above) in India, and any exports of tumeric to other places from Patna could be harmful. Lead contamination in Guwahati, Assam is mostly found in imported tumeric from Patna.
- phendrenad2 1y agoI think this NPR article is too quick to put a positive spin on this. They have made a nice little story here with a happy ending. Farmers had blackened turmeric -> they used a random yellow die they found -> massive lead spike in everyone's bloodstream -> Americans came in with a xray gun and saved the day -> no more lead in the blood. But if you ascribe even the slightest but of agency to any of the non-Americans involved, you have to wonder if this problem will come back.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- liveoneggs 1y agoyou mean like when those farmers in china poisoned baby formula? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
- shermantanktop 1y agoThat's a BS detection step that I apply to anecdotes: who lacks agency in this story?
- Amezarak 1y agoI don't think the NPR reporter is deliberately spinning the story. I think a lot of people don't really believe that other people are really different from them. The reporter would never knowingly poison people for money, so it's not comprehensible to them that lots of people in the world just don't care whether they do or not. The only reason in their minds that people would do such a thing are economic desperation combined with ignorance; if those two factors are gone, they really believe the problem has been forever solved.
- a123b456c 1y agoI have numerous experiences being quoted by NPR reporters. I have regularly observed them to deliberately frame stories to interest their audience (as I believe they should). In this case, if the reporter claims poisoning without sufficient evidence, the reporter and their employer will be attacked. If the reporter provides no plausible explanation, the story will be found wanting.
- hbarka 1y agoWhy do food producers need to do these fake coloring schemes? They are poisoning the well. In this day and age these ugly practices of the past are discoverable. I don’t care for ugly colors if the tradeoff is toxicity.
- infinitifall 1y agoI'm put off by how this is framed as a detective story. Pesticides that contain heavy metals and other carcinogens are a well known issue, with India (and South Asia more generally) being the worst affected. > You'll never guess the culprit Not knowing about turmeric comes off as deeply ignorant when a billion people consume it as part of their daily diet. > They don't know that this is harmful for human health Let me assure you that they absolutely do and they couldn't care less. This also makes it seem like poor clueless farmers are to blame while mega-corporations that process, package, market and distribute these spices are never given even a passing mention!
- rayiner 1y agoOf course they know. But human life has very little value in Bangladesh. You’re socialized to desensitize yourself to it.
- kragen 1y agoYour family is from Bangladesh, aren't they?
- rayiner 1y agoYes. I lived there until I was five. Even at that age you learn not to see other people as human. You kind of have to—people do things like cut off kids’ hands to make them more effective at begging.[1] You walk through the street with amputees coming up to you. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.randeepramesh https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.randeepr...
- kragen 1y agoThat seems like important context for your comment above, which otherwise people might read as akin to Churchill's dismissal of Gandhi as a "naked fakir".
- deleted 1y ago
- zh3 1y agoFor anyone in the UK concerned about Turmeric, looks like the FSA are on the case (and not just about lead). https://www.food.gov.uk/research/turmeric-survey https://www.food.gov.uk/research/turmeric-survey
- mixmastamyk 1y agoI put our "Ginger and Tumeric"[1] Tea from Trader Joe's into a glass as in Test 15 at: https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#spices-condiments15 https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#spices-condiments15 Unfortunately it looks halfway between the two pictures, although that might be from the Ginger, Orange, and other ingredients. :-/ [1] https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/organic-ginger-turmeric-herbal-tea-056397 https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/organic-ginger-...
- emmelaich 1y agoReminds me of the Henna problem. People think / expect Henna to be darker than it is so in some countries they added paraphenylenediamine to it. Paraphenylenediamine is toxic!
- kragen 1y agoAlthough the headline sort of reveals the culprit, it's still sort of clickbaity; I think it ought to explain that it was specifically lead chromate added as a yellow pigment to the turmeric in Bangladesh in order to improve its salability, because the best turmeric is naturally a very similar bright yellow.
- throwawaymaths 1y agothis week, same pigment: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/china/china-lead-poisoning-tianshui-intl-hnk https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/china/china-lead-poisoning-ti...
- fuzzfactor 1y agoNot the same exact yellow lead compound, I suspect red lead oxide instead. I've been suspicious of red lead oxide in paprika for a while now too. Some paprika just seems so much brighter colored than ever to me.
- account42 1y agoI'd be even more worried about Kashmiri Chili powder which is supposed to be bright red so there would be even more temptation for adulteration if a batch turned out less red than expected.