%85 of kid's drinks and snacks lead tainted..???!!!

[richlevy]

From here

Well s***t, it appears that even if you do everything right, go organic, pay a little extra and pick items from an eco-friendly store, you're still screwed.

I guess this means we've finally screwed up the planet enough that there is no safe harbor when it comes to food. I wonder if they tested orange juice people in California and Florida made from oranges in their backyard would they find lead?

Another day, another “uh oh.” The latest kerfuffle? Quantities of lead in bottled juice, juice boxes, and packaged fruit could exceed federal limits for the lunchbox-toting set, according to the Environmental Law Foundation. The Bay Area-based environmental nonprofit, which enlisted the aid of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-certified lab in Berkeley, tested nearly 400 samples from 150 branded products marketed to children, including apple juice, grape juice, packaged pears and peaches (including baby food), and fruit cocktail mixes. The alarming results: 125 out of 146 products—or more than 85%—contained enough lead in a single serving to warrant a warning label under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, better known as Prop. 65.

More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that the results tar both organic and conventional products: Earth’s Best Organic, 365 Everyday Value Organic, Trader Joe’s, and Walnut Acres get as fair of a shake as Welch’s, Minute Maid, Gerber, Del Monte, and Dole. Plus, most scientists concur that no safe level of exposure to lead exists, especially when it comes to babies and children.

[Undertoad]

You skipped that key phrase "could be" in your thread title.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I wonder if they tested orange juice people in California and Florida made from oranges in their backyard would they find lead?

Of course they would.

[Griff]

That is a concern I have with the urban farming movement. It is very attractive to reclaim city blocks for community gardens but you'd best isolate those gardens from the existing urban soils.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Just go directly to soylent green.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by richlevy

From here

Well s***t, it appears that even if you do everything right, go organic, pay a little extra and pick items from an eco-friendly store, you're still screwed.

...

What made you think that that was doing everything right? Marketing!

Edit: Also, make sure your juice has at least 70 hp/liter, or else it's crap.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

What made you think that that was doing everything right? Marketing!

I'm not quite that cynical. I believe most claims about organic until they are proven to be lying.

It's just harder to isolate anything from pollution.

[HungLikeJesus]

They've never been proved to be telling the truth.

Actually, here's a fairly balanced view of organic farming vs. climate change:


http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.co...lobal-warming/

[squirell nutkin]

Originally Posted by Griff

That is a concern I have with the urban farming movement. It is very attractive to reclaim city blocks for community gardens but you'd best isolate those gardens from the existing urban soils.

The plants don't take up lead into their tissues. The real problem is bringing the lead in on your clothes and shoes and insufficient washing of the vegetables, especially root vegetables.

The easiest way to boost your lead levels is to inhale ultra fine particles especially after vacuuming w/o a HEPA filter.

But it is my suspicion (based on my lead remediation training) that, lethal levels aside, lead in the diet is primarily a low-income poor nutrition problem. There is 0 requirement for lead in the human diet, unlike chromium, selenium etc. which are also toxic in great enough quantities, but nevertheless required at micro levels.

What happens with lead is that it mimics calcium and iron to an extent. If your body is lacking in either of these and lead is present it will substitute the lead. This is a problem in developing kids because the lead will become part of the bones and will later become released when the body becomes stressed. Unlike iron, lead does not carry oxygen through the blood. Lead also causes birth defects and lowers sperm count.

While any exposure is bad for kids, what is really important is to be sure they are getting real nutrition and not potato chips and mountain dew.

[HungLikeJesus]

Excellent response, sn, but this part confused me:

Originally Posted by squirell nutkin

... what is really important is to be sure they are getting real nutrition and not potato chips and mountain dew.

[Undertoad]

With all this worry over the minuscule things in food and drink, we are missing the big picture: for most people, drinking juice with teeny amounts of lead is better for them than not drinking juice. Eating meat that has been treated with antibiotics is better for them than not eating meat.

We are all this woman now:



My conundrum is that anxiety has been far and away my most major health problem. So, in one sense, if I worry about what is in my food, I will get sick.

Crazy world, innit?

[squirell nutkin]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

Excellent response, sn, but this part confused me:

I should have stated: what is really important is to be sure they are getting real nutrition, i.e. Pepsi and Doritos and not potato chips and mountain dew.

my bad.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh, dat splain it more gooder.

[Clodfobble]

It's got electrolytes!

Aside from the obligatory shouting of that quote (which happens on a regular basis in our house)...

Originally Posted by squirrel nutkin

The plants don't take up lead into their tissues.

So you're saying that the contaminated fruit in this study couldn't have been originally contaminated right off the tree, it had to have happened somewhere in the picking/canning process?

[squirell nutkin]

Yes. Could be lead in the water that was used to reconstitute the juice, or wash the food or in the packaging itself. The list of ordinary household items that are a source of lead is astonishing. If I can find it (I might have pitched it since it included everything) I'll scan and post it.

Especially consider that a lot of printing comes from You Know Where and it is highly probable that lead is in the inks. If you've ever been in a factory you can imagine the dust/ airborne particles x millions of units every hour...

It would be interesting to put an air filter in one of the ventilation ducts or in a machine that replicates breathing and look at what it captured in a day.

Yeah, the lead got in the food after the fact.