I am an old fart and grew up with lead soldered copper plumbing and leaded gas as well as a full mouth of amalgam fillings. My wife is a health food fan and 'toxin' vigilante who had us doing hair tests for metal exposure. My teen son and I tested higher on lead when we were handling .22 ammo and reloading pistol rounds. Once we switched to nitrile gloves for handling rounds and loading magazines, the hair lead level dropped. I was far less worried about the issue than my wife, and even so the lead levels were not high. There is far too much fear about low levels of exposure. I live in an area with a close to the limit Arsenic exposure in the drinking water - natural background. I am not worried, my wife is. We do a lot of water filtration.
This does not bode well for the very popular ready-made protein drinks. If the primary source of lead is from contaminated soil, it brings all plant-based food into question.
It would be kind of cool if consumers normalized doing their own testing.
Get a group together around a batch #, everyone contributes a share of whatever it costs to get tested, and one person is randomly selected to send their product to a lab.
Opens up to competitor sabotage but maybe there are ways around it.
As a person who takes in 2 scoops per day of vegan protein, your analysis is much appreciated! I believe that all food producers should be required to submit their products for testing. I have large doubts that the selenium levels claimed in brazil nuts are real, but that doesnt stop them from listing it on labels!
One possible reason for variance: sensitivity of the testing equipment. If a limit is say 1 part per billion, find a test that's at least sensitive to 10 parts per billion. And like you observed, ignore that the sample is within safe limits.
I think their usage of old European values is bad, but their presentation of gold standard test results is good. I think their bashing of Prop 65 and their note that they are within standards in all tests is also good. I think it's bad that they don't cite modern U.S. exposure figures though, since consuming more than one serving of Huel still puts the typical American pretty close to the 90th percentile of exposure.
something something betteridge's law of headlines tells me everything lol
I am an old fart and grew up with lead soldered copper plumbing and leaded gas as well as a full mouth of amalgam fillings. My wife is a health food fan and 'toxin' vigilante who had us doing hair tests for metal exposure. My teen son and I tested higher on lead when we were handling .22 ammo and reloading pistol rounds. Once we switched to nitrile gloves for handling rounds and loading magazines, the hair lead level dropped. I was far less worried about the issue than my wife, and even so the lead levels were not high. There is far too much fear about low levels of exposure. I live in an area with a close to the limit Arsenic exposure in the drinking water - natural background. I am not worried, my wife is. We do a lot of water filtration.
Thanks for the informative article.
This does not bode well for the very popular ready-made protein drinks. If the primary source of lead is from contaminated soil, it brings all plant-based food into question.
It would be kind of cool if consumers normalized doing their own testing.
Get a group together around a batch #, everyone contributes a share of whatever it costs to get tested, and one person is randomly selected to send their product to a lab.
Opens up to competitor sabotage but maybe there are ways around it.
As a person who takes in 2 scoops per day of vegan protein, your analysis is much appreciated! I believe that all food producers should be required to submit their products for testing. I have large doubts that the selenium levels claimed in brazil nuts are real, but that doesnt stop them from listing it on labels!
One possible reason for variance: sensitivity of the testing equipment. If a limit is say 1 part per billion, find a test that's at least sensitive to 10 parts per billion. And like you observed, ignore that the sample is within safe limits.
Huel’s response: https://uk.huel.com/pages/heavy-metals-in-protein-powders
Yeah, I cited their testing.
I think their usage of old European values is bad, but their presentation of gold standard test results is good. I think their bashing of Prop 65 and their note that they are within standards in all tests is also good. I think it's bad that they don't cite modern U.S. exposure figures though, since consuming more than one serving of Huel still puts the typical American pretty close to the 90th percentile of exposure.
Thanks for your reply!