High Lead Levels Found in 85% of "Healthy" Foods Marketed to Children

With a brief guide to avoiding lead in food.

by Heidi Stevenson

24 June 2010

Food products marketed to children have been found to have illegal levels of lead. A full 85% were found to have lead that exceeds federal limits for drinking water. The California-based Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) had 150 food products tested by an Environmental Protection Agency-certified lab.

In 1986, the citizens of California passed the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, more commonly known as Proposition 65. The law requires that a list of toxic chemicals be updated each year, that none of these chemicals be released into public waterways, and that the public has a right to know if they're exposed to any of them. Whatever is needed to provide information about potential contamination is supposed to be done, including labeling products.

Big Agribusiness Is Served a Warning

ELF has served applicable officials of the State of California and the guilty manufacturers with a warning:

[These] notices start a clock for the companies to bring themselves into compliance with Proposition 65 by either (a) reducing or eliminating the lead or (b) placing "clear and reasonable warnings" on the food packages. If, at the end of 60 days, no law enforcement agency is prosecuting the violation, ELF will file suit to enforce the law.

The products include commonly consumed packaged food items generally considered to be healthy. Brand names include Gerber, R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic, Trader Joe's, Welch's, Safeway, Del Monte, Dole, and others familiar to most people. Products tested were apple juice, grape juice, pears, peaches, and fruit cocktail. Click here for the complete product list.

Most of these products are sold outside California and throughout the United States. Many are also sold outside the country. A quick check of online supermarket shopping in the UK showed several of these products available.

Lead Risks

There is no safe level for lead exposure. It has absolutely no role in human metabolism. It is a poison.

Most important, though, is that lead has been shown to shrink children's brains⁽¹⁾, cause them to grow into violent adults, and produce a wide range of neurological damage. Though exposure to a small amount of lead may seem a minor issue, lead is a cumulative poison. As a result, these products, which conscientious parents often try to provide for their children, are likely to accumulate in their bodies and brains.

The finding of lead in so many products also affects the corporate organics business. As with anything Big Agriculture gets into, corporate-controlled organic food has lost its meaning. Many of the products found to contain lead were classed as organic.

Solutions?

ELF has offered consumers three suggestions:

Make informed choices.

Demand information before you buy.

Advocate for cleaner food and more comprehensive environmental health policies.

I certainly agree with the first two suggestions. The consumer needs to become more aware of food choices and has the right to be informed. However, the last item is a bit troublesome. It would seem to imply that ELF supports the current move to control every last aspect of food production. That, though, would be counterproductive.

"Cleaner food" implies that this is an issue, but it's a red herring. The real problem is factory food production. From factory farms to soil destruction to pesticide use to overprocessing, food has become something alien and dead.

Real health requires eating fresh foods. That doesn't mean foodstuffs that are overprocessed and prettily packaged. It means fresh food from the garden or farm. When the focus is first on cleanliness, then food is seen as something alien in need of sterilization.

The problem is that our system of providing food is what's wrong. It requires that food be sterilized to make it safe. The more we try to make it safe, the less safe it becomes. The last few years of escalating food-borne illness scares should make that clear.

So, How Can You Get Safe, Lead-free Food?

It's becoming more and more difficult to find genuinely healthy food. The best way to think of it is to realize that genuinely healthy food is genuinely fresh, pesticide-free, GMO-free, cruelty-free, and grown with fertilizers that come from mulch of one sort or another. That means you should try to buy your food locally. It can't be fresh if it comes from another country or has traveled from place to place for processing and storage.

Does this mean that you need to take more time to become informed and find healthy food? It most certainly does—but aren't you and your children worth it? Besides, it can be fun. It can become part of your family's togetherness. Instead of working at providing educational opportunities and safe experiences, focusing on food will allow your family to become involved in life-affirming activities.

At the very least, providing your children with genuinely healthy, lead-free food will help assure that they can grow up to be their very best. How would you like to wonder if Susie might have gone on to college if she hadn't been fed fast food? Do you want to increase the odds that your son will grow up to become a criminal? Do you want them to develop neurological disorders that will be with them the rest of their lives? If so, then keep giving them canned foodstuff from supermarkets, complete with the unlabeled ingredient, lead.

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