Toxin Free (ish)

Lead in Food: What You Actually Need to Know (And What's Just Fear) ✨ Ep. 101

• Wendy Kathryn • Episode 101

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That viral post about lead in your matcha isn't telling you the whole story, and as a former environmental toxins attorney, I'm tired of watching fear-based misinformation spread.

Recent sensationalized reports about lead in food have created unnecessary panic, especially around brands like Pique Tea's matcha and Redmond Salt. While no amount of lead is technically "safe," context matters - we live in a world where trace amounts of lead exist naturally in soil, meaning it's present in many healthy, organic foods we eat daily.

The science is clear: when you look at actual serving sizes and compare them to FDA guidelines, many of these "shocking" reports are missing crucial context. 

For example, Pique Tea's matcha contains just 0.14 micrograms of lead per serving - four times lower than California's strict Prop 65 limits, and well within safe consumption guidelines.

In this episode, I break down the real numbers, explain what safety levels actually mean, and give you the clarity you need to make informed decisions about your food. Whether you're concerned about recent food safety reports or just want to understand how to interpret these numbers, you'll learn how to separate facts from fear-based marketing.

In today's episode, we're chatting about: 

• How to understand parts per billion and what these measurements actually mean 

• Why California's Prop 65 warnings appear on organic vegetables 

• The truth about lead in soil and how it affects our food supply 

• Real numbers and context behind recent viral food safety posts 

• Practical guidelines for making informed decisions about food safety

Check out my Blog and Read the Show Notes HERE

If you enjoyed this week's episode, please:

Speaker 1:

Hey there, welcome back to the Toxin Freakish Podcast. I am your host, wendy, environmental Toxins Attorney turned Clean Living Coach, and today I'm going to give you the clarity and the context that you need to chill out about lead in food. Okay, we're doing this today. I am so tired of the sensationalized reports that are coming out of Lead's Safe Mama's Blog and no, this isn't personal, by the way and if you've heard some of my other podcast episodes that I've done on Lead, you will know that I just really disagree with the way that she presents her information, because there's no context, and without context, all that's left is confusion and fear, and I don't want you to be afraid of eating food that is good for you. And so, while this is technically an Ask Me Anything episode, really it's a. Everyone asked me to do this episode, so this is for all of you. Let's dive in. Okay, I am going to do this episode the way I do all my episodes. I'm going to tackle this issue head on with some good old facts and science and, honestly, when it comes to data and numbers, it is super easy to manipulate numbers to make them look worse than they really are if you just avoid the context associated with them and so, most recently, lead Safe Mama.

Speaker 1:

If you don't know, she is a blogger. She had two children who have lead poisoning. I totally understand why she started this crusade against lead poisoning. I get it. I'm super empathetic towards her, and she actually has done some really incredible things as far as bringing to light lead that's being sold in products and appliances and other things, especially in California, and she's been instrumental in making change in some of these areas. So I don't want to discount the work that she has done, but over the last couple of years, what she does is she crowdsources, she gets money, she collects money, she takes products, food products and she sends them off to labs to get their lead tested and then she writes a blog post about them. And then she puts the blog post, she takes the results and she puts them into a table and she creates these social media graphics and these graphics go wild. And if you go over to her Instagram page which I don't even want to encourage you to do that because I don't even follow her, just don't even do that People are terrified, literally terrified. Redmond Salt she's gone after. She's gone after Just Ingredients.

Speaker 1:

If you look at the long list of companies that she is going after and quote unquote, outing. These are companies that are small brands, who are sourcing really well, who are testing their products and providing those testing reports to the consumer. Not all of them, but it seems to me, most recently a lot more of them. Okay, and so the thing that hit my inbox last week or this week I just heard about it a few days ago but everyone was like, oh my gosh, did you see the results that let's Save Mama put out on Peak Teas Matcha? So full transparency. I have zero relationship with Peak. I don't think I have ever tried any of their products. I hear wonderful things about them and I know they quadruple test everything that they create and if you ask for it, they provide it. They're really one of the good guys we're talking about, the brands that are trying to do the right thing.

Speaker 1:

So in this episode I'm going to do three things really quickly and at the end of it you're going to have full clarity and you'll probably go drink a nice cup of matcha tea if that floats your boat. But I'm going to go over what the numbers being shared actually mean and then I'm going to explain to you what safety levels and minimum contaminant levels and what all of these words mean parts per billion, micrograms and what the regulations are, that they come from and what I look for. And then I'm just going to wrap it up by it wouldn't be an episode of the Toxin Free podcast if you didn't get some Wendy commentary. So I'm going to wrap it up with some Wendy commentary and I'm going to send you on your way, okay? So let's just really quickly jump into what the numbers that she is sharing actually say, and I'm going to use the matcha tea as just the example, but you can take what I'm saying about the matcha tea and you can extrapolate it to pretty much everything that she's sharing out there.

Speaker 1:

And she's been very open and very clear about the fact, like when she did the just ingredients review most recently, she says we've never tested a protein powder that doesn't have lead in it. Well, no kidding, because there's lead in food. Anyway, let's dive in. So when she released this, there's a graphic and I'm looking at it right now and it says peak tea, matcha, in a bright red. It says cadmium is a carcinogen and lead is a neurotoxin, with like a bright warning, red, blinky, you know label on it and for lead it says that the testing that she did shows 72 parts per billion. And then she has another section that says proposed action levels for kids is five parts per billion. I mean Jesus, that sounds terrible, just that graphic alone. And then right next to it she says in bright red 1,440% higher than the protection of the action level.

Speaker 1:

I mean gosh, if I didn't know what I was looking at, I would look at this graphic and be like I'm poisoning myself. If I was drinking matcha tea, I'd throw it away, I would call somebody, I would cry, I would like call the company and want to return it all. I would be like, oh my God, but let's actually take a step back and let's get some context on what these numbers actually mean. So I'm going to start with the most restrictive number first, and it's because I lived in California most of my life and California has hands down the most restrictive lead testing limits anywhere, anywhere, anywhere in the world actually.

Speaker 1:

And so Proposition 65 is a program that, while it has its flaws, it also has benefits. They require that anybody selling a food product in the state of California that has a lead over 0.5, that would provide you a level of more than 0.5 micrograms a day, based on serving size, you are required to have a Prop 65 warning label. So if you go walk into grocery stores in California and being, you know, originally living in San Diego for so long, lazy Acres is my favorite, but you can go to Trader Joe's you know all you Southern California people know Trader Joe's is where it's at. But you can go buy an organic avocado or asparagus or these organic vegetables, vegetables and they're going to have Prop 65 warning labels on them because those vegetables and some fruits and some other things just having that vegetable has more lead, trace amounts of lead in it from the soil that it's grown in than the Prop 65 limit. So, like an avocado, if you were to eat an entire avocado and I don't know if you're anything like me, but I freaking love avocados they're amazing, especially if you put everything but the bagel seasoning on top of them with a little bit of sriracha, oh my God to die for An avocado roughly on average obviously depends on where it's grown and how big it is and all of that but on average you're going to get about 4.5 micrograms of lead from eating a single avocado, which is eight times higher than the Prop 65 label warning amount.

Speaker 1:

Okay, what does the FDA say? And listen, I know I crap on the FDA and their limits, but this is what we have to go with. Okay, and they actually have been doing a phenomenal job on bringing down the amount of lead poisoning, bringing down the levels for diagnosing a child with lead poisoning. They're closer to zero lead heavy metal program has actually done a lot of amazing things. So let's take a look at what the FDA says as far as, like, lead consumption and health standards.

Speaker 1:

So on Lead Safe Mama's graphic, she uses five parts per billion as her limit, where she says anything above five parts per billion is unsafe and not safe for you. And really no amount of lead is safe. I don't think anybody is dismissing that. It's actually true. But we live in a polluted world and there's lead everywhere. It's literally everywhere. You can't avoid it's in our soil. And reality matters because we all live in reality and this planet that we live on is polluted with lead, period. That's like trying to say you know, we should all live without PFAS. Well, pfas is everywhere. It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. So there is some reality that needs to happen. We need to eat right. Well, food comes from soil. Soil has lead, so let's just be realistic about this topic, because stressing out about things that you really have no control over is not good for anybody's health anyway.

Speaker 1:

So the FDA back in 2021, there was legislation that was introduced and it was all about baby food safety, which I think we absolutely need to do a better job of regulating the amount of heavy metals found in baby food, especially food imported from other countries. There are times where contaminated processed food like what happened recently with the applesauce the contaminated cinnamon that got into the applesauce and caused serious lead poisoning to children we do have a food safety issue. I absolutely believe that what I'm talking about is real food from reputable companies that absolutely test. I'm not talking about applesauce packets coming from overseas that have legit lead contamination. There's a really big difference between those two things. So in that 2021 Baby Food Safety Act legislation, the recommendation for babies babies, so from zero to 36 months old we're not talking about adults walking around, we're talking about babies and toddlers. Okay, the recommended limit for babies and toddlers was five parts per billion, so that's what she's referencing Now.

Speaker 1:

That legislation never passed, it never became the law, but there is. There was science, legitimate science that was used in the introduction of that legislation that it would be good for a baby or a toddler up to 36 months old to have less than five parts per billion. But you have to extrapolate that out into serving and what they're eating every day to actually understand the data, and that is the context that's missing. So what is the actual law, rule of law here? The FDA has a program called closer to zero, which is their heavy metal reduction initiative, and back in January of 2023, they set a goal for children to not have more than 2.2 micrograms per day and for for women of reproductive years, that number is 8.8. So if you're a woman that is in your reproductive years, the FDA says you should really try to limit your lead consumption to 8.8 micrograms per day.

Speaker 1:

So when there are tables that are being provided and shown in graphics that say 72 parts per billion of lead, well, how do you compare 72 parts per billion of lead and compare that to this 8.8 micrograms per day? Like what is that math? So the way that that math actually works out is you have to take the serving size, the results on peaks tea, which, by the way, are similar to their own results, which they provide to everybody. If you take the serving size the standard serving size in their matcha tea, then what you get from 72 parts per billion is 0.14 micrograms of lead per serving, which is four times lower than California's Prop 65 lead. It is so low. I looked at this number. I was like, okay, 72 parts per billion, what's the serving size? So how many micrograms per day is that? And I was like, dude, way to go, peak, way to go. Like that is a really low amount of lead in matcha, because tea is something that does absorb, you know, more of the stuff that comes from the soil. This is great.

Speaker 1:

There are so many health benefits to matcha. Google it. Maybe I'll do an episode about it. There are so many reasons why drinking matcha is good for you and this should not be a reason to not drink it. Now are there some crappy companies out there that are fake and adulterated and selling you matcha tea that potentially has like a bunch of lead in it. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not saying like go buy crappy matcha tea and drink a ton of it. What I'm saying is that Peak their sun, goddess. Matcha has really really low, low, low, extremely low, even compared to California standards amount of lead.

Speaker 1:

And this graphic would have you believe that if you drink peak tea, this peak matcha, you're poisoning yourself with lead. And I think that's where the fear versus facts really gets to me, because when you're trying to live holistically and you're really trying to reduce the amount of contaminants in your life and your exposure to heavy metals and hormone disruptors, and when you're trying to be healthy and you're trying to raise kids and you're going through fertility issues and you're pregnant and you're trying to avoid things, it is scary. You're already scared. You're already in a heightened sense of awareness that there are toxins everywhere that are impacting you and you're just trying to do your best and that's why it's called toxin-free-ish, because we just do our best over here and if your best is better, then better is better, right, and things like this feed into the fear culture, and if you're afraid of every little tiny thing, then your health is going to suffer, because actually, at the end of the day, stress is the number one killer of your health Stress.

Speaker 1:

So if you're following people like this and you're reading these reports, there is a big difference between being educated and being aware and having better options to choose from. That would give you some peace of mind, right, like if you're standing in a store and you're aware of, like oh, maybe I should avoid canola oil and corn syrup in my ketchup and there's two ketchups to choose from and you're educated and you're aware, so you buy the healthier ketchup. That's not causing you distress, that is just making an educated consumer choice. But when you look at a graphic, that's not causing you distress, that is just making an educated consumer choice. But when you look at a graphic that's full of red and screaming at you and saying, oh my God, there's 1,440% more lead in here than what your baby should have, and it's not even taking into consideration actual serving sizes, so it's not giving you the context you need of daily consumption limits and it's just intended to scare you. And listen, I'm sure deep down she believes that she's just informing and I, you know, I'm not going to put an intention on her, on somebody that I don't even know, but this is the way that it comes across. It's intended to scare, not to educate, and so I just really think that having balance and context and perspective matters so much.

Speaker 1:

You can avoid what is avoidable, but choosing an impossible standard. You know, I even think, you know, I kind of agree with her when she says hey, you know, everyone should just not use protein powder, why don't you just eat real food? Yeah, in a perfect world right, in a perfect world we would just all have home cooked grass, fed, grazed, pastured, no chemicals, and we would, like you know, cook just real food all day long. And some people get to do that, and I love that for them and I try to do that as much as possible. But that is not a realistic life for most people, and so I just think it's really important to be careful what standard you're holding yourself to, because living a holistic life and being healthy and avoiding toxins should not cause you more stress than the benefit of you.

Speaker 1:

Avoiding the toxins to begin with drinks the crap out of it. She loves it. She loves it so much, and I think I'm going to go buy some peak tea. I think that's what I'm going to do right now. I think I'm going to go, you know, buy some and surprise her with some matcha and tell her that this is a great company that quadruple checks and tests for heavy metals and provides their results and we're going to support them. So I'll end this with saying before you panic over a scary headline, ask yourself what is the context of this? Should I seek out more information on this topic and be careful where you get your information from?

Speaker 1:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope this helps you feel relaxed and more calm about the whole lead in food situation. I do have two other podcast episodes where I have addressed lead. One is with Eric from Everything Lead on episode 72, where we talk about you can test for lead based paint, which is the number one cause of kids lead poisoning, as well as lead in your pipes, your drinking water. And then I also have another episode on episode 56, about Stanley mugs, where I talked about ways you can truly avoid lead poisoning, like what are the things that really actually cause the most harm. Thank you so much for being here. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend, please leave a review and make sure you follow the show so you don't miss any new episodes. I hope your life is getting a whole lot less toxic and I'll see you next time.