Watchdog Report Finds Alarming 20 Percent of Baby Food Tested Contains Lead (arstechnica.com) 192
According to an analysis released Thursday by the nonprofit advocacy group, the Environmental Defense Fund, twenty percent of 2,164 baby foods sampled between 2003 and 2013 by the Food and Drug Administration tested positive for lead. Ars Technica reports: Lead is a neurotoxin. Exposure at a young age can permanently affect a developing brain, causing lifelong behavioral problems and lower IQ. Though the levels in the baby food were generally below what the FDA considers unsafe, the agency's standards are decades old. The latest research suggests that there is no safe level of lead for children. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency this year has estimated that more than five percent of U.S. children (more than a million) get more than the FDA's recommended limit of lead from their diet. The products most often found to contain lead were fruit juices, root vegetable-based foods, and certain cookies, such as teething biscuits, the EDF reports. Oddly, the presence of lead was more common in baby foods than in the same foods marketed for adults. For instance, only 25 percent of regular apple juice tested positive for lead, while 55 percent of apple juices marketed for babies contained lead. Overall, only 14 percent of adult foods tested contained lead. The findings come from data collected in the FDA's annual survey of foods, called the Total Diet Survey, which the agency has run since the 1970s. Each year, the agency samples 280 types of foods from three different cities across the country, tracking nutrients, metals, pesticides, and other contaminants.
Well crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Did I stutter and have it come out like an "R"? (Score:5, Interesting)
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He can bet you're ass Trump's kids don't eat baby food with lead in it.
I dunno, have you seen them? Maybe he saved a few bucks and imported it in bulk from GINA.
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> Rs pretty much own State legislatures.
Not true of California.
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It's not his fault. His baby food was contaminated.
Re:Well crap (Score:5, Informative)
There was lead in the food on December 31, 2010, also. That was the last time you had a fully Democratic controlled government. You'll have to come up with another lame excuse now.
Um, it would help if you RTFA:
That said, the FDA's food standards were set in 1993. Those standards suggest that children get no more than six micrograms of lead per day, based on children having no more than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. However, a 2012 NIH study found evidence that levels less than 5 micrograms per dL "decreased academic achievement, IQ, and specific cognitive measures; increased incidence of attention-related behaviors and problem behaviors." The EDF reported that the CDC is expected to lower its recommended blood levels to no more than 3.5 micrograms per DL in 2017.
The toxicity of lead was not fully understood even just several years ago. It was only recognized after Republicans took control of Congress. However Obama did sign a food-safety bill [cnn.com] on January 4, 2011, just five days after the fully Deomocratic controlled government ended. Luckily, it had overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate just in time, on December 21, 2010.
But since Obama signed it, it's bad and so Trump needs to undo it. This is a statement his campaign released on September 15, 2016:
Specific regulations to be eliminated include:
[...paragraphs ranting about EPA controls on CO2, water, and ozone pollution deleted...]
The FDA Food Police, which dictate how the federal government expects to produce fruits and vegetables and even dictates the nutritional content of dog food. The rules govern the soil farmers use, food and food production hygiene, food packaging, food temperatures, and even what animals may roam which fields and when. It also greatly increased inspections of food "facilities", and levies new taxes to pay for this inspection overkill.
It seems poisoned dog food isn't even popular among Trump supporters, so the "FDA Food Police" paragraph silently disappeared from Trump's campaign website. However there are still calls from some within the GOP (e.g. Newt Gingrich) to abolish the FDA altogether.
I'm not sure what will become of the CDC plans to lower the acceptable level in 2017. Trump's hiring freeze has left 700 vacancies at the CDC and his proposed budget cuts their funding by 17%.
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Well that'll sure reduce the amount of disturbing reports they publish.
Yes, Well crap (Score:5, Insightful)
How does this crap get modded up in a tech forum?
There's no insight, no tech content, no explanation - just a childish swipe at the elected president.
And to top it off, anyone with half a brain or more would immediately recognize that the times cited in the OP were years before Trump, and mostly during Obama... so that the post casts aspersions on Obama more than Trump.
We're supposed to be the smart people in the room. One side just got done ginning up a sniper to take out the other side - do we really have to stand for this nonsense?
This forum depends on our participation. Can't we just take back control and refuse to mod up this sort of crap?
Re:Yes, Well crap (Score:4, Insightful)
How does this crap get modded up in a tech forum?
The article itself is garbage. It contains no useful information whatsoever, other that that lead is "detectable". Well, no shit. Lead is detectable in seawater, and even in the atmosphere. The only curious fact is that there were actual a few samples that did NOT detect lead. The only plausible explanation for that is that they were using crappy instruments.
If TFA had been written by a non-idiot, it would have listed the actual levels and compared them to safety standards, or at least normal background levels. But then it would have been obvious that there was actually no "news" worth reporting.
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How does this crap get modded up in a tech forum?
The article itself is garbage. It contains no useful information whatsoever, other that that lead is "detectable".
Correct you are about the poor quality of the article, Bill, but this has absolutely no bearing on the fact that the original "Well Crap" comment was idiotic crap that should not have been modded up. You fail this simple test of basic reasoning, Bill, and I am afraid I have no choice but to consider you a dumbass now.
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And this troll got modded up as well. SMH
Re: Yes, Well crap (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Yes, Well crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-idiots would have simply checked the cited source [edf.org], where all the numbers you're looking for are clearly displayed, before declaring it not worth reporting.
If you had, you'd see the 1993 FDA lead limit was no more than 6 micrograms/day for young children - and that e.g. baby rice cereal was found to contain up to 82 parts per billion. Which means that feeding your baby 100g of that cereal would already exceed the daily limit by 37%, without including other sources.
And again, you missed the whole point of the article, which was asking why baby food has more detectable lead in it than similar adult foods, especially as babies are so much more sensitive to its toxic effects.
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The FDA provides information about their standards. For example, To date, the FDA has set specific lead levels for a variety of foods. We set a guidance level for candy likely to be consumed frequently by small children (100 ppb) [fda.gov]. Assuming lead exposure decreases I.Q. and assuming I.Q. has some bearing on quality of life, children born in the U.S. after 1980 have benefited greatly from the reduction in enviromental lead.
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And your point? The limit for candy is also in the report - but rice cereal is not candy, few babies would eat anything like 100g of candy daily, and TFA makes no claims that the levels found in various foods are all necessarily illegal under current limits (which are being reassessed).
Once again, I draw your attention to the point of the article.
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"The article itself is garbage. It contains no useful information whatsoever, other that that lead is "detectable". Well, no shit. Lead is detectable in seawater, and even in the atmosphere"
The article was a classic BeauHD find.
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just a childish swipe at the elected president.
Presidents are selected, not elected.
Re:Yes, Well crap (Score:5, Interesting)
I tend to spend that majority of my time on Slashdot with hopes for an interesting science or engineering article that makes it worth my while to read the comments.As that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should, I'm not willing to give up and I spend the rest of my time here reading comments to see if there's someone I can contradict instead of simply doing something useful with my life.
It is very likely that many people on Slashdot are genuinely smart people... when speaking in terms of engineering knowledge. It's possible they are also skilled at historical knowledge. But it generally strikes me that most of us are relatively clueless when considering topics outside of our scopes of expertise... like politics and law. Though, it seems that every single post on Slashdot will have at least a few gripes about the elected administration. And given the diversity of the audience on Slashdot, I believe all political beliefs are fairly well represented... and noisy it seems.
Over the years, I believe that Slashdot has helped me greatly to understand politics better as well. I now truly understand the two party system. I also understand why people argue over who is president. It's unintentionally orchestrated. I don't believe there's a mastermind or two behind it. I believe that people are so well programmed that we feel the need to join teams.
- Liverpool vs. Chelsey
- Mets vs. Yankees
- Red vs. Black
- Black vs. White
- America vs. (whoever is convenient at this time)
- America vs. everyone else just because we have to be better because we are Americans... so let's just piss on everyone
- Libtards vs. Right wing nut jobs.
- Jews vs. Muslims
- Christians vs Christians
Consider the approach of how sports teams work. It doesn't matter what sports team you support, there are rarely players on that team which are from the regions which their teams represent. Instead, some team owner (also unlikely from the area) will put a great deal of effort into recruiting talent from wherever they can for however much money they can. When the team is assembled, a group of people will get together and try and teach them to play together and work as a group. Then, they will through a very organized system play a bunch of games with other teams and attempt to monetize their efforts through many different methods. The more successful teams can afford the better players or at least the more exciting players and can generate stir. That stir causes people to not just pay to watch these games, but also to invest in the purchase of licensed merchandise such as hats and t-shirts or oddly enough, towels... which are meant to wipe up spilled beer... which they'll wear as clothing... as if they were bar maids... from the age of 2 or 3.
What's the rationality of this working? In order for this to work, people have to be willing to pay to watch basically a bunch of kids play games, buy merchandise and more. But society has programmed us to believe we absolutely have to "be part of something more than ourselves". We have to be part of a team. As though the performance of these children in costumes playing with a ball will have some impact on our lives in a spiritually meaningful way.
Consider this. People may justify the behavior or watching sports because they like to see experts at work and see they greatest athletes of the world playing. And that makes sense. It's even sensible that a person could form something of an emotional attachment to a player because of many different reasons. I personally for example like the color green. There's no rational reason for it, I simply find it pleasing. What is completely illogical is that people believe it's important who wins.
That's the problem. It matters who won. Instead of simply enjoying the grace of a great athlete, it is really important that the individual
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I was raised to support one team in each sport because it was our family's team. I didn't understand why then either. It's like religion and politics. You are parents or community force it on you.
I also don't understand why people would want to escape everyday life. I made my everyday life fun. And stress
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There's no insight, no tech content, no explanation - just a childish swipe at the elected president
Shouldn't have to explain this, but contaminated baby food is precisely one of those situations where the government should step in and "interfere" with capitalism. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Obama administration is over and while you're free to blame whatever you want on him, work towards resolving issues has to be performed by the *current* administration.
The Trump administration could actually be considered pro-contamination [independent.co.uk], without much of a stretch. It's reasonable to assume they
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Talks about how it's unfair to criticize the sitting president with no "insight" or "explanation"...
-insert funny meme image-
Accuses the entire left, somehow, of being responsible for the lone actions of a violent psychopath...
---------
Furthermore, there was was a right wing lunatic that killed a couple of people on a bus, in Portland, a little while ago, for politically motivated reasons. Do we get to pin that on all of the right wing? Is that the way logic works?
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How does this crap get modded up in a tech forum?
There's no insight, no tech content, no explanation - just a childish swipe at the elected president.
And to top it off, anyone with half a brain or more would immediately recognize that the times cited in the OP were years before Trump, and mostly during Obama... so that the post casts aspersions on Obama more than Trump.
We're supposed to be the smart people in the room. One side just got done ginning up a sniper to take out the other side - do we really have to stand for this nonsense?
This forum depends on our participation. Can't we just take back control and refuse to mod up this sort of crap?
I can explain how this happens.
We're consuming too much lead.
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Man, a functioning government sure would be nice right about now...
Oh, it's functioning, and has been over the entire interval covered by those EPA tests. It just hasn't been doing what you expected it to do. It gathered money from people not willing to part with it voluntarily, and spent it doing things the politicians directed it to do (more or less).
Getting mad or disappointed or sad because a human creation isn't doing what you expect it to do, when it's clearly not very good at that sort of thing, is just silly.
You don't get upset when a bicycle doesn't fly. You
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Your proposal puts a very large onus on every single consumer to know and understand those ratings. In other words, it does not scale well to entire populations.
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Re:Well crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh and consumers? A few well-produced ads takes care of them. Do you really think any of them will ever figure out how much testing I do? The ad says I test more than you and that's all they'll ever know. In a few years, yours will be insolvent and be sold at a massive discount and I'll be the only game in town.
Here's the undeniable truth: if rating agencies actually worked, food safety laws would've never have existed in the first place.
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So explain how removing the system and laws will encourage these companies to produce better results?
We already know why that happened: the companies were being paid to rate these securities with high scores and your own guys at Egan Jones testified that co
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roman_mir wants the freedom to poison you, while making you pay for it. He's only for his own freedom, and not anyone else's.
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An actual free market in which I may purchase a fully-automatic rifle and use it to pump roman_mir full of lead (and baby food, of course) is the only type of free market I have any interest in.
Re:Well crap (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, you really shouldn't be feeding your baby processed food to begin with.
"Baby food" started out as an American thing, promoted by corporate marketing and TV advertising. It has been pushed into some other countries, but in most of the world, once kids are weaned they just eat mashed up adult food. "Baby food" is overpriced and over processed crap, that is best avoided.
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... and put extra lead in it apparently
TFA provides no evidence whatsoever that this is true.
sensible countries have actual baby food that is both healthy/nutritious and tasty.
Citation? I have been to dozens of countries and never seen that. Some other countries have the same overpriced and over processed "Gerber" style crap as America, but most just feed children normal food.
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Eventually we'll manage to poison ourselves down to an intellectual level incapable of sustaining society. Think Idiocracy with no funny parts.
Re: Well crap (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. Levels are within current limits. The question is whether the limits are low enough.
Re: Well crap (Score:4, Funny)
Witness: At the time of manufacture we tested it. It contained absolutely zero percent lead.
Attorney: So how do you account for the fact that when tested at the supermarket it had a detectable lead content?
Witness: It must have formed from the Polonium.
Judge: Case dismissed!
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Is that why they seriously defund the EPA ?
You use that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.
"Less money" =/= "defunded"
The core, really important stuff that pretty much everyone would agree is important like keeping rivers, lakes, etc from becoming polluted, helping keep air quality at reasonable levels, help police against dumping of toxic/hazardous substances, etc, all that and more is a relatively minor part of the EPA bureaucratic behemoth and their commensurately-astronomical annual budget.
EPA could even afford to better-f
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Do you have a breakdown anywhere I can reference showing how the EPA spends money? I've only been able to find documentation for budget requests that show 2 out of 5 high level goals:
http://www.eesi.org/images/con... [eesi.org]
At least based on what's shown here, a large portion of the budget is spent on air quality and land restoration.
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can you also break the DOD budget down please ?
Man, would I love to! Sooo much pork, waste, corruption, and outright thievery in the DoD budget & spending!
I have no sacred cows here. I don't care a damn what part of government we're talking about, if it has waste, corruption, violates civil rights/the Constitution, isn't even actually allowed for the fed to do by the plain reading of the Constitution, etc etc, then that thing needs serious auditing/reductions or elimination altogether.
"Sustainability" has become a buzz-word these days, those princip
Re:Why didn't Obama fix this ? (Score:5, Interesting)
People need to stop bickering over D and R as if either mattered. Both will sell you down the river, they just use different excuses as to why.
Citation:https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyhuehnergarth/2016/03/07/chicken-raised-and-slaughtered-in-china-moves-one-step-closer-to-your-dinner-plate/#498614f1167a
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But how MUCH lead? (Score:3, Insightful)
We've seen this sort of article before:
- Say a bunch of stuff "tested positive" for BAD THING.
- Talk about how bad BAD THING is.
- Talk about where the government sets the (generally very bureaucrat-CYA-low) cutoff of what they consider dangerous (or actionable).
- But never mention the level of BAD THING detected, or where it lies on the government's scale of "Oh HORRORS!" vs. "Meh. There's a trace of BAD THING everywhere." scale.
- Foam up a nice head of panic.
- Sell a lot of papers/eyeball views/whatever if you're a media outlet. Get a bunch more donations for your "good work" to fight poisoning people with BAD THING if you're an advocacy group (as in this case).
- PROFIT!
"Tested Positive" says there's enough to detect. As the tests get better the level of detectability gets vanishingly small. This not only gives more opportunities to pull this stunt as time goes on, but it also enables the use of an apples-orange comparison with the less sensitive tests of the past to make up a fake-news item about how "this many decades ago only THIS LOWER PERCENTAGE of things tested for BAD THING tested positive."
I looked through the whole article for any statement of what level of lead was detected, but didn't find it. Did I miss something? Or was this yet another bogus scare story by an organization with an axe to grind (and/or being removed from the government funding teat and trying to fill in with extra donations).
Re:But how MUCH lead? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you missed the part of the article citing research that showed ANY level of lead was unsafe.
The whole point being, why does baby food contain *more* lead than adult food?Particularly considering how babies are the most vulnerable to its neurotoxic effects.
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Maybe you missed the part of the article citing research that showed ANY level of lead was unsafe.
That's said because nobody is going to do experiments to find out what the real threshold is.
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> That's said because nobody is going to do experiments to find out what the real threshold is.
Counterpoints:
1) We _know_ what maximum safe radiation exposure levels are. We've been able to determine this through both laboratory experiments and field studies.
2) We used to absolutely _flood_ the environment with lead. Then we switched to burning unleaded gasoline in nearly every ICE. So, we have _huge_ blobs of data about lead exposure in humans... back when we used to regularly and willingly expose human
Levels (Score:3)
You misread the article. It says no level of lead in the *bloodstream* is unsafe. Just because lead is detected in something does not mean it is bio-available for absorption. Lead paint, for instance, does not absorb easily into the blood stream from the digestive tract. Kids who had high levels of lead in their blood from old houses with lead paint were getting most of it from breathing in paint dust, not eating it as many believe.
The OP is correct - the level makes a huge difference. If it's very low, lik
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Make that - no level of lead in the bloodstream is considered *safe*
Re:Levels (Score:5, Interesting)
If you'd read the rest of the article, you'd see that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends lead levels in drinking water be kept below 1 part per billion - a thousandth of the amount you're talking about, even with imperfect absorption. And if you followed up the article's sources, you'd see data showing that e.g. Walgreen's 100% Grape Juice was found to contain around 15 ppb. FDA levels for e.g. grape juice are currently 50 ppb, so it can legally contain far more than the AAP considers wise, which is why the article noted that the FDA is currently reviewing its 20 yo standards to account for more recent research.
But again, that's not the actual point of the article. To repeat; if we can keep lead below detectable levels in most adult foods, why are we not doing at least as much for the baby versions of those same foods?
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I agree, there are other sources of lead that are worse, and we should certainly fix those too. But that does not make the central issue here any less valid. We don't have to work on these one at a time.
You're comparing to a nonexistent zero state (Score:2)
Which is irrelevant because lead is a naturally occurring substance present everywhere in the environment. You literally cannot go anywhere or do anything which does not expose you to lead. So it's pointless trying to avoid exposure to "ANY level of lead."
It's the higher concentrations of lead which you have to worry about. So OP is correct that without knowing how much lead was found, it's pointless.
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it's pointless trying to avoid exposure to "ANY level of lead."
Sure, but we can keep exposure down to undetectable levels - as we manage to do pretty well with adult foods. Again, not so much for baby foods.
It's the higher concentrations of lead which you have to worry about. So OP is correct that without knowing how much lead was found, it's pointless.
So why not read the source report [edf.org] that the article cites? The actual numbers are all right there (I quoted some in a different comment). But the overall conclusion, that there is more lead found in baby food, still leads to the not-at-all-pointless question of "Why?"
Just as a guess, I'd say because baby food is finely minced into a gruel, any contamination is spread throughout the product instead of just sitting on the surface where it can be easily washed off
Your guess doesn't explain why simple drinks like apple juice are more than twice as likely to contai
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The whole point being, why does baby food contain *more* lead than adult food?
That settles it. I'm raising my kid on scotch and beef jerky.
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Beef jerky and scotch contains high levels of lead: news at 11.
But scotch made specifically for babies contains more lead than the regular kind
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Maybe you missed the part of the article citing research that showed ANY level of lead was unsafe.
Personally, I find that an epistemologically dubious characterization of the evidence.
A better characterization would be: no safe upper limit on safe exposure can be established at present, other than zero.
That's a natural consequence our initial safe dosage estimate previously set being much too high. When you're hunting for the precise dividing line, you start near where you think it is. If you think it's about 10 micrograms/dL is close to right, you look at 8 micrograms or 5 micrograms, no 500 picogram
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They grind the daylights out of that food.
As I said elsewhere, this does not explain why there are (even more) differences in liquids like apple and grape juice. Packaging is a potential source, but I haven't found the study to confirm if they controlled for that (highly likely it occurred to them to them too), as that would show up in "snack-sized" adult foods as well.
IMHO, since a difference has been established, the onus is now on the food manufacturers to explain (and hopefully eliminate) the elevated levels. But this will require pressure, eit
Re:But how MUCH lead? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah the referenced article at a glance gave a detection rate, not a level for most of the claims. As someone that deals with minimal detectable concentrations for a living, it looks like they were dancing right at their detection limit. Which is fine, as long as you don't misconstrue what those numbers mean.
It does read very much like an advocacy piece though, particularly where it goes on to criticize the government for regulating concentrations based on what is achievable versus what is the minimum absolute safe quantity. Basically up in arms that there isn't a total ban on lead in food. Which shows a pretty startling lack of understanding of the biosphere and why regulations are structured that way.
First, I'll preface with this: my lab mostly monitors for radioisotopes like cesium, but the game is pretty much the same. Certain plants preferentially scavenge heavy metals; its a sort of natural confusion in their biochemistry. They're looking for things they need to grow, like iron. They really aren't that selective, because most of the heavy stuff in the soil will be things they need to grow, so there isn't really active filtration of "bad stuff" from a human perspective. The plant doesn't care. As a rule of thumb, anything that sets down large deep roots is a good candidate for this (root vegetables, trees, etc.). Grasses tend not to, although it varies a lot based on the type of grass. Water based plants are another exception (like rice), as heavy metals tend to wash into water basins and settle into silt.
Where I see this manifest most is oak trees in my line of work. There are large oak forests on the eastern seaboard of the US that had decent quantities of radio cesium dropped on them from weapons testing. The oak trees suck that metal into their leaves like a sponge, then at the end of the year the leaves fall off and rot into the topsoil, and the metal is captured again the next year. It never settles out and gets buried due to this re-suspension, and so oak leaves are some of the most radioactive things you'll find in the USA (depending on where you live).
In this food study, you're seeing a lot of that. Root vegetables aren't going to be just high in lead, they'll be full of all kinds of stuff. The fruit is going to vary by type, but they'll all have some as well. Purely non-rice grains should have comparatively little, due to shallow root structures among other things (the metal naturally will work its way down out of the topsoil in many cases, so the shallower you set your root the less of it you'll see from a plant perspective). It will also vary based on the year: plants set deeper more extensive root systems based on temperature and rainfall, so the same species in a cool drought year might have a radically different concentration of metals from the same species in the same location in a wet warm year.
Anyway, the reality is we pumped large quantities of this shit into our environment for decades. Lead mostly from gas, other metals from chemical refining, etc. Lead is the big one, as it was so ubiquitous. There really is no escaping it, and that's why the regulatory limits are set as they are. You can't expect there to be non of it, and it's extraordinarily difficult and fickle to try and control given how incredibly variable the factors can be. Take wheat. You can't test every truckload of wheat for metal content, it isn't feasible given the analyses and timescales involved. When you test off a wheat barge going to a cereal plant, you're looking at an aggregate sample from an entire region. Some fields in that region may have little to no metals, some may have a ton, and in reality most probably have trace amounts. You can't filter the metals out, the product you would have left wouldn't be food in the classical sense. So... you live with it. You set a limit you think can be achieved on average, and test out the back end (the food product itself). The food producer can test the raw ingredients themselves for protection, can try to structur
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Source of contamination (Score:2)
Re:Source of contamination (Score:5, Informative)
Where does the lead comes from?
Probably in equipment used for processing. Baby food is more highly processed than most other kinds of food, and wet food is most likely to interact with the machinery. Lead is commonly added to alloys to make them easier to machine. That's why cut glass is typically leaded, as well; it's easier to cut without breaking.
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Except that "Food-safe" machinery, as defined by regulations, does not allow that. Even the type of plastic used for tubing is highly regulated.
Yeah, that's the idea. But that depends on everyone in the chain being scrupulous.
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Even the type of plastic used for tubing is highly regulated
I am glad it is. Endocrine disruptors from plastic are less dangerous that lead, but they can still be highly harmful. Bisphenol-A from polycarbonates is the most well known and is banned from baby bottles in the US. Styrene from polystyrene is also of concern. Ethylene and propylene from polyethylene and polypropylene are considered safe, but even that kind of plasic comes with hazardous additives that are used to alter plasticity or color, such as phtalates
I love headlines that tell me how to feel (Score:2)
I've been saying it all along (Score:2)
The other 80%... (Score:1)
..is lego, snot and glow in the dark sweets.
Everytime we develop a more sensitive test for lea (Score:2)
We find more things that contain lead.
country of origin? (Score:2)
Is there a correlation with country of origin? Is the manufacture of baby food one of the things we've outsourced to China, for instance?
Oh, great!... (Score:1)
Sounds like a R plan to me!
Re: Don't buy canned baby food (Score:1)
Your child will have an underdeveloped brain because human beings need to eat meat and animal proteins during certain phase of brain development. Why do you think so many millennials have psychological problems?
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Vegetarian I can see, but vegan is just nuts. If a baby cannot handle milk you do the best you can, but trying to raise a baby without milk otherwise, while possible, is just stupid.
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While I don't see that consent has anything to do with it, I see there are vegans who worry about consent. Still, what's so special about humans? Can a bonobo consent? Why or why not?
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Sorry, that's simply not true. The FDA even states "vegetarian and vegan diets are suitable for all stages of child development".
The FDA also said that eating fat makes you fat (it doesn't) and that you should subsist on mostly carbs (you shouldn't). If you believe anything the FDA tells you simply because the FDA told you, you are an epic dumbshit.
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The FDA also said that
Except it doesn't say that?
Congratulations, son, you just failed reading comprehension. You're going to need to learn to pay attention to tenses.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but be damned sure I'm wrong, first.
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Nothing wrong with eating less processed foods but please stop raising a pussy.
Fewer. Or singularize "foods".
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The new owners are desperate for traffic.
There's a lot of goofy new clickbait stuff on Slashdot these days.
In the summary, anyway, I didn't see anything about the parts-per-billion of lead being measured. There are tiny trace amounts of everything in everything. That's how how the messy business of life works.
I remember the last time a new Republican administration came to power and the trace amounts of arsenic in drinking water was hysterically discussed.
If it can be measured, and it can be made a politi
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Pet food? How about milk [wikipedia.org]
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Remember the melamine in the pet food ?
I remember reading about melamine in milk formula. I also remember reading that the people responsible were shot. You were saying?
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If the Enron mob had been under PRC jurisdiction, they'd have been shot, too. Just something to think about.
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If the Enron mob had been under PRC jurisdiction, they'd have been shot, too. Just something to think about.
Doesn't matter. China may have strict enforcement (and it doesn't unless there's a lot of bad press), but that has no bearing on the fact that generally, the Chinese mentality is less focused on quality/safety and more focused on what they can get away with. Manufacturing products in China is cheaper than in the US, but from everyone I've talked to, the process is a fucking nightmare.
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He is obviously saying he has Chinese babies as pets.
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Did that make the melamine disappear?
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Check the ingredient label for "plumbum", usually either third or fourth listed.
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lead is a perfectly natural substance
I stopped reading riht there. Naturalness has no bearing on heath.
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people who get worked up about traces of lead are the sort who shop at Whole Foods
I despise Whole Foods and eat microwave TV dinners.
Trace lead levels are something I do care about. Everyone should care about cumulative neurotoxins, triply so for children given the eveidnce. It's only government action (like killing leaded gasoline) which has been ameliorating the problem, plus a little economic luck in that coal is now an industry in decline, so we'll see how this chart [wikipedia.org] does if the unified Republican government turns its back on core FDA/EPA responsibilities. It'll also be interestin
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Good for your dolphins, otherwise they would be intoxicated with melamine.
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0 is always 0. No need for a % sign.
Proof:
It doesn't matter what you divide it by, 0 is always 0.
0/100 == 0/1000 == 0/10000 == 0
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0 is always 0. No need for a % sign.
Proof:
It doesn't matter what you divide it by, 0 is always 0.
0/100 == 0/1000 == 0/10000 == 0
Dam u dum.
If you're quantifying something in terms or percent, you're counting the number of things per 100 (possibly different) things.
You absolutely need a % sign if you're presenting other data as a percentage alongside the data which ended up at 0.
Further, dividing it by something else and getting the same result has no effect on how you should present the data.
And of course, dividing it by something else can give you a different effect if you're rounding. Consider a reading of some concentration of th
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0 is always 0. No need for a % sign.
Proof:
It doesn't matter what you divide it by, 0 is always 0.
0/100 == 0/1000 == 0/10000 == 0
Dam u dum.
If you're quantifying something in terms or percent, you're counting the number of things per 100 (possibly different) things.
You absolutely need a % sign if you're presenting other data as a percentage alongside the data which ended up at 0.
Further, dividing it by something else and getting the same result has no effect on how you should present the data. .004.
And of course, dividing it by something else can give you a different effect if you're rounding. Consider a reading of some concentration of things being
With rounding, that's 0 percent, but 4 permil.
And finally, you useless sack of shit, it does matter what you divide 0 by. It's not always 0.
0/0 is undefined.
You must be working in a marketing department. .004 is simply 0.4%
0 is always zero. For traces you should use <:
< 0.0001 % or < 1%, etc.
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Nah, you failed hard with your shit and you know it.
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Nah, you failed hard with your shit and you know it.
Further, dividing it by something else and getting the same result has no effect on how you should present the data. .004.
And of course, dividing it by something else can give you a different effect if you're rounding. Consider a reading of some concentration of things being
With rounding, that's 0 percent, but 4 permil.
And finally, you useless sack of shit, it does matter what you divide 0 by. It's not always 0.
0/0 is undefined.
Go back to marketing school please. According to what you write: 0 == 0.004 "if you round" thus you can print that on your labels.
A side effect of this is that, in your book, 0/0 (0.004/0) is now infinite instead of being undefined so you have contradicted yourself.
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what about 0/0 ?
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0% lead, 0 is a percentage
We're all somebody's children.
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I had trouble selecting the table in the pdf and copying into Excel. Do they release data files?