deionized water produced by a high-end Thermo Scientific water filtration system specifically designed for laboratories.
• Oxidation acids used for sample digestion are trace-grade acids and are routinely tested for their purity. The very small concentrations of elements (parts per trillion) found in these acids are measured at the beginning of each sample run, then subtracted from the results of all subsequent samples.
• Samples that show curiously high results are re-analyzed a fourth or fifth time to make sure the results are accurate.
• All raw sample data for each run is archived on multiple backup servers residing at two different physical locations.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have no heavy metals limits
Neither the FDA nor USDA has any official, universal limit on heavy metals in foods, beverages, and dietary supplements sold to U.S. consumers.
This fact is, of course, astonishing. Most consumers of USDA-certified organic foods automatically assume those foods are substantially free of heavy metals because they are labeled organic. But in our lab, we’ve found USDA-certified organic foods to consistently contain far higher levels of heavy metals than many conventional foods (which tend to be aggressively processed, removing minerals and heavy metals alike).
So why don’t the USDA or FDA set heavy metals limits for the U.S. food supply? Surely they have their own explanations, but my view as a food researcher and investigative journalist is that both the USDA and FDA are far too intertwined with the interests of the industries they claim to regulate. Most of the top people at the USDA, for example, have a revolving-door history with the cattle industry or herbicide companies such as Monsanto and DuPont. Top FDA people, similarly, are far too cozy with drug companies and processed food manufacturers to make reliable decisions in the public interest.
Rather than regulating these industries for the benefit of the public, both the FDA and USDA seem far more interested in protecting these industries from public scrutiny. As a result, there is no real incentive to disclose the heavy metals contamination of agricultural products, or canned soup or beef jerky, for that matter. Because the truth of all this might “cause alarm” among consumers, government regulators essentially play along with the conspiracy of silence preferred by food manufacturers.
This is why I strongly support the establishing of heavy metals limits in foods, beverages, and dietary supplements. Without such limits, food manufacturers can get away with essentially any amount of toxic elements in their products.
It is noteworthy that, in February 2016, the nation was outraged over the discovery of 1–2 ppm of lead in the water supply of Flint, Michigan. Yet I have personally found food products with far higher levels of lead that are consumed by a consumer cross section of the entire nation. Strangely, there is so far no outcry over high lead levels in food products, even though lead in water is widely recognized as so dangerous to children that many citizens of Flint, Michigan, called for the criminal prosecution of those responsible.
Moving toward a low heavy metals industry standard
Until the USDA and FDA come around to establishing heavy metals limits for foods, superfoods, and dietary supplements, we’ve created our own limits, which have been published online and embraced by several companies.
The website lowheavymetalsverified.org provides a voluntary heavy metals guide for manufacturers of foods, superfoods, and dietary supplements. The site describes a letter-grade self-certification system ranging from A+++ on the super clean side down to F for foods that are more heavily contaminated with heavy metals. (This grading system is printed in full on page 212 of Part 3: The Data near the end of this book.)
Because these standards may be revised from time to time as more information is learned about the impact of heavy metals on human health, please refer to lowheavymetalsverified.org to view the latest numbers. In particular, we hope to begin the speciation of arsenic so that we can distinguish organic arsenic from inorganic. Once that is accomplished, we plan to alter this standard to consider solely inorganic arsenic (the dangerous variety).
Most food products available in the marketplace today fall between A and D on the grading scale. This scale sets a voluntary standard by which food products can be easily compared on their heavy metals composition. It also allows consumers to more easily shop for products that are cleaner than others. For example, almost every health-conscious consumer would prefer to eat grade-A chocolate rather than grade-B chocolate, assuming all other properties of the chocolate are equal.
The downside of this system is that it is purely voluntary and, as you might have already guessed, many companies will flat-out lie to their customers and claim lower heavy metals concentrations than really exist in their products.
For this reason, Natural News will be policing the industry by randomly purchasing products from companies who claim these heavy metals limits and testing those products for compliance. Products that do not comply with the claims levels will be published on naturalnews.com.
Our hope is that both the USDA and FDA will eventually take over this function and establish their own procedures for heavy metals limits and industry spot-checking. Until that day comes, Natural News is the only organization on the planet that will be fulfilling this important role in the interests of public safety.
Some observers find it quite curious—perhaps even bizarre—that a private sector company is doing a better job of policing the U.S. food supply for heavy metals than the entire federal government, with a seemingly infinite budget.
I find it bizarre, too.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TOXIC ELEMENTS
The next section of this book is scientific in structure as it discusses the origins of toxic heavy metals and other chemical contaminants such as pesticides, fertilizers, and preservatives. It also explains the way in which humans absorb these contaminants and the resulting health effects.
If you’re really only interested in the heavy metals test results for your favorite foods and superfoods, you can skip ahead to the charts section of this book, beginning on page 214.
But for those who want more in-depth research and explanations about how heavy metals and other contaminants harm biology and why they are so difficult to get rid of, this section documents the harm of heavy metals with a considerable amount of scientific explanation and research citations.
Just a warning, though: This section can get a bit technical. (Doctors, scientists, and biologists, however, will find it familiar reading.)
Where do heavy metals come from?
Life on Earth in its rawest natural form is fraught with countless dangers and immediate threats to your existence. Numerous toxic metals and compounds are found almost everywhere on this planet in some concentration. However, potentially poisonous forms of mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, copper, tin, tungsten, chromium, beryllium, and other elements are increasingly found in our post-industrial environment.
As
