[HN Gopher] Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global ...
___________________________________________________________________
Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning
mystery (2024)
Author : perihelions
Score : 271 points
Date : 2025-07-11 15:33 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| loopdoend wrote:
| Wish there were some way to detect impurities like this at home.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Hand held x-ray fluorescence spectrometer?
| unixhero wrote:
| But of course!
| perihelions wrote:
| I think those cost more than my entire kitchen.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Hey, if Nile Red can use one, so can you!
| jpmattia wrote:
| And just like that, there was a mad rush of mass-
| spectrometer-for-home-use startups.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| X-ray fluorescence detects elements based on their
| characteristic electromagnetic spectrum when irradiated
| with x-rays.
|
| Not very much like a mass-spectrometer which creates a
| characteristic pattern of masses resulting from the test
| material as it is manipulated by the electron ionization or
| chemical ionization process. Where ions are detected across
| the atomic mass range of the particular spectrometer,
| forming a characteristic pattern or "spectrum" across that
| range.
|
| Actually more jewelers and gold dealers than ever are using
| the x-ray guns professionally for bulk assay on an everyday
| basis. There are some handhelds which may be sensitive
| enough for trace analysis in food, but that requires a
| whole nother level of dedication beyond identification of
| metal objects, not just in technique and training but
| "laboratory" preparation as well.
|
| The first obstacle would be convincing an owner of an
| instrument having capable specs, to embrace usage for
| things other than gold and silver assay. Then seriously
| pursue mastery of the instrument more so than ever to
| accomplish decent detection of low levels of lead and other
| metals like chromium, mercury, cadmium, etc.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The concentrations of lead being discussed here are as
| much as 1000 ppm or even higher.
| kragen wrote:
| Quoting perihelions's comment above:
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/
| ("Contaminated turmeric is a potential source of lead
| exposure for children in rural Bangladesh" / "Results:
| Lead concentrations in many turmeric samples were
| elevated, with lead concentrations as high as 483 ppm")
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >as much as 1000 ppm or even higher.
|
| The higher it is, the less likely for challenges in
| detection, and/or interference from background.
|
| >lead concentrations as high as 483 ppm
|
| SSDD.
|
| Shouldn't be that hard to detect at that level which is
| way above ppb. There are a number of reliable methods.
|
| However if the Minimum Detectable Level for a particular
| test procedure was only 500 ppm or above, one of these
| samples would report just as clean as a sample having no
| lead whatsoever; < 500.
|
| MDL's like this which vary among different test methods
| do need to be carefully compared to the toxicity levels
| being screened for.
|
| That's another one of the confounding aspects to be aware
| of.
|
| Depending on circumstances, I may or may not prefer a
| different calibration session for each of these two
| levels, even though they are both within the same order
| of magnitude.
|
| Either way ideally I would be preparing NIST-traceable
| reference materials at the proper levels for comparison &
| confirmation. Not much differently than I would do for
| the benchtop models and the forklift models of x-ray
| units. And to really get down into the ppb levels that's
| when the ICP/mass-spec comes in handy, that's a benchtop
| unit itself, too big to fit on a regular desk though.
| However you don't really get the most out of the ICP
| without a huge cryogenic tank of liquid argon out back so
| you can "consume mass quantities" ;)
|
| With a handheld x-ray unit, if you are only assaying gold
| & silver it may be fine to send it back for calibration
| once a year, if the pawn shops even do that. For food
| testing I would want more of a laboratory-style
| analytical procedure and calibration which is concurrent
| with materials being tested.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| There are very sensitive indicator drops used for identifying
| ceramic glazes containing lead on antique porcelain.
|
| There are also handheld scanners that cost more than a car. And
| yes, people in the community scan every imported toy and or
| food item they see to start the FDA ban process when necessary.
| Should buy local when you can anyway. =3
| bluGill wrote:
| I have found lead detection kits. However they are somewhat
| expensive and I'm not sure how well they work.
| whiw wrote:
| I am not a chemist, so take this with a pinch of salt: wouldn't
| lead chromate + sodium bicarbonate make lead carbonate, a white
| precipitate? Sodium bicarbonate is likely in your kitchen
| cupboard already.
| whiw wrote:
| I meant lead carbonate, not lead oxide.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Not a chemist either but lead oxide is actually more soluble
| in water than lead chromate, so a double replacement reaction
| won't favor lead chromate -> lead oxide.
| adrianN wrote:
| Pretty hard to see precipitated dust at concentrations in the
| ppm range.
| kragen wrote:
| WP tells me lead chromate's solubility in water is 0.00001720
| g/100 mL, so, no, it won't.
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#:~:text=Test%2014%20%3A%2...
| gitaarik wrote:
| This Indian gov YouTube channel has all kinds of videos for
| that:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWPf0HQd5U
| vasusen wrote:
| I grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got
| some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am
| was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was
| compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those
| are usually really bright yellows.
|
| Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is
| probably lead paint tainted turmeric.
| genewitch wrote:
| article says "you can't tell when it's ground" - that is,
| specifically, they put lead chromate in the "buff" stage, so
| the roots look like they were dried properly.
|
| In the same way that a lot of apples and the like will be
| buffed and then a soft wax coat applied so lots of apples are
| very shiny at the store.
|
| if the turmeric is ground before sale i doubt there's any
| reason to use lead chromate.
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| No I think the opposite conclusion is correct - turmeric
| starts out whole, and can be either ground down at that point
| or dried and sold whole. In the whole state, it's much easier
| to detect that lead chromate was applied.
|
| If the turmeric is ground before sale, it's even easier to
| apply lead chromate and make the whole version "appear"
| healthier to the next processor who grinds it down and then
| sells the powder. If you buy it whole, then you can more
| easily see the color of the original root.
| genewitch wrote:
| Then why isn't this an issue in Bharat, as mentioned in the
| article?
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| I don't know why you're obsessed with whether India has
| the same problem. Maybe it hasn't been studied as
| extensively, or the turmeric there is healthier and hence
| doesn't need to be colored, or something else. Also the
| article doesn't say that India doesn't have this problem.
| genewitch wrote:
| Oh i missed "Dhaka" in the sentence after the one that
| said lead was found in spices in india, my brain saw
| "[...] spices in india, [...] despite lead free turmeric"
|
| sorry, that's my mistake.
| yread wrote:
| Of course it is an issue. The government has a page to
| detect adulteration
|
| https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/
| toast0 wrote:
| > if the turmeric is ground before sale i doubt there's any
| reason to use lead chromate.
|
| If the roots are wholesaled to the grinder, and the grinder
| doesn't know that bright means poisoned, they might prefer
| brighter looking roots. The ground tumeric will be poisoned.
|
| Similarly, if the roots are poisoned and discriminating
| buyers aren't buying then because they're too bright, you can
| still grind it and sell it, and the color will blend.
| zargon wrote:
| Burlap and Barrel tests their turmeric for lead and publishes
| the results. It's a lot more expensive than Indian store
| turmeric, but personally I'm no longer willing to buy untested
| turmeric.
|
| (Relatedly, Lundberg publishes the arsenic levels of their
| brown rice, so that's basically the only brand of rice I buy
| any more.)
| markhahn wrote:
| isn't arsenic in rice trivial to deal with ("pasta" method)?
| zargon wrote:
| I wouldn't call it trivial, no. Pre-boiling it only removes
| about 50% of the arsenic. If you start with US rice from
| arsenic-poisoned soils, after boiling the rice you can
| still have more arsenic in it than rice that had lower
| levels to start with (even when cooked traditionally).
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't think you need to worry buying it from a store that's
| imported it properly - the article says it was found in the US
| in Bangladeshi communities where it had been brought back to
| the US in their suitcases.
|
| The difference could be due to sun-drying (I assume?) on your
| family's farm vs. industrial scale freeze/spray drying, for
| example. Or some (non-lead, non-colouring) additive that
| prevents it oxidising and dulling over time perhaps. I think
| argon is often used (rather than air) in packaging for that
| purpose.
| zargon wrote:
| If a company doesn't explicitly state their supply chain
| controls in situations like this, I'm going to assume they're
| possibly inadequate. This is the Amazon era, where things
| like knowing where what you're selling came from is
| considered too much effort.
| perihelions wrote:
| No, it's definitely in the US supermarket supply chain
| (though it's not nearly as bad as in SEA),
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-
| herb... ( _" [Consumer Reports] tested 126 products from
| McCormick, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other popular
| brands. Almost a third had heavy metal levels high enough to
| raise health concerns"_)
|
| You may (or not) be surprised that there's actually no
| general testing for heavy metals in US foods, even in
| categories seriously affected by them--neither by the FDA,
| nor the private sector.
|
| > _" Currently, about two dozen spice companies from 11
| countries are subject to import alerts for lead
| contamination, which signal to regulators that they can
| detain those products. But that represents a fraction of the
| herbs and spices shipped to the U.S. In addition, the limited
| testing the FDA has done on spices has been focused on
| harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, not heavy metals,
| Ronholm says."_
|
| > _" The lack of regulation leaves much of the monitoring of
| heavy metal levels to companies. [Consumer Reports] contacted
| all the ones with products in our tests to see how they
| limited heavy metals."_
|
| > _" Of the companies that replied to our questions--Al Wadi
| Al Akhdar, Costco, Bolner's Fiesta, Gebhardt, Litehouse,
| McCormick, Roland Foods, Spice Islands, Target, and Whole
| Foods--a few said they require their suppliers to have a
| program for controlling or testing for heavy metals. But only
| three--Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Bolner's Fiesta, and McCormick--
| specifically said they test products in their manufacturing
| plants for heavy metals."_
| missinglugnut wrote:
| With the exception of one brand I hadn't heard of (La
| Flor), every turmeric tested was either safe or in the
| "some concern" category.
|
| CR does a disservice by not sharing their test levels, but
| I'm willing to bet my own health that "some concern" is
| multiple orders of magnitude less lead than what this npr
| article is about.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| The point is that this (and similar) problems are not
| categorically caught at the US border.
| OJFord wrote:
| But I wasn't suggesting it would be 'caught at the US
| border' so much as that if you're buying from big
| industrial process exporting around the world it's just
| so much less likely to be an issue to begin with. Article
| is about relatively small time farmers (processing and
| perhaps direct selling it themselves) trying to save
| their failed crop and their livelihood.
| oharapj wrote:
| Can someone validate the water test for lead adulterated
| turmeric? https://youtu.be/tXWPf0HQd5U?si=-SkT4EQB9SvMx7io
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I don't follow youtube links during work hours as a personal
| policy but an India government webpage outlines the water
| test for whole tumeric: https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/
|
| > Test 14 : Detection of lead chromate in turmeric whole >
| Testing Method: > * Add small quantity of turmeric whole in a
| transparent glass of water. > * Pure turmeric will not leave
| any colour. > * Adulterated turmeric appears to be bright in
| colour and leaves colour immediately in water.
| Aloisius wrote:
| That's for whole turmeric.
| mook wrote:
| Test 15 is the test for powdered tumeric. Of course, their
| photographs also look photoshopped (the pure and
| adulterated photos have the exact same pattern near the
| bottom), which was rather confusing...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| According to Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude - this should work
| if the additive is lead chromate.
| williamscales wrote:
| I'm curious about getting a personal XRF device for this
| reason. They don't look "that" expensive, I found some for $5k
| to $10k on Alibaba. Is it overkill? Probably yes. Am I overly
| paranoid about my health and would also like to generally have
| an XRF device? Also yes.
| genewitch wrote:
| <nevermind>
| hoegarden wrote:
| There are other instances of lead poisoning and not all
| turmeric is poisoned.. Therefore everything is a lie?
| genewitch wrote:
| There's been several turmeric related stories this past week
| (not here, but i've seen several elsewhere).
|
| The _title_ is "Turmeric is the culprit in a global lead
| poisoning ..."
|
| That is editorializing. It is a lie. they found that some
| markets use lead chromate to improve the product's beauty
| before sale.
|
| The title leads one to believe that _all_ or even _most_
| turmeric has lead in it, which just isn 't the case.
| hoegarden wrote:
| You can find links on this site going back years to the
| fact that adulterating turmeric is a common thing if you
| think you can get away with it and many think they can even
| do that on exports.
|
| I'm so sorry you aren't a child in a middle income country?
|
| Most children can be poisoned eventually by a food
| contamination even if only some percentage of the food is
| contaminated because most childhoods are years long and
| most parents don't procure exactly the same supplies..
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| Since billions of people eat turmeric every day (not the same
| set, but >1 billion each day, surely), if this was an issue
| we'd have known about it before now.
|
| Yes we have known this is an issue for several years
| (https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/09/lead-found-
| turmeri...). Maybe you weren't aware.
| genewitch wrote:
| > Some spice processors in Bangladesh use an industrial lead
| chromate pigment to imbue turmeric with a bright yellow color
| prized for curries and other traditional dishes, elevating
| blood lead levels in Bangladeshis.
|
| thanks for re-iterating what i said.
| pengaru wrote:
| > if this was an issue we'd have known about it before now.
|
| High-larious. TFA is dated 2024, and I've been reading reports
| about this practice far longer than that.
| pengaru wrote:
| "Lead in Spices, Herbal Remedies, and Ceremonial Powders
| Sampled from Home Investigations for Children with Elevated
| Blood Lead Levels -- North Carolina, 2011-2018" [2018]
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6289082/
|
| "Researchers find lead in turmeric" [2019]
|
| https://phys.org/news/2019-09-turmeric.html
| prairieroadent wrote:
| there has to be a way for us as a society to introduce a level of
| accountability into our so called "food" supply chain without the
| burden of regulation... perhaps it's as simple as spending more
| educating our kids about agriculture
|
| amendment: seems to be an unpopular take... my point being
| regulation is a workaround for a population that is worst than
| uneducated, miseducated, especially in regards to agriculture and
| "food" supply chain... if kids were provided with an actual
| education and not miseducated on the subject then the demand for
| on-demand food testing would go up, and prices for said testing
| would eventually go down after supply rises to meet demand
| increasing competition thus encouraging technological innovations
| to come in and lower prices
|
| amendment ii: in a competitive market where all participants are
| thoroughly educated and the consumer is armed with the ability to
| test their food frequently then a market would likely emerge
| where consumers buy directly from farmers who out of market
| forces publish test alongside their crop
| pirate787 wrote:
| I support oversight with subscriptions to Consumer Reports and
| Consumer Labs. I do think government must play a role-- rather
| than regulate, just regularly test everything and publish the
| results and ban/recall unsafe products.
| salawat wrote:
| ...You mean, regulating? Literally the meaning of the word.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| >ban/recall unsafe products.
|
| So you want regulations but you don't want to have to call
| them regulations. Pretty funny.
| downrightmike wrote:
| FDA and USDA are supposed to do that. It has to be government
| lead, because we know business will cheat
| SoftTalker wrote:
| But government won't cheat?
| prairieroadent wrote:
| yeah, it seems people don't realize the level of corruption
| that exists in this country... middle management is a
| workaround for miseducation
| markhahn wrote:
| not sure which country "this" is, but corruption (taking
| bribes for harm) is quite uncommon in the US, Canada,
| Europe, etc.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| If a business is going to get away with cheating, it seems
| better that they also need a corrupt government in bed with
| them rather than just another corrupt business.
| markhahn wrote:
| Yes, that is correct. At least in the west, governments are
| actually filled with quite earnest, diligent people, not
| cheating. It's possible to find narrow cases where industry
| manages to bias government, but it's not like "ignore the
| lead in this turmeric".
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _to introduce a level of accountability... without the burden
| of regulation_
|
| Why? What's wrong with regulation?
|
| The whole _point_ of regulation is safety and accountability
| and fairness.
|
| Yes things can be over-regulated, but then the solution is to
| regulate properly, not over-regulate. The reason we don't have
| libertarian or anarchist societies is because they
| fundamentally can't solve the problems around safety,
| accountability, and fairness.
| prairieroadent wrote:
| my point is that regulation is a burden, not that it isn't
| the next step... from my point of view regulation is a
| workaround for our nightmare of an education system where
| giving kids a proper schooling is considered dangerous and a
| threat to national security
| toast0 wrote:
| What sort of proper schooling allows one to detect lead in
| ground turmeric?
|
| I guess proper schooling would help one understand the
| analysis techniques, but the machines are pretty expensive
| and most people don't have one at home.
|
| Regulations that require food products to be regularly
| surveyed for heavy metals or other contaminants seem more
| effective than requiring every household to own and operate
| analysis machines.
|
| Regulations that require foods to be tracked with origin
| and batch information makes it a lot easier to find out
| where contaminants entered the system, rather than
| requiring kids to go around playing Carmen Sandiego. It
| also helps save money with recalls when there's specific
| evidence to include only specific batches.
| prairieroadent wrote:
| if the population was thoroughly educated then I imagine
| most food would be bought direct from farmers with test
| published alongside the crop because the population
| understands the importance of unadulterated food and are
| armed with the ability to test their food cheaply... once
| relationships are established with farmers and food
| providers then the need to test becomes less frequent
| searine wrote:
| Exactly, we need a label, maybe call it "Nutrition Facts"
| or something like that which lists all ingredients.
|
| We'd need a way to enforce it though. Maybe make the
| farmers pinky-swear not to lie on the label because it is
| cheaper to lie than tell the truth? Do you think that
| would be enough?
|
| If only there was some kind of group ... or
| administration even ... specifically tasked with making
| sure foods are unadulterated. Of course we can't have
| that though, because that would be regulation and
| businesses are perfect special little angels and would
| never ever lie. God forbid we place an evil burden like
| regulation on a business poisoning all of south-asia with
| lead.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't have any farmers within a fifty miles of me, I
| don't think. I live in a major city surrounded by
| suburbs.
|
| And how exactly am I going to know the farmer's published
| tests are correct?
|
| And there _aren 't_ cheap tests for everyone to test all
| their food for thousands of different possible
| contaminants. That's wishful thinking.
|
| And why do you think testing would need to become less
| frequent when relationships are established? It's a
| tried-and-true business technique to gain a reputation of
| high quality, then rake in the big bucks by switching
| selling low-quality stuff that people are fooled by.
|
| You can understand why it's about 100,000x more efficient
| for everyone to say, hey, why don't we hire actual
| experts and give them the expensive equipment people
| can't afford on their own to do all these tests for us,
| and levy huge fines when farmers and corporations
| adulterate their food or otherwise make it unsafe? And we
| can call the rules farmers and corporations have to
| follow "regulations".
|
| I genuinely don't understand why you think it should be
| legal for farmers to add lead to turmeric and try to sell
| it, and then put the responsibility on the consumer to
| test. I mean, do you think it should be legal for people
| to murder each other, and put the responsibility on
| others to avoid getting murdered? And if not, then why do
| you think poisoning people with lead is any different?
| searine wrote:
| >my point is that regulation is a burden
|
| By definition. Like a laws against murder are a burden to
| murderers.
|
| The key to stopping murders isn't "get rid of the murder
| laws", but fix what made these people people violent (like
| lead poisoning?). Or in the context of this kind of
| regulation, the solution isn't to get rid of regulation,
| but make business account for the costs of their
| externalities from the beginning (rather than being forced
| to be moral by the government).
| esseph wrote:
| You really don't understand human beings at all, and this
| is coming from someone who also doesn't understand human
| beings.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I wonder if we should think about getting rid of limited
| liability corporations? Hit the capitalist class where it
| hurts.
| ikiris wrote:
| Nothing says well functioning society like the ability to
| sue someone after you were life alteringly poisoned.
| padjo wrote:
| So rather than have government do the testing and holding
| producers to account we get every consumer to do it? That
| sounds pretty inefficient.
| prairieroadent wrote:
| I imagine that in a competitive market where the participants
| are educated that the farmers would publish tests alongside
| their crop and the educated consumer would understand that
| they should be buying direct from farmers and be processing
| the turmeric themselves
| markhahn wrote:
| it's not about education, but rather attention. how much of
| your finite attention do you want to spend on extra things?
| most people already operate under extreme attention-
| scarcity.
| padjo wrote:
| Great, and how do we know the test results they publish are
| accurate?
| canyp wrote:
| This is why governments exist and what you're proposing is
| absurd. Do you want to compile a list of every possible
| threat you are exposed to daily and amend your comment?
| Sounds like you need to educate yourself on the role of
| government before you parrot more "competitive market"
| nonsense.
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| You can buy dried whole turmeric at Indian stores. Take it home
| and grind it to powder in a magic bullet. Based on the article,
| it's harder to hide the bright yellow lead chromate coloring when
| it's used on whole turmeric, versus ground turmeric.
| OJFord wrote:
| Article explicitly says it was being added to the whole root
| during buffing, before grinding.
|
| It doesn't seem like something people need to worry about
| buying it at shops abroad imported properly though - when it
| was found in the US it was people bringing it home in their
| luggage.
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| Yes but the coloring is easier to visually detect on the
| whole root, versus the powder (according to article). If you
| see bright yellow whole turmeric at a store, run away!
|
| FYI real, fresh turmeric is a dull orange color with a tan
| papery skin. It still stains the hands and cutting board when
| chopped, but that's normal. As the root dries, it turns a
| dull yellow-orange.
| OJFord wrote:
| I know; it stains teeth and toothbrushes too, requiring a
| mad amount of brushing and mouthwash to get approximately
| nowhere.
|
| ('My friend' hasn't bought it fresh since!)
| OJFord wrote:
| And @dead commenter, yes I'm well aware it's botanically
| a rhizome, just like ginger. Colloquially, even
| culinarily, that's not common and it's not particularly
| helpful to say, many people not knowing what it is, and
| it's certainly not an important distinction to make here.
|
| I also know tomatoes are fruits, but in the comment
| section on the importance of eating fruits it would
| hardly be helpful to give as an example 'yes it's very
| important to eat plenty of fruit, such as tomato' - it's
| needlessly confusing when 'apple' would suffice.
| Amezarak wrote:
| It can definitely make it into US food.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/lead-prevention/news/outbreak-
| applesauce...
|
| There's an example of lead poisoning from cinnamon, another
| common problem spice. IIRC it was traced to a factory in
| Argentina.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| I immediately tested the 5 year old Sadaf tumeric in my kitchen
| cabinet using a 3M lead testing kit I happened to have in my
| house. Thankfully it came out negative!
| perihelions wrote:
| That doesn't sound technically plausible to me--there aren't
| any inexpensive tests. Do you mean something like this 3M
| product[0], that's intended for paint not food, and is
| documented as _" LeadCheck(tm) Swabs reliabily detect lead in
| paints at 0.5% (5,000 ppm). 3M(tm) LeadCheck(tm) Swabs may
| indicate lead in some paint films as low as 0.06% (600ppm)."_?
| If so, those aren't remotely suited for this purpose--those
| detection lower-bounds represent _astronomically_ high amounts
| of lead, for a food item.
|
| The highest end of Pb contamination in turmeric in Bangladesh
| (as in OP) is, from a cursory search, maybe 483 ppm [1].
| Regulatory limits in the US are in the low parts-per- _billion_
| [2]. This metal bioaccumulates over a lifetime.
|
| [0] (.pdf)
| https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1581338O/3m-leadcheck-in...
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/ ( _" Contaminated
| turmeric is a potential source of lead exposure for children in
| rural Bangladesh"_ / _" Results: Lead concentrations in many
| turmeric samples were elevated, with lead concentrations as
| high as 483 ppm"_)
|
| [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/babies-kids/baby-food/fda-
| pr...
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Thanks for this heads up. This will be useful information for
| other people with the same idea I had.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| Those 3M lead testing kits are designed to detect lead at
| concentrations on the order of, I don't know, what, like, a
| million times the limits set in food safety standards?
|
| https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/3M-leadche...
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| There is a much easier and reliable way to test it ->
| https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#:~:text=Test%2014%20%3A%2...
| williamscales wrote:
| I don't see any method for lead chromate in turmeric powder,
| unless I'm missing something.
| gitaarik wrote:
| It's used for coloring, because it makes it apparently
| gives it the same color as good real tumeric
| williamscales wrote:
| OK, so the method given for artificial coloring on that
| page. I'm curious if that works for lead chromate. It
| seems so simple that it must have been tried in this
| case? Regardless I'll file it away to at least try on
| stuff to avoid what colors it can detect.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It's the one below the one ashwinsundar linked, "detection
| of artificial colour in turmeric powder".
|
| The test is: when you add the powdered turmeric to water,
| natural turmeric will give the water a "light" yellow
| color, while adulterated turmeric will give it a "strong"
| yellow color.
|
| This is not a test that I'd characterize as "easy" or
| "reliable".
| gitaarik wrote:
| Yes indeed. Here's also an instruction video for it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWPf0HQd5U
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| > Lead Chromate apparently has an extremely low solubility
| in water, so how does this work?
| tomalpha wrote:
| I wonder if this has survived the recent cutbacks to USAID?
| And recently they are celebrating some big news on the lead
| fighting front: This week, UNICEF and the United States Agency
| for International Development (USAID) announced a new $150
| million initiative to combat lead poisoning
| lejalv wrote:
| "It is long overdue that the world is coming together," says
| Samatha Power <https://www.usaid.gov/organization/samantha-
| power>, who runs USAID.
|
| That is a 404. And the homepage has a _Notification of
| Administrative Leave_ As of 11:59 p.m. EST on
| Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel,
| with the exception of designated personnel responsible for
| mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially
| designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave
| globally (...)
| adolph wrote:
| The announcement organizations are different from the funding
| org, Lead Exposure Action Fund, which is funded by Gates Fnd
| and others.
|
| https://www.leadexposureactionfund.org/about-us/
| mandown2308 wrote:
| What I got by reading the paper: loose tumeric powder and
| polished tumeric root are the main "culprits" because they are
| contaminated with Lead Chromate (chemical used in paintings for
| yellow color.)
|
| If you're using branded/packaged tumeric powder, or natural
| unpolished tumeric root, you're still good as a tumeric consumer
| in South Asia (though the paper differentiates branded vs
| packaged tumeric in Table 2, but does not explicitly explain the
| difference.)
|
| Also, Patna in Bihar is the major source of Lead-adulterated
| tumeric (in the forms mentioned above) in India, and any exports
| of tumeric to other places from Patna could be harmful. Lead
| contamination in Guwahati, Assam is mostly found in imported
| tumeric from Patna.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I think this NPR article is too quick to put a positive spin on
| this. They have made a nice little story here with a happy
| ending. Farmers had blackened turmeric -> they used a random
| yellow die they found -> massive lead spike in everyone's
| bloodstream -> Americans came in with a xray gun and saved the
| day -> no more lead in the blood.
|
| But if you ascribe even the slightest but of agency to any of the
| non-Americans involved, you have to wonder if this problem will
| come back.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| That's a BS detection step that I apply to anecdotes: who lacks
| agency in this story?
| Amezarak wrote:
| I don't think the NPR reporter is deliberately spinning the
| story. I think a lot of people don't really believe that other
| people are _really_ different from them. The reporter would
| never knowingly poison people for money, so it 's not
| comprehensible to them that lots of people in the world just
| don't care whether they do or not. The only reason in their
| minds that people would do such a thing are economic
| desperation combined with ignorance; if those two factors are
| gone, they really believe the problem has been forever solved.
| a123b456c wrote:
| I have numerous experiences being quoted by NPR reporters. I
| have regularly observed them to deliberately frame stories to
| interest their audience (as I believe they should). In this
| case, if the reporter claims poisoning without sufficient
| evidence, the reporter and their employer will be attacked.
| If the reporter provides no plausible explanation, the story
| will be found wanting.
| Amezarak wrote:
| I think actively claiming _poisoning_ is too far. You don
| 't have to do that to not present the story as Problem
| Solved with a neat little bow tied; I just think like GP
| there's probably not a really serious evaluation of the
| underlying issues that led us here, and it's going to crop
| up again and again in different ways, maybe not tumeric
| explicitly if monitoring continues.
|
| FWIW I've also been quoted by reporters before, and was
| really upset. They framed what I was saying to mean exactly
| the opposite of what I was saying, I assume because it fit
| the story better - I am 100% certain they understood me at
| the time, because the full context of my remarks made it
| very clear and we had a long conversation. So I don't lend
| much credence anymore to things like "what did the people
| interviewed in this story actually think about anything."
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| In the course of history, it wasn't that long ago when people
| brought snacks to an execution.
|
| That's a little hard to wrap your head around.
| eitally wrote:
| Indeed. It reminds me very much of this ("toxic tofu" in
| Indonesia):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPyRAcdZHDo
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/world/asia/indonesia-tofu...
| abeppu wrote:
| > But if you ascribe even the slightest but of agency to any of
| the non-Americans involved, you have to wonder if this problem
| will come back.
|
| From the article:
|
| > And recently they are celebrating some big news on the lead
| fighting front: This week, UNICEF and the United States Agency
| for International Development (USAID) announced a new $150
| million initiative to combat lead poisoning.
|
| Americans have disassembled USAID. The agency of Americans is
| also contributing to this reccuring.
| ericmay wrote:
| > The agency of Americans is also contributing to this
| reccuring.
|
| I'm going to push back very, very hard on ascribing any sort
| of blame on anyone other than those who are committing these
| acts. Least of all the American taxpayer, regardless of
| whether or not dismantling USAID is a good idea.
|
| If the rest of the world is so helpless that all hope depends
| on Americans to solve even problems such as this and it's our
| fault for not doing so, then I don't want to hear a peep
| about us taking any other actions in the world that we deem
| just. You can't have it both ways.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Right, I'm 100% against the dismantling of our foreign aid
| programs, USAID included..
|
| However, the world playing both sides of the coin on "US
| World Police" being bad when it does stuff but also bad
| when it doesn't do stuff is part of how we end up where we
| are.
|
| It's a minuscule part of our budget, but an easy sell for
| right wingers to say "well the world isn't grateful for it
| and its all a bunch of waste so we are killing it" then get
| if not majority support, less than 50% disapproval.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Precisely. If you wanna be the hegemon, you have to act
| like the hegemon.
| Filligree wrote:
| The rest of the world may think it's bad when the CIA
| does things, and bad when USAID doesn't do things.
|
| The nature of the thing which is being done is relevant.
| Gud wrote:
| This argument makes absolutely no sense.
|
| You can be against empire x taking action y while being
| positive it's taking action z.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The world lets us take action y (which they don't
| necessarily like) because we do a lot of action z.
| Gud wrote:
| No, the US imposes its will on the rest of us by having
| an awesome arsenal and an eagerness to use it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The carrot and the stick are both handy. Soft power can
| make the difference between grumbling and active
| rebellion.
| abeppu wrote:
| The article makes clear that the initiative, though
| announced by USAID with other partners, was funded
| primarily by philanthropy.
|
| > The money - most of it from Open Philanthropy - will go
| to more than a dozen countries from Indonesia and Uganda to
| Ghana and Peru.
|
| From other sources, I think the US _financial_ commitment
| was actually pretty minimal ($4M). But if USAID had been
| providing important governance, administration or
| coordination, withdrawing its involvement could still
| destabilize an effort that otherwise could have been
| impactful.
|
| https://healthpolicy-watch.news/us-government-
| commits-4-mill...
|
| "Blame" is a loaded word. But is it really so strange to
| you to think that the richest and most powerful country
| might have some role to play in international problems that
| arise from comparative poverty? And that the country with
| the largest military in the world also should be held to a
| high standard in how it uses that tremendous force?
|
| If we were just some average-sized middle-income country,
| then no one would expect that we should play a
| disproportionate role in helping things at an international
| level, or that the use of our military is more criticized
| than any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and
| we've had some military presence in other continents pretty
| much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to be
| able to act with impunity.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > But is it really so strange to you to think that the
| richest and most powerful country might have some role to
| play in international problems that arise from
| comparative poverty?
|
| I think this is a mischaracterization of parent's point.
| He didn't say it was strange , and he didn't say we had
| no role to play.
|
| > that the use of our military is more criticized than
| any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and we've
| had some military presence in other continents pretty
| much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to
| be able to act with impunity
|
| This seems largely orthogonal to parent's point, which I
| would rephrase as "We can't be police and _not_ police at
| the same time. If your expectations require us to be
| both, they 're bad expectations."
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| in the article it asserts that the farmers didn't know the
| effects of lead chromate on human health, they were just
| "expanding their business".
|
| I guess since it's just fraud and negligence, we should forgive
| it?
| hbarka wrote:
| Why do food producers need to do these fake coloring schemes?
| They are poisoning the well. In this day and age these ugly
| practices of the past are discoverable. I don't care for ugly
| colors if the tradeoff is toxicity.
| Aloisius wrote:
| It was explained in the article.
| dboreham wrote:
| Because money.
| infinitifall wrote:
| I'm put off by how this is framed as a detective story.
| Pesticides that contain heavy metals and other carcinogens are a
| well known issue, with India (and South Asia more generally)
| being the worst affected.
|
| > You'll never guess the culprit
|
| Not knowing about turmeric comes off as deeply ignorant when a
| billion people consume it as part of their daily diet.
|
| > They don't know that this is harmful for human health
|
| Let me assure you that they absolutely do and they couldn't care
| less. This also makes it seem like poor clueless farmers are to
| blame while mega-corporations that process, package, market and
| distribute these spices are never given even a passing mention!
| rayiner wrote:
| Of course they know. But human life has very little value in
| Bangladesh. You're socialized to desensitize yourself to it.
| kragen wrote:
| Your family is from Bangladesh, aren't they?
| rayiner wrote:
| Yes. I lived there until I was five. Even at that age you
| learn not to see other people as human. You kind of have to
| --people do things like cut off kids' hands to make them
| more effective at begging.[1] You walk through the street
| with amputees coming up to you.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.ran
| deepr...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Heavy metals are _so_ easy and cheap to test for that every
| distributor should be testing every batch, and calling the
| police if contamination is detected.
| kragen wrote:
| The X-ray fluorescence tests used in the market spectacle
| described in the article are very cheap and easy, but they
| require equipment that is very expensive from the perspective
| of your average Bangladesh greengrocer. There are other easy
| and cheap tests for heavy metals that don't require such
| expensive equipment, but they only work if the metal ions are
| water-soluble, which lead chromate isn't.
| londons_explore wrote:
| It would be super cheap to pop a teaspoon in an envelope
| and post it to a government test lab who has an xrf gun...
| kragen wrote:
| Yeah, and probably in, say, Switzerland that's exactly
| what people would do if they had this problem. But here
| in Argentina, for example, a friend of mine had his house
| raided by the police because he revealed that the voting
| machines the country was planning to adopt were flawed
| and vulnerable to falsified election results. And in the
| US right now immigrants are getting arrested and deported
| if they show up to their court hearings to decide whether
| they should be deported. And you probably remember that,
| during the covid pandemic, the US government was
| prohibiting labs from telling people whether their covid
| tests were positive or negative. So probably this isn't a
| full replacement for being able to do your own tests.
| gowld wrote:
| > the US government was prohibiting labs from telling
| people whether their covid tests were positive or
| negative.
|
| Are you referring to unvetted experimental tests, or
| something else?
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-
| testing-...
| offnominal wrote:
| I quite enjoyed it. You're in a different part of the world and
| only have access to lead level data from your local population.
| You spot an anomaly in a cultural subgroup. Then through
| extensive guesswork you pinpoint a cause to a specific additive
| to a spice often consumed by folks in this culture. I would say
| that qualifies as a detective story.
|
| But anyway, lead chromate is not a pesticide. The level of harm
| from pesticides containing heavy metals vs lead chromate is
| different. You're probably much much less likely to see lead
| poisoning levels in your blood just by consuming food treated
| only with pesticides.
| kragen wrote:
| This isn't about pesticides, and it isn't about not knowing
| about turmeric; it's about lead chromate, which is not a
| pesticide, but a pigment, and is not normally a part of
| turmeric. Moreover, though some of the contaminated turmeric
| was contaminated by mega-corporations, much of it was not.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Em, because it was the farmers who were painting their turmeric
| with lead paint to make their whole turmeric look more
| appealing, not "mega-corporations."
| wlesieutre wrote:
| The article specifically rules out lead from pesticides
|
| > Perhaps the lead came from agricultural pesticides? "We
| sampled hundreds of agrochemicals. Did not find lead in them,"
| Forsyth says.
|
| Lead chromate was deliberately added after harvesting to make
| it more yellow
| maxerickson wrote:
| Uh, the culprit isn't turmeric, it's lead chromate that farmers
| were putting on turmeric.
|
| For most readers of English, it is not an expected fact that
| someone would be intentionally adding lead to food.
|
| In the article, the turmeric related lead poisonings were due
| to turmeric bought at Bangladeshi markets, not processed,
| packaged spices bought from a grocer.
| in_cahoots wrote:
| But for anyone who knows the Bangladeshi community this isn't
| a surprise at all. Neither the source nor the way it wakes
| its way into immigrants diets. Every time my Bengali friends
| visit Bangladesh they take an empty suitcase to fill with
| spices, sweets, and the like. The adulteration has been going
| on for decades.
|
| I feel like the article should have been written from that
| perspective- an outsider discovering how a different
| community operates and polices itself- instead of from the
| perspective of some Western saviors uncovering a new problem.
| in_cahoots wrote:
| I asked my Bengali friend, who grew up in a lower-class family
| in rural Bangladesh. This is something he learned about in
| schools in the 90's. The test isn't easily available, but it's
| not like this is a surprise to the Bangladeshi community.
|
| The analogy would be if someone came to the US, found
| salmonella on some produce, and wrote some breathless article
| about how they found the 'culprit'. This is business as usual
| masquerading as a longform news piece.
| zh3 wrote:
| For anyone in the UK concerned about Turmeric, looks like the FSA
| are on the case (and not just about lead).
|
| https://www.food.gov.uk/research/turmeric-survey
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I put our "Ginger and Tumeric"[1] Tea from Trader Joe's into a
| glass as in Test 15 at:
| https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/#spices-condiments15
|
| Unfortunately it looks halfway between the two pictures, although
| that might be from the Ginger, Orange, and other ingredients. :-/
|
| [1] https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/organic-
| ginger-...
| emmelaich wrote:
| Reminds me of the Henna problem. People think / expect Henna to
| be darker than it is so in some countries they added
| paraphenylenediamine to it.
|
| Paraphenylenediamine is toxic!
| kragen wrote:
| Although the headline sort of reveals the culprit, it's still
| sort of clickbaity; I think it ought to explain that it was
| specifically lead chromate added as a yellow pigment to the
| turmeric in Bangladesh in order to improve its salability,
| because the best turmeric is naturally a very similar bright
| yellow.
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