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For those new to the Lead Safe Mama website:

Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her four sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005).

• Tamara owns and runs Lead Safe Mama, LLC — a unique community collaborative woman-owned small business for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety.
• Since July of 2022, the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC has been responsible for five product recalls (FDA and CPSC).
• All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable.
• Please check out our press page to see some of the amazing coverage of our work so far this year!

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Advertising and affiliate income help Lead Safe Mama, LLC cover the costs of the work we do here (independent consumer goods testing and childhood Lead-poisoning prevention advocacy). We have removed ads from most of our more widely-read articles (and newly published articles, too — like this one!) to make them easier for you to read. In addition to supporting this work by starting any shopping you might be doing with a click on our affiliate links, if you would like to support the independent consumer goods testing and childhood Lead poisoning prevention advocacy work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC by making a contribution (which will also help us keep our more widely-read articles ad-free), click here. Thank you!

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For safer food choices, click here.

Published: June 26, 2024
Wednesday

Lead Safe Mama, LLC had Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour tested by a laboratory (through SimpleLab). In the United States, Tapioca is generally the name for a Cassava/ Yuca-derived flour product that is more processed/ processed in a different way than products simply called Cassava Flour or Yuca Flour.

This product (pictured above) tested positive for Lead but at a level significantly lower than most other Cassava products we have tested. To see the full laboratory report for the exact sample of this product tested by Lead Safe Mama, LLC, please scroll down. Please take note of the low threshold of detection for metals other than Lead in this lab report. The low thresholds of detection for the other metals noted in this particular lab report (Mercury, Cadmium, and Arsenic) each demonstrate this product to be safe (for those specific metals) when compared to the regulatory standards proposed for children’s food in 2021 (more on that here).

While this product slightly exceeded the 2021 regulatory standard proposed for Lead  (the “Action Level” set for Lead by the scientific and medical community as part of that proposed legislation was 5 ppb Lead, with 5 ppb Lead being the level at-or-above which a finished food product would be considered unsafe for consumption children) it is important to note that this product (Tapioca Flour) is never eaten by itself and (in most applications we are familiar with) is diluted (at least by half) with other ingredients (milk, juice, eggs, butter, etc.) for most finished products that use this ingredient. If (for example) this product were combined with other non-Lead-containing products (or very low Lead-containing products, relatively) the diluted Lead level of the finished food item that integrated this product might be as low as 3 ppb Lead or lower, resulting in the finished product falling below the 2021 proposed action level for Lead in food.

That said, it is always important to reiterate there is no safe level of Lead exposure for children (and for human beings for that matter) and the impacts of Lead are cumulative. Parents with concerns for Lead exposure (and especially parents wanting to eliminate all possible sources of Lead exposure) may choose not to purchase this product to use when cooking for their children. It is also important to highlight that this is the test result for one sample of the product tested and that other batches of this same product (from this same brand) might test positive for Lead at different levels. We will consider adding this to our testing schedule again in three to six months (to test another batch of the same product) if there is enough community interest in testing this product again.

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Advice to my Family in Light of These Findings

In response to this testing (and pending any additional testing for other brands of Tapioca Flour that might change my considerations), my advice to my own family members will be as follows:

• We will continue to avoid/ significantly limit flour products and processed package snacks as we always have.
• In the event that they choose a packaged/ processed snack as a rare treat, IF a Tapioca ingredient (Tapioca Flour, Tapioca Starch, Tapioca Syrup) is far down on the list of ingredients on a product (not a primary ingredient in first, second, or third place on the list of ingredients on the package), I will not consider that a product that they should avoid entirely based solely on that factor (although they may want to avoid it given concerns for other ingredients — depending on what the other ingredients are). I will however recommend that they should limit consumption of that specific finished food product until we can do further testing of the product.
• As a mother of young adults and teens who were acutely Lead-poisoned as children, I will continue to recommend that they avoid anything with Tapioca Flour as a primary ingredient (or second or third ingredient), and I will also recommend they avoid cooking with Tapioca Flour/ Tapioca Starch in our home.

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Some additional reading & links that may be of interest:

1. The Lead Safe Mama affiliate link to purchase the test kits we used for this testing.
2. Our landing page with links to all of the food test results for products we have tested.
3. How to send your own food samples into a lab for testing (the cost is $195 per single food sample tested for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, and Arsenic) or collaborate with Lead Safe Mama, LLC on the food testing we are doing.
4. The Food category of articles here on Lead Safe Mama dot com. 

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Amazon links are affiliate links. If you purchase something after clicking on a Lead Safe Mama, LLC Amazon affiliate link, Lead Safe Mama, LLC may receive a percentage of what you spend — at no extra cost to you.

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Lab report for the product pictured: