June 15, 2024
Saturday
Hello from Big Bear Lake, California (we’ve gotten so many miles in over the past couple of weeks, helping families from Northern Oregon to Southern California and beyond!)…
Today we created five new GoFundMe campaigns for food testing (based on requests from Lead Safe Mama community members around the world and across all our social media platforms). All five of those are linked above.
Funnily enough… the one I want to talk most about is the unexpected one… the one people everywhere seem to be angry about — angry we are even considering testing it! So then, here are my thoughts about Kellogg’s Fruit Loops — and all the reasons (or at least a handful of them) we would like to test for heavy metals (let me count the ways!):
#1.) I am friendly with Vani Hari, also known as Food Babe, and during one of our recent phone calls she asked me to test them. She’s super nice, and very smart, BTW (just in case you were curious). She’s hopeful that the test results might offer more points of argumentation for demanding that Kellogg’s clean up their act (across the board) by making safer and healthier products — particularly products marketed to young children!
#2.) Many other Lead Safe Mama community members asked us to test this product, too! People mentioned this product in comments on social media — along with several other conventional well-known food products (Oreos, Doritos, Cheetos, and Cheerios, to name a few) — as food products that might help give us comparative data, which will create some context for all the testing we are conducting on “natural,” “gluten-free,” and “organic” products!
#3.) We have a theory/ hypothesis developing (based on the food testing we have completed to date), that certain kinds of heavy metal contamination might come from specific machinery designed and used to make certain types of food (regardless of the ingredients of this food). Testing this “conventional” food item will inform that hypothesis — one way or another.
#4.) So many of these “natural” and “organic” food companies assert that they simply cannot make Lead-free foods — that it is “impossible!” They repeatedly, absurdly claim that “all foods have some degree of Lead contamination — and our products are no different!” If this particular food tests Lead-free, or very low-Lead (as others have), it will be one more piece of data debunking that food-industry-constructed-and-perpetuated myth. It will also help us to broaden the publicly available knowledge-base, expanding available information quantifying the scope and range of potential Lead-contamination in widely-consumed foods.
#5.) The goal of this work is always (always has been) to engage all segments of the population, annd all people — from all walks of life. Testing this food (whether one considers it “food,” or not), then publishing and discussing the test results on this website will likely be an opportunity to engage new voices in the conversation for childhood Lead-poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety!
Those are just some of the reasons (off the top of my head) that I can think of for testing this product.
While I won’t take bets, based on several additional datasets we have collected, I think there is a possibility this food product may test negative for Lead and may test positive for an unsafe level of Cadmium… So if you are as curious about this as I am (and if you can see the benefit of testing this product (or any of the other products listed above), please click any of the GoFundMe links above and contribute to those that may interest you. Even a contribution of $5 or $10 in support of this testing will make a difference. It looks like our upcoming batch of food testing will actually include test results for about 20 different products (especially if all of these get fully funded by this weekend)!
NOTE: Our funding level has gone up since the first round of GoFundMe campaigns for food testing. After working on this testing over the past month, we quickly realized that the original funding goal we had for these campaigns was not covering our base expenses for this testing. The details of the budget for the testing is included in the narrative with each campaign posted on the GoFundMe platform.
Thank you for checking out these links.
Tamara
I noticed the comments about Fruit Loops on Facebook. I’d be curious to know the results as well, but I just contributed to the tapioca flour and will have to wait to contribute to another one. However, I was thinking that some of your followers might be more motivated to contribute to a “natural”/organic formed cereal , but made out of common grains like oats and wheat (like a “natural” cheerios). This would help see if it’s the cassava- based flours or the manufacturing process behind the high lead levels. This would answer some of your questions and maybe more of your followers would contribute because it might be something they eat.
Hi Liz!
Thank you for your contribution!
We actually did some of that cereal testing already (and have some other results pending too):
Here’s one link:
https://tamararubin.com/2024/05/may-2024-independent-laboratory-test-report-for-lovebird-grain-free-cereal-in-cassava-coconut-unsweetened-flavor-blue-box/
Here’s another:
https://tamararubin.com/2024/05/may-2024-independent-laboratory-test-report-for-cascadian-farm-organic-purely-os/
Here’s a link with all of the food testing we have done so far:
https://tamararubin.com/2024/05/links-to-all-of-the-articles-related-to-food-testing-done-by-lead-safe-mama-llc-in-one-place/
Tamara
I love that you’re testing Froot Loops! There’s a huge segment of the population that eats “regular” food vs what is perceived as “clean” food. Everyone can benefit from knowing if there are heavy metals in their food, whether it’s a “health” food or a conventional food. Thank you for including these in your testing.
And I’d also love to know the results for Doritos and Ruffles chips! My kids eat those!
Thank you for commenting!
Doritos will be on the list! We haven’t gotten any other requests for Ruffles yet, but we will make a campaign for that as soon as we get caught up – to see if there are others who are interested in funding that testing.
Tamara