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 six 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!
This is an ad-free article.
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!
For safer snack ideas, click here.
For links to all NINE food items we have tested so far that tested “non-detect” for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, and Arsenic, click the image below (with the big purple and pink number NINE)!
Published: August 23, 2024
General Rules for Evaluating Food Test Results (in the absence of testing every single product on the market!)
- Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s “non-detect” findings should never be considered relevant/ applicable across an entire brand or product line.
- More specifically, Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s “non-detect” findings should never be extrapolated as being possibly relevant for other products from the same brand with different ingredient profiles.
- Examples:
- Jovial Organic Einkorn Flour is negative/ “non-detect” for toxicants
- Jovial rice pastas and Jovial cassava pastas each tested positive for unsafe levels of toxicants (heavy metals)
- Examples:
- Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s “non-detect” laboratory findings (for the food testing we are conducting) can be reasonably extrapolated as possibly/ likely relevant for other products from the same brand ONLY if the different products have the exact same ingredients.
- Example:
- Jacobsen’s Oregon-sourced Kosher Sea Salt likely has the same (or similar) test results as their Oregon-sourced Flake Salt (it is the same single-ingredient product, from the same source, in a different form/shape).
- However, we do not expect Jacobsen’s Italian-harvested sea salt to test the same as their Oregon-sourced sea salts (which is one reason we are working on getting their Italian salt tested separately).
- Another example:
- We are anticipating that Jovial Organic Einkorn Flour Crackers may test similarly to the Jovial Organic Einkorn Flour product.
- Example:
- Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s findings of unsafe levels of Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic and Mercury in specific brands and products should, on the other hand, be extrapolated across a brand in the absence of testing other products from that brand (especially if the products generally have similar base ingredient profiles — even if some ingredients are different).
- Example #1) We expect all Simple Mills Sweet Thins (in different flavors ) to test similarly toxic (have similar heavy metal profiles) as the base ingredients are the same.
- Example #2) We expect all Seven Sundays Sunflower Cereals (in different flavors) to test similarly toxic (have similar heavy metal profiles) as the base ingredients are the same.
MORE good news, Everyone!
- These GoGo Squeez Organic Fruit On The Go pouches (in AppleApple flavor) are now officially the NINTH food product we have tested and reported on that resulted in “Non-Detect” for the four metals of concern we are looking at with this community-funded laboratory testing Lead Safe Mama, LLC is conducting.
- Here is our affiliate link for the exact product we tested: https://amzn.to/3XhWYLe
- What these test results mean is that this product tested “effectively negative” for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, and Arsenic.
- We say “effectively negative” because, as with all laboratory testing, there is a “low threshold of detection” the testing is capable of — and within the context of this low threshold of detection for the testing we completed, this product did not test positive for these four toxic heavy metals.
- While the product could possibly still have heavy metals at trace (very low) levels BELOW our laboratory’s low threshold of detection, it is very important to note that NOT ONLY did this product test non-detect for heavy metals (given our lab’s low threshold of detection), but our lab’s low threshold of detection for the testing and reporting done on this product ALSO falls well below the Action Levels for toxic heavy metals recommended by the scientific and medical community in the proposed Baby Food Safety Act of 2021 (the most restrictive and health-protective standard proposed for heavy metal contamination of foods to date).
- The MOST IMPORTANT piece of information to share here (the MOST IMPORTANT outcome of testing this product) is that it serves as yet another piece of SOLID EVIDENCE (clearly-demonstrated scientific evidence) that the proposed Action Levels (included in the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021) are ACHIEVABLE. This is useful information in challenging all the food companies (Lesser Evil, Serenity Kids, Cerebelly, Selina Naturally, Simple Mills, and others) that are defending unsafe levels of heavy metals we have found in their “healthy” or “Purity Award-Winning,” and otherwise touted as “safer,” products.
Here’s the affiliate link again for this food product: https://amzn.to/3XhWYLe
Some additional reading & links that may be of interest:
- This is the Lead Safe Mama affiliate link to purchase the test kits we used for this testing.
- Here’s our landing page with links to all the food test results for products we have tested and reported on so far.
- Here’s our landing page listing all the food testing we have in-progress (at the lab/ pending, etc.) — please consider making a contribution in support of any of the pending crowd-funded foods if they are a food you use! Thank you.
- Here’s information on 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) and how to collaborate with Lead Safe Mama, LLC on the food testing we are organizing.
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.
Lab report for the GoGo Squeez Organic Fruit On The Go (in AppleApple flavor) product pictured:
Jessica says
Alleluia!!
Angela says
Thank goodness! Finally something we eat that I don’t have to find a safer swap for <3 Yay!!
Tessa says
Good news. I wonder about the mold that can be in these though. 🙁
Lisa says
So happy for this one! This is a snack, as a mom, that I take with me everywhere.
Melissa says
Thank goodness!!! My child is autistic and probably eats crates of this stuff! His world would fall apart if I took this out of his diet. I’ve always been insistent on this brand in the organic variety. So glad I made the right choice!
Tamara says
Yay!
Darryl says
I’m confused because consumer reports shows it has metal in it ..?
Tamara says
Our low threshold of detection for this test was 1.5 ppb.
Consumer Reports showed 0.4 ppb (in January of 2024) which is “less than 1.5 ppb”.
So our results are consistent.
It looks like they tested the non-organic and we tested the organic – so there would be some difference possibly, but it’s hard to know without testing down to a lower threshold of detection.
The amount that is hazardous to young children is 5 ppb and up.
Consumer Reports also did not make their lab reports public – so I do not know what their low threshold of detection was for their test, I will ask them!
T