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Just Ingredients Chocolate Protein Powder Tests Positive for Lead, Arsenic, & Cadmium: 2024 Laboratory Report

2024· 2024 Article· 2024 Food Article· 2024 Laboratory Testing· Food· Food Testing· Halloween Candy· Halloween Candy Testing

  

Quick note from Tamara Rubin:

Unsurprisingly, this product tested positive for Lead, Cadmium, and Arsenic.

  • We have not yet tested a single protein powder that has come back from the lab with a report stating it was “non-detect” for toxicants.
  • We also have not yet tested a single (brown) chocolate product that has tested non-detect for toxicants.
  • As a result of those two factors, the product pictured above (a chocolate-flavored protein powder) was certain to test positive for some amount of one or more toxicants.

In my personal opinion, no one should be consuming any protein powders unless they have a medical condition and such a product is prescribed by their doctor. Outside of that scenario, in the absence of independent, third-party testing (total content testing with results in parts per billion — NOT “serving size”-related testing — conducted and paid for by an organization that is not the manufacturer of the product), ALL protein powders should be assumed to be relatively heavily contaminated (with a combination of some amount of one or more of the following three toxicants: Lead, Cadmium, and/or Arsenic).

This type of product (protein powders) should not be considered “food” or other type of supplement to the diet (and should not be integrated into anyone’s daily diet) because of the specific concern for the potential for persistent, chronic, low-level heavy metal exposure, which can lead to a wide range of significant health concerns — including but not limited to infertility and other reproductive disorders.

Frankly, I would go so far as to stating I feel it is unnecessary to test other brands of similar types of products, because we can be fairly certain they are all contaminated (as a class of products). It is also important to note that children should NEVER be given a product like this especially (again, unless prescribed by a doctor to address a diagnosed medical concern).

We anticipate this company (Just Ingredients) will deflect blame when responding to these test results once they are published. Just Ingredients has solidly laid the groundwork for this position in the weeks leading up to this moment (using the same old genre of bottom-line-protective b.s. statements, like “it’s not our fault,” “all food is contaminated,” or “the level of heavy metals in this product is so tiny that it is a safe amount,” and “your body will detox any metals contamination if you take care of yourself and eat a balanced diet,” yadda, yadda, yadda). We anticipate this reaction, because members of the Lead Safe Mama community who are also customers of Just Ingredients and asked the company about the toxicant profile of their products have shared similar responses with us already.

It is important to reiterate here that there is no safe level of Lead exposure.

It is also important to reiterate here that Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Cadmium causes cancer.

Heavy metals accumulate in your body over your lifetime and there is no safe level of exposure (no matter what level of spin a product manufacturer might use to deflect blame and reassure their customers that the amount [or type] of heavy metals in their product are safe). 

As consumers, we should especially be outraged when a company selling a “health-food” type product or supplement knowingly sells such a product with heavy-metal contamination (at any level).

UPDATE — 11/6/2024 — 3:33 p.m. PST

A Lead Safe Mama community member just shared this HILARIOUS (a textbook deflection) response from the owner of Just Ingredients. It sounds like she did not bother to read this article, which has the ACTUAL LAB REPORT with all lab info and the testing methodology listed.

Update #2 — 11/6/2024 — Wednesday: 6:18 p.m. PST

A Lead Safe Mama community member was able to find Just Ingredients’ own testing for this product, and — amusingly enough — their test results were the same as ours, within a reasonable margin of error!

Below is the graphic we put together to share on social media, followed by a full screenshot (enlarged) of their internal test results.

  • Their result for Lead was 13 parts per billion.
    • Our result was 12 ppb (essentially, scientifically, the same number).
  • Our result for Mercury was “Less than 5 ppb.”
    • Theirs was 2 ppb (which is consistent, as 2 is less than 5).
  • Their result for Cadmium is 68 ppb, which is within a reasonable margin of error from our result of 71 ppb.
  • Their result for Arsenic was “non-detect,” or less than 1 ppb.
    • Ours came in at a “safe” level of 8 ppb, which is a reasonable variation that could be due to testing methodology or batch variation.
    • In either case, both arsenic test results are consistent in demonstrating there is not a concerning level of Arsenic in this product (by any standard).

What this means: This means the people at Just Ingredients’ don’t know how to read a lab report. This also means they don’t understand the concern for the potentially significant impacts of low-level, persistent (chronic/ daily) exposure caused by daily ingestion of even minute (seemingly insignificant to those who don’t understand) amounts of highly poisonous toxicants — including Lead, Mercury, and Cadmium.

 

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).

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!

Important Background: What is an Action Level?

Please note the following key points:

The original lab report for this product is below (at the bottom of this page).

The graphic above shows the levels of metals detected in this product (in red) along with the low threshold of detection (in orange, above the action levels discussed/ or in green, below the action levels discussed) for each metal not detected with the laboratory testing Lead Safe Mama, LLC had completed for this product. The numbers are juxtaposed (in blue) to the “Action Level” proposed by the medical and scientific community in 2021 as part of the Baby Food Safety Act. For this round of testing, SimpleLab (our laboratory testing provider) had a change of labs and their low threshold of detection is slightly higher than in previous testing rounds.

  • These 2021 levels were proposed as “Action Levels” because they are (in fact) protective of human health.
  • An “Action Level” is NOT the same as a “Maximum Allowable Level.”
    • Many food manufacturers misinterpret guidance on heavy metals to mean “allowable levels” and consider it reasonable for products to test positive below these levels.
    • This is a (perhaps intentional?) misunderstanding/ misinterpretation the food industry makes — a misunderstanding that food manufacturers use to justify the presence of heavy metals in products.
  • Heavy metals accumulate in the body.
    • It is the cumulative/ aggregate impact of heavy metal exposure (over a lifetime) that makes even small/ incidental/ seemingly trivial exposures particularly damaging and dangerous. You can read more about that here.
  • Once a food product has the amount of heavy metal (Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, or Arsenic) noted (above) as the “Action Level,” that product is officially considered (by the scientific and medical community) unsafe for consumption by children as toxicants (found at-or-above these levels) are in the range of heavy metal levels that have been demonstrated to cause lasting harm.
  • Action Levels are unrelated to serving size.
    • Action Levels are relevant for any amount of a food product that may be consumed (any quantity of the food in question).
    • PPB (parts per billion/ ppb) measurements are a percentage (albeit a very small percentage) and apply to any quantity of the food product tested.
    • For more discussion about serving size considerations (and why relying on “serving size” to limit toxicant exposure is not a relevant metric/ not a metric protective of human health), read this article.
  • These “Action Levels” proposed in 2021 are the levels at which the scientific and medical community believe the manufacturer (or government) needs to take ACTION to fix the problem.
    • One “Action” would be for the manufacturer to take steps to reduce the levels of toxicants in the food product.
    • Another “Action” would be for the manufacturer to cease sales of the product until the product could be made safe.
    • Another “Action” would be for the manufacturer to inform the public that a specific food product has an unsafe level of the metal detected at-or-above the “Action Level” — making a highly-visible public announcement regarding which relevant batches of the product should be recalled/ no longer consumed.
  • The Action Levels proposed with the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021 were not arbitrary toxicant levels, but were proposed because they are the levels most protective of human health. However, the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021 was not passed into law.
  • Regardless of the fact the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021 never passed into law — and it is therefore legal to have foods and supplements marketed for consumption by children test positive for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, and Arsenic at-or-above these levels — these Action Levels still reflect the current (modern/ relevant) advice of the medical and scientific communities as levels both achievable by the industry and safeguards of infant and toddler health.
  • Food and supplement industry lobbyists fought against formalizing these proposed “Action Levels” as a government standard, alleging the levels were unachievable.
  • The list of safer choices (below) clearly demonstrate these Action Levels as achievable across a range of food types (salt, flour, coffee, oatmeal, chia seeds, hemp seeds, soy milk, packaged fruit-based snacks, beverages, and more).
  • The legitimacy of these levels as “Action Levels”/ “Levels of Concern” (even though they were not adopted as law) is mirrored by the legitimacy of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ level of concern for Lead in water, which is 1 ppb despite the FDA’s official “level of concern” for Lead in water being 15 ppb (you can read more about that here).

 “Simply Not Achievable”

To reiterate: While the packaged, processed food industry would have consumers (and the government) believe the standards proposed in 2021 are unachievable, this industry position (an oft-rearticulated response to nearly every set of laboratory test results for food and supplements that we have published to date) is simply not true. It is possible to make safer processed, packaged food products and supplements that fall well below the safety limits for toxicants proposed within the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021. To wit, several of the products listed below tested non-detect for Lead with the low threshold of detection being “less than 1.5 ppb.”

Below is a list of links to the safer products we have identified with laboratory testing. To see the lab report for any of the products below, type the brand name into the search bar at the top of any page on this website (and scroll down to the bottom of the related article). To see the lab report for the product pictured above, please scroll down to the bottom of this article.

Products (foods and supplements) that have tested non-detect for all Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, and Arsenic (with the limits of detection noted in the lab report for the specific product listed, note: There is some variation in the low threshold of detection for some of these lab reports):

  1. Sea Salt (Oregon, USA): https://amzn.to/4dcbk5L
  2. Organic Einkorn Flour (Italy): https://amzn.to/3LIqxix
  3. Organic, Gluten-Free, Sprouted Rolled Oats (Canada): https://amzn.to/3WIQ1BN
  4. Organic, Gluten-Free Chia Seeds (Mexico): https://amzn.to/3YvE7xC
  5. Organic Espresso Roast Ground Coffee (Multi-country Origin, Non-USA): https://amzn.to/3yo1eiL  
  6. Grape Tonic: https://amzn.to/4cjFYZu
  7. Organic Hemp Seeds: https://amzn.to/4e05RP9
  8. Organic Apple Sauce Pouch: https://amzn.to/3XhWYLe
  9. Organic Layered Fruit Bars — Strawberry Banana Flavor: https://amzn.to/3WQEekA
  10. Organic Layered Fruit Bars — Raspberry Lemonade Flavor: https://amzn.to/3XcFsIp
  11. Organic Soy Milk: https://amzn.to/4dwev8l
  12. Organic Perilla Seed Oil (Korea): https://amzn.to/3NDt7Yc
  13. ByHeart Infant Formula (USA-Made): https://amzn.to/48DJjTb
  14. Kendamil Organic Follow-On Milk (European/ British Toddler Formula, for 6-12 months): Link (not available on Amazon)
  15. Holle Bio Goat Stage 2 Infant Formula (for 6-10 months, organic, European — Swiss/ German/ Austrian): Link (not available on Amazon)
  16. Nature’s Path Envirokidz Organic Panda Puffs: https://amzn.to/4fo1crf
  17. Chosen Foods 100% Avocado Oil (not organic): https://amzn.to/3YDZSuv
  18. Nordic Naturals Omega-3 Fish Oil: https://amzn.to/48q1j2V
  19. Mary Ruth’s Organic Toddler Multivitamin Liquid Drops with Iron: https://amzn.to/3YPhcgx
  20. Stand by for more!

Products that tested positive for one or more toxicants, but at a level considered safe by all standards (with the limits of detection noted in the lab report for the specific product listed, note: There is some variation in the low threshold of detection for some of these lab reports):

  1. Chosen Foods 100% Pure Avocado Oil — Organic (postive for traces of Arsenic): https://amzn.to/3BVQYQa
  2. Stand by!

Amazon links are affiliate links. 

Published: November 6, 2024
Wednesday

Hello! We are continuing to work on publishing a LOT of test results very quickly this month. We sent 67 products to the lab for testing in September of 2024 and 61 products in October of 2024. We have not yet reported on all of those products as we are still awaiting the final reports from the lab for many of them.

We will be updating this section of each article (with more information about the specific product and other similar products for context) as time permits, but we wanted to make sure the greater Lead Safe Mama community (and the general public) had access to this scientific data (about foods and supplements in their home) as quickly as possible.

Please scroll down to see the full laboratory test report for the product pictured above. Thank you for your patience.

As there are almost no reasonable safety thresholds proposed for toxicants (heavy metals) consumed by adults (in foods and supplements), our focus is (as always) on the health of children. The available proposed safety thresholds (and guidance) for foods consumed by adults are not set at levels protective of human health and are therefore not relevant to the work we do here at Lead Safe Mama, LLC.

This is the Lead Safe Mama Amazon affiliate link to purchase a test kit similar to what we use for our laboratory testing.

To see more articles related to the laboratory testing of foods and supplements Lead Safe Mama, LLC is conducting (including background on this initiative and safer food choices and guidelines), click the pink square below. To see the full, independent, third-party laboratory report for the product pictured above, please scroll down to the bottom of this page.

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 product pictured above:

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