Consumer Reports Magazine Covered The Work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC Again: Toxic Cassava Flour Products

Published: May 7, 2025 – Wednesday

Hi all! The link to today’s new Consumer Reports article (on Cassava Flour Lead Contamination) is below. I am so thankful for the team at Consumer Reports – for taking the initiative (in collaboration with Lead Safe Mama, LLC) to replicate Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s findings in a follow up study about this concern, and then to go above and beyond by doing a deep dive into the issue with this comprehensive article on the subject.
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While there are many points in the article that are strongly in opposition to the stand taken by Lead Safe Mama, LLC related to the specific concern of Lead contamination in Cassava-Flour based products (fundamentally: “no safe level of Lead exposure” means “no safe level of lead exposure”, and rating products based on their comparative levels of Lead content is a misguided approach — especially when using industry influenced serving-size-based metrics for those evaluations when it is a known fact that most Americans will eat more than the recommended serving size of any given product in a sitting or in a day) — we are also incredibly thankful that Consumer Reports took the time to do such a detailed investigation into the issue (again — confirming the findings of Lead Safe Mama, LLC).
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In spite of our disparate perspectives on the need to eliminate any known source of Lead exposure whenever possible, we believe this Consumer Reports article will precipitate a new level of awareness of the concern for potential food-based Lead exposure, which will – in turn – result in more pediatricians evaluating the potential of this risk for Lead exposure from Gluten Free diets, especially in cases of “mysterious” Lead exposure in children. This is a significant potential outcome that cannot be underestimated in terms of the societal value of today’s Consumer Reports article.
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I also want to take a moment to profoundly thank everyone in the Lead Safe Mama online community (more than 2.3 million of you – reading our articles and participating in this work in the past year alone, by helping to get this laboratory testing done and helping Lead Safe Mama, LLC to cover our reporting costs related to this issue — over the past year). Thank you.
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This outcome is the result of a TEAM effort with the Lead Safe Mama online community. National coverage from Consumer Reports Magazine (Consumer Reports Advocacy) would not have come to pass without YOUR participation in this movement. So thank you. Thank you so much from ALL OF US here at Lead Safe Mama, LLC. Thank you for being part of the international conversation for Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention and Consumer Goods Safety. This impact and outcome would not have been possible without all of you.
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Tamara Rubin
Owner – Lead Safe Mama, LLC
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P.S. Thank you also to our friends at MyTapScore dot com / GoSimpleLab dot com for helping us with our initial rounds of testing on the cassava flour products last year (helping us confirm what we knew would be the case based on decades of past scientific research into the issue — and helping us identify specific products of concern by brand, by ingredient profile and by product name). Here’s a link to the SimpleLab consumer level test kits available on Amazon (aflink), although we did not use these kits for most of our testing (since the low threshold of detection we require for our testing is lower than typically noted in this test) – these kits are a great option for most consumers: https://amzn.to/4kcrIpY
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Consumer Reports Article Link: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/cassava-flour-chips-bread-more-contain-high-levels-of-lead-a7817220954/
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Here’s the link to our landing page with links to all of the lab testing of products we have published to date:
https://tamararubin.com/2024/05/food-articles/
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Here’s the link to our current list of Lab-tested SAFER PRODUCT CHOICES that we have found as a result of this community-collaborative, independent, third-party, laboratory testing initiative: https://tamararubin.com/2025/04/73/
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Heres’ the link to our documentary film about the concern:
https://youtu.be/lMbhbwMhs1U?si=Iw1ZnR7O7o4WM_VB