Here’s Lead Safe Mama LLC’s Budget for Laboratory Testing of Foods & Supplements

Updated: April 2026

The budget breakdown is below (scroll down for that). As far as the activities we do related to lab testing and reporting for the Lead Safe Mama, LLC Community Collaborative Laboratory Testing Initiative (the activities your contributions and sponsorships help to fund) – this includes:
  1. Creating a crowd-funding campaign to raise funds to cover the costs of testing and reporting (when relevant)
    • Organizing and reviewing product nominations and choosing which products to launch campaigns for based on thousands of nominated products
    • Drafting the narrative
    • Creating graphics (when relevant)
    • Managing and tracking the crowd-funding campaign (including sharing the campaign on our website, social media, newsletter, Patreon, etc.)
    • Posting updates to the campaign (when relevant)
  2. Once the funding has been raised additional next steps include
    • Purchasing the product for testing 
      • We purchase the product direct from the manufacturer or from the manufacturer’s online store on Amazon when appropriate (or from a brick and mortar store when necessary).
      • We purchase sufficient quantity of the product (usually a case, or if it is sold in packs of multiples – a multipack) to keep samples of the product in storage in case the manufacturer challenges our test results at all.
    • Photographing the product and capturing online advertising images of the product to make sure the product received is the same product ordered and there are not differences in packaging / labeling or ingredients.
    • Reviewing all marketing materials for the product (websites, social media ads, etc.) and capturing screenshots of any  online marketing claims related to heavy metals content (or lack thereof) for the specific product — including any relevant general statements made by the company. 
    • Filing and organizing the data we collect related to the product.
  3. Sending the product to the lab
    • You can find more detail about our process in our recent articles with lab test results (here’s one example).
    • We purchase lab-submission sterile sealed containers for sending products in.
    • We collect the samples in sterile containers, organize the samples, code the samples, label the samples and fill out forms for the lab with this information.
    • We then have a Lead Safe Mama Team Member hand deliver the samples to the lab in Oregon (for the products we test at that lab).
    • The lab then emails us the report when the testing is completed.
  4. We research the product / product class
    • We do extensive research into scientific studies and background on the product class to help inform our articles (so we can include citations and references whenever necessary).
    • This often also includes research related to health impacts of various heavy metals that might be expected with regular consumption of a specific contaminated food or other contaminated product, as well as research into the current regulatory standards related to that product or product class (and the background of those standards – how and when they were passed, what industry influence may have impacted the final standards, what are the standards internationally as well as in the United States, etc.)
  5. When we get the reports back
    • We review the data to make sure it is consistent with other testing we have done for that product class and doesn’t represent an anomaly of some kind that would require re-testing.
    • We process the lab report — including adding product specific information, batch specific information, and product image thumbnails to the document.
    • If the testing was sponsored by an individual or manufacturer, we communicate with the sponsor, sharing  the lab test results and context for those results and answer any questions they may have.
    • We create the social media graphics for each product – including a graphic of the lab report, a sharable social media graphic with the lab test result and relevant context language (the fine print on the graphic), and graphics of the product image to use on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Patreon and our website too). There are between 5 and 10 graphics created for each product.
    • We write the article about the product – including the sharable social media graphic and other graphics.
    • Our editor edits the article.
    • We Integrate the lab test result into comparative charts for the product class (to update the chart page and to include the chart in the article when relevant).
    • When relevant we update the lab-tested safer choices list based on the test results.
    • Once the article is edited and published we share the article on Patreon, Instagram, and Facebook
    • If there is a safer choice identified we create Manychat sharable graphics and launch a Manychat post on Instagram and we share the safer choices links on Facebook and Patreon as well.
  6. Then the Lead Safe Mama (LSM) Team Supports The Community related to the test results
    • The team answers questions related to the test results and context  on social media and on the website 
    • This includes public facing questions (on our website, on Facebook, on Patreon, and on Instagram) and questions frequently sent privately via emails or DMs. 
    • If the questions indicate any general misunderstanding of the context or the data presented, we may update the article to include answers to those questions.
  7. The LSM team  shares the lab test results with the manufacturers if they are an accessible company with online contact info. We do this either via a direct email or by instagram DMs — depending on the company.
  8. As time permits, the LSM Team re-shares the links to the published lab reports with everyone who contributed via the crowd-funding campaigns.
  9. The LSM Team reports concerning high results to appropriate agencies (FDA, CPSC, EPA, etc.) and sometimes news outlets (for example the collaborations we did with Consumer Reports magazine).
  10. The LSM Team creates and publishes both graphics and articles with aggregate summaries of related data that we collect through this initiative (our comparative charts for specific product categories). You can find most of those on this link.
  11. The LSM Team stays in close contact with press regarding possible news stories related to our findings.
  12. The LSM Team stays in close contact with several groups of scientists regarding possible follow up studies related to our findings.
  13. We absorb and respond publicly to any push-back from manufacturers in response to the test results we have published.
    • This can include publishing their responses, responding to their responses — either publicly or privately.
    • If we have a private (email) exchange with a manufacturer, we then publish that on social media as well (this sometimes requires creating graphics to share those responses).
  14. We oversee and conduct other basic background work related to the testing and reporting
    • We pack up the product samples for storage and organize them in storage so they are accessible if we need to collect them for any reason (disputes, batch-related questions, etc..)
    • We review the products in storage periodically and dispose of older product samples (and use this review as an opportunity to decide which products should be re-tested).
    • We have periodic team meetings via zoom (our team is around the globe) to troubleshoot, discuss progress, and determine direction of our future testing.
    • Bookkeeping related to the product testing and reporting — including creating and publishing periodic updates for the use of unallocated gifted funds to bridge the gap in funding for testing and reporting that was otherwise not funded. You can see those reports here.
  15. Finally, the LSM team stays on top of the news related to food testing and recalls, which often informs much of the future testing and reporting we do — this includes testing and reporting done on products for which we have not raised funds to cover the cost, as we feel the data for this is critical for rounding out the body of knowledge we have collected.

Q. “Why should we pay more to have this testing done by Lead Safe Mama, LLC instead of just doing it on our own?”

  1. Sponsoring Lead Safe Mama, LLC to complete the testing (and publish the results on our website and social media channels) carries more weight (in terms of demanding transparency and better standards from the companies whose products we are testing) than testing on your own for your personal use.
  2. Having Lead Safe Mama, LLC coordinate the testing also means the test results will reach a wider audience/ will have a greater public benefit (especially long-term, as all of the results for products we test are published on this website).
  3. When Lead Safe Mama, LLC coordinates the testing of a product, we (as a business) also assume the risk/ liability in the event any of the companies attempt to challenge any test results we publish.
  4. IMPORTANT NOTE: Unfortunately, if you test a product on your own, we cannot publish those test results on our website as we need to oversee the full chain-of-custody for the testing (for legal purposes) — from product purchasing to sending the product to the lab to reviewing and publishing the lab report — limiting any potential liability considerations.

We do want to reiterate that testing on your own for personal use is a completely reasonable course of action if you just want to know what the test results are for a product you eat (or your child eats) on a regular basis! 

How to sponsor Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s testing and reporting of a food or supplement product

  • If you would like to sponsor having Lead Safe Mama, LLC test (and report on) a specific single food item (where Lead Safe Mama, LLC buys the item from the manufacturer or a local store, then tests the item and publishes the results so it is publicly available for all to see and you can share the results with the manufacturer via our website — Lead Safe Mama, LLC serves as an independent third-party source), you (or a group of friends) can make a $495.00 contribution to Lead Safe Mama, LLC.
  • $495.00 per product  this is a subsidized rate (where we cover some of the costs with undesignated gifted funds raised through other sources).
  • When we do lab testing and reporting in collaboration with a manufacturer (a company who asks us to lab-test their products for them), our fee is $575.00 per product tested and reported on (with testing for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, and Arsenic).
  • We are also currently crowd-sourcing the funding for many products suggested by the community on GoFundMe and you can find all of our open GoFundMe campaigns linked here.
  • This money (crowd-funded, community group-funded, or contributed by a single individual) covers the cost of purchasing the product, testing the product, and reporting/ publishing the test results – as outlined above.
  • Please note: Contributions are not tax-deductible as we are not a nonprofit.

Cost Breakdown for Lead Safe Mama, LLC Lab Testing & Reporting To Date:

    1. $0 — Cost of Tamara Rubin’s time to support this initiative (Tamara is volunteering her time for this initiative)
      • Tamara’s personal income does not come from the lab testing initiative
    2. $100 to $498 — Cost of laboratory testing
      • Cost is for “Ultra Low Level Testing” 
      • Cost is for testing ONE product for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, and Arsenic
      • Cost range includes the fact that we have had to test about 20% of items multiple times (when low thresholds of detection do not meet our specifications)
      • Cost can be higher than noted in this range if we included testing for other metals (depending on the lab used)
    3. $2 to $450 — Cost of product to be tested (food, supplement, personal care products, cosmetics)
      • $38 is our approximate typical product cost, to date
      • This covers our costs of purchasing a sufficient quantity of the product for testing and to also keep some product “on file” (in storage), should product manufacturers challenge our findings (and should additional testing be needed for any legal reasons).
      • Some products will cost more and some less to meet the required quantity of product for testing (from 5 to 100 grams of material, depending on the lab and testing conducted)
      • Our product cost range to date has been from about $2 on the low-end for a can of specialty soda to about $450 on the high-end to purchase sufficient quantity of some very expensive vitamins/ supplements (sold in low quantities)
      • NOTE: We purchase items online whenever possible so that we have a digital record of the purchase for legal purposes. Many of the specialty foods and supplements are only sold with a subscription or by the case — so a minimum quantity of several units must be purchased (purchasing a single box or package online is not an option)
    4. $35 to $50 — Fees (GoFundMe, PayPal, Venmo, etc)
      • GoFundMe has a minimum 45-cent processing fee (per each individual contribution). So, for example, if we received ninety nine $5 contributions via GoFundMe, the fee would be about $44.55
      • PayPal and Venmo fees can be higher than GoFundMe (as a percentage of the contribution)
    5. $180 to $325 — Additional Lead Safe Mama costs:
      • testing-related administrative assistance/ project assistance
      • testing-related equipment and supplies (gloves, cleaning supplies, etc.)
      • social media support related to the food and supplement testing
      • article editing
      • product archiving (storage)
      • shipping and storage supplies
      • overhead costs related to this portion of the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC
    6. TOTAL: $317 to $1,323 — Total Estimated Cost Range (Midpoint: $830) 
      • Typical cost to date (for the past 12-month period): $654.50
      • Anticipated Average Cost for 2025: $605.50
      • GoFundMe Goal/ Testing Sponsorship Cost set at between $495.00 and $575.00 per item (depending on when the campaign was launched)

Please e-mail Testing@LeadSafeMama.com with “FOOD TESTING” in the subject line if you (alone or with a group of friends) are interested in sponsoring the testing and reporting of a particular food item in the above noted way (or if you would like to nominate a food item for a crowd-sourced funding campaign via GoFundMe, click here).