More heavy metal contamination!

[BrianMDelaney]

http://labs.naturalnews.com/

 

Some people have tried to discredit Mike Adams, but I've found no evidence that he's not credible (nor I have found a lot of evidence that he is credible, but still). I tend to believe he knows how to use his equipment and did indeed find the levels of heavy metals he reports on.

 

By the way, he, too, found a huge amount of cadmium in a Navitas product.

 

Brian

 

PS a video he made:

 

http://uncensoredhealth.net/mike-adams/?v=fZAosmKfP0s&orderby=published&UTVauthor=TheHealthRanger

[Michael R]

Some people have tried to discredit Mike Adams, but I've found no evidence that he's not credible (nor I have found a lot of evidence that he is credible, but still).

I trust you mean "I've found no evidence that he's not credible in reporting lab results." Mike Adams is a fucking nutjob. From Wikipedia, some of whihc I've verified myself by suffering through viewing his rants, and the rest of which has citations in the Wiki entry:

 

NaturalNews (formerly Newstarget) is a website operated by Mike Adams. It is dedicated to alternative medicine and various conspiracy theories,[2] such as "chemtrails",[3] the alleged dangers of fluoride in drinking water,[4] (as well as those of monosodium glutamate[5] and aspartame) and alleged health problems caused by "toxic" ingredients in vaccines,[6] including the now-discredited link to autism.[7]

 

It features guest authors such as anti-vaccinationist Joseph Mercola, and anti-vaccinationist and conspiracy theorist Jon Rappoport ...

 

Michael Allen "Mike" Adams ... is an AIDS denialist,[10] a 9/11 truther,[11] a birther[10] ... He has endorsed Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, a movie about Stanislaw Burzynski [which portrays him as a victim of pharma conspiracy to shut down cancer cures, with FDA as the enforcers -MR].[14]

I have no idea as to how reliable his chemical testing is: the page you linked seems to suggest he's actually doing the lab work himself, which would surprise me. But let's not give anyone the impression that he is, in general, a reliable source of health information.

 

Thank you for posting the info on heavy metal contamination, particularly the ConsumerLab tests on cadmium in cocoa.

[BrianMDelaney]

I trust you mean "I've found no evidence that he's not credible in reporting lab results." Mike Adams is a fucking nutjob.

 

No, but that was before reading this post of yours! He does sound a touch batty. So, now, yes, I would mean "...credible in reporting lab results."

 

Thank you for posting the info on heavy metal contamination, particularly the ConsumerLab tests on cadmium in cocoa.

 

My pleasure. I'm starting to think that cacao products are so generally prone to heavy metal contamination that it might be wisest to avoid them altogether.

[BrianMDelaney]

I heard from Big Tree Farms (source for, among others, Earth Circle Organics' Balinese cacao products). Attached is a copy of a recent analysis.

 

And I heard from Kevala:

 

Thank your concern about this matter. We do test cadmium and lead in our products. We have a specification of

 

Last COA results for cadmium were 0.356 ppm and for lead

 

 

 

Pesticide Residue & Heavy Metals - Cacao Powder.pdf

[Guest Shannon]

 

I heard from Big Tree Farms (source for, among others, Earth Circle Organics' Balinese cacao products). Attached is a copy of a recent analysis.

 

And I heard from Kevala:

 

Thank your concern about this matter. We do test cadmium and lead in our products. We have a specification of <3 ppm in both elements.

 

Last COA results for cadmium were 0.356 ppm and for lead <0.002 ppm. Which comply with Kevala Standards. Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

 

 

Brian, I have also received this from Big Tree Farms. I find it odd that they don't disclose the lab that tested this powder. Also, at the bottom, it says that it was approved by Tassa Agustriana. When I look up that name, she is an employee of BTF. I am a little concerned that this test may be made up. It would be hard to do in a design program. There is just no seal from the actual testing lab anywhere.

[Michael R]

First: Shannon, please do me and you and everyone on the Forum a favor: register on the Forums and log in each time before you post! It's fine if you want to use a pseudonym, but registering and logging in will ensure that you can't be impersonated and will make it easier to keep track of your (you can set up your preferences to send you an email when someone responds to one of your posts or a thread in which you're interested), input, and progress.

 

 

I heard from Big Tree Farms (source for, among others, Earth Circle Organics' Balinese cacao products). Attached is a copy of a recent analysis.

 

And I heard from Kevala:

 

Thank your concern about this matter. We do test cadmium and lead in our products. We have a specification of <3 ppm in both elements.

 

Last COA results for cadmium were 0.356 ppm and for lead <0.002 ppm. Which comply with Kevala Standards. Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

Brian, I have also received this from Big Tree Farms. I find it odd that they don't disclose the lab that tested this powder. Also, at the bottom, it says that it was approved by Tassa Agustriana. When I look up that name, she is an employee of BTF. I am a little concerned that this test may be made up. It would be hard to do in a design program. There is just no seal from the actual testing lab anywhere.

 

 

This isn't necessarily the flag-raiser that it sounds. Unfortunately, for a variety of largely understandable reasons, this kind of practice is quite common in the food and supplement industry. Contracting laboratories sometimes have it in their contracts that they will not be identified as the contracting lab or have their CoAs reproduced for fear of getting dragged into litigation or game of dueling CoAs with a supplier who has been told that its product has failed, or a rival company or consumer with their own analysis. They also rightly worry that companies will pull a bait-and-switch, sending them a pristine batch of material to test and then labeling a substandard product with the same lot number, thereby getting their name caught up in a fraud.

 

For their part, companies  sometimes don't want to disclose the labs on which they rely as being a point of competition, particularly if the lab is very inexpensive, or can do highly specialized tests, or is young and not well-established.

 

On the other hand, companies often provide consumers with transcriptions instead of original CoAs to hide the fact that the company is actually not contracting for an independent analysis, but relying on a CoA provided by the  supplier; in this case, they hide the fact either because it will rightly be understood that this is the fox guarding the henhouse, and/or to keep their suppliers secret for competitive reasons.

 

I would certainly encourage youse (Brian and Shannon) to ask the folks at Kevala whether the analysis was done in their own in-house lab, or a contracting lab for whose analysis they paid independently of the supplier, or relies on supplier-supplied information (including a CoA from an "independent" lab hired by the supplier).

 

Brian, or anyone: any objection to my merging this thread with "Cadmium contamination in cacao products"? If not, any preference on what title to use for the merged thread?

[DaveCowen]

Hi,

 

I'm a newbie and registered just to post my response on cadmium in cocoa powder as a FYI.  I found CR due to googling on this, and as a customer of Trader Joe's and a user of their cocoa baking powder in my afternoon drink I have been very concerned regarding heavy metal toxicity and the Consumer Labs report.  CR seems to be one of the most active forums discussing the potential problems, but I couldn't find anything specific when it came to the CL report and Trader Joe's.  When I asked in the store I got the response that "Consumer Labs put out a report that lied and they never contacted us.  We are TJ's and we only put out natural and healthy products... if it was a problem we wouldn't have it on our shelves.  Of course we check stuff like this but we don't have any more information to provide you with."  Definitely an unsatisfactory response, but I did eventually reach someone in Customer Service who was happy to help and finally got a number of answers from Trader Joe's on their product and wanted to pass it on:

 

Alkali used in processing - no

Cadmium <0.6 ppm or it doesn't ship to their stores (so it could be less, but this is the max allowable)

Lead <0.0001 ppm or it doesn't ship to their stores (so it could be less, but this is the max allowable)

Polyphenols - 4 grams per 100 grams of product (I actually asked about flavanols, but since it isn't a nutritional supplement they don't measure/track it and she provided polyphenol levels instead)

 

Long story short, I think I feel good about continuing to use their cocoa powder.  In comparing their response to Kevala's (provided by Brian), it seems like they are somewhat comparable and ok.  Correct me if I'm wrong and thanks!

 

Quote

Thank your concern about this matter. We do test cadmium and lead in our products. We have a specification of <3 ppm in both elements.

 

Last COA results for cadmium were 0.356 ppm and for lead <0.002 ppm. Which comply with Kevala Standards. Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

 

Dave