- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
I’m linking this article here since it has Canada specific information.
How is this regulated in Canada?
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in an email that it is responsible for the surveillance of chemical residues in foods and how they follow Canadian regulations, while Health Canada sets the maximum level for environmental and industrial pollutants in food.
However, it’s not clear whether these protein products are regulated as food or natural health products, and Health Canada could not respond to CBC’s questions by deadline.
Goodridge wants to see Health Canada set guidelines for these protein powders or dietary supplements, he said.
“There are no specific federal limits for lead in protein powders or dietary supplements,” Goodridge said. “This, in my opinion, is a big regulatory gap.”
This studies shows that Organic, Plant based and Chocolate flavored proteins seem to make much more likely to have higher amounts of lead.
https://cleanlabelproject.org/protein-study-2-0/
This is the ConsumerReport doc with the actual mcg per serving numbers.
https://article.images.consumerreports.org/image/upload/v1760108748/prod/content/dam/CRO-Images-2025/Special Projects/Consumer-Reports-Protein-Powders-and-Shakes-Contain-High-Levels-of-Lead-Methodology-Test-Results.pdf
That clean label project seems dodgy. I clicked through everything I could find, and all they’d do is point fingers at big, vague findings, like plant and chocolate proteins are more likely to have lead. They’ll list their little list of products they certify… but not give values. Note the difference in comparison to the consumer reports, which explicitly says how much contaminant per serving they found.
This whole hype is bullshit, Canadians get 0.1ug/kg body weight per day. Even the ‘worst’ one listed still falls within the norm for an 80kg person.
I wonder if the chocolate ones are from sourcing from counties using leaded gasoline, or used it more recently than countries that stopped.
This was an issue decades ago since farms in countries had old cars that still required leaded fuel for lubricating valves etc and that fall out landed on crops.
From my interpretation of looking around a bit on the topic of lead in food and especially supplements. There definitely a decent amount of companies that don’t seem to care enough to know.
Some companies could go from low to high heavy metal contents and for them it’s luck of the draw since they aren’t that on top of things.
We really need a proper regulatory network for these things.
I thought the lubricating valves thing about leaded was a myth. Sunshine just posted about it yesterday
Hmm, maybe. Original purpose was higher octane to prevent engine pre ignition, but I thought added affect was valve slide lube
Aviation fuel (like personal sized planes) is still leaded because it makes the engine more reliable.
That’s disturbing
Small aircraft make up a very tiny fraction of gasoline consumption and an engine failure is a lot more serious for them than a car. It’s really only a problem if you spend a lot of time hanging around airports.
There’s is no am amount of lead that is safe in your system.
That is still being used just because the alternative is cheaper is still disturbing to me.
There are many many small communities that can only be serviced by small plane. They are the most at risk from this and the least able to deal with it.
It is disturbing and I hate it. “It’s only a little” isn’t a good enough argument. Sorry dude you will need a better rational for me to get over that
“It’s only a little” is perfectly reasonable when ‘a little’ is below the threshold of doing harm. For example, mercury compounds are still used in medicine because the risk of harm is negligible at the concentrations it is used. Flourine is cartoonishly dangerous but it is in water and toothpaste.