U.S. food inspectors found “extremely high” levels of lead in cinnamon at a plant in Ecuador that made applesauce pouches tainted with the metal, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday. The recalled pouches have been linked to dozens of illnesses in U.S. kids.
Cinnamon tested from the plant had lead levels more than 2,000 times higher than a maximum level proposed by the FDA, officials said.
The samples came from ground or powdered cinnamon from Negasmart, an Ecuadorian company that supplied the spice to Austrofoods, which made the pouches. The applesauce pouches were sold under three brands — WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. Officials with Austrofoods did not respond to requests for comment about the investigation.
Do did the lead come from the machinery used to grind/power it, or from the soil where the trees are grown?
I guess that, with the source narrowed down to the plant, this is the next question but
One theory is that the cinnamon may have been contaminated for economic reasons, agency officials said. That could mean an ingredient is added or subtracted from a food to to boost its value. For example, compounds like red brick, red lead salt, lead oxide and lead chromate, which mirror cinnamon’s red color, have been added to increase the value of the spice, research shows.
and then
FDA officials said they “cannot take direct action” with Negasmart and are relying on officials in Ecuador for the investigation into the company’s actions. Negasmart does not ship product directly to the U.S. and of Negasmart’s customers, only Austrofoods shipped foods to the U.S., the agency said.
Our government needs to threaten sanctions if they don’t take real action.
Great because damaging the lively hood of 16 million innocnet people is the way to solve things
Fuck anybody involved with adding lead to a food supply. If the other country won’t take action then I’d hope my country will.
That’s just 16 million people who should be motivated to demand a functioning regulatory regime
Yeah, and so it becomes political so no-one will ever know the truth
eh, economic embargo Ecuador to force them to shut down the plant & root out the corruption in the supply chain
Shoot, I missed half the article! I stopped reading at the “earlier coverage” on the page since I thought it was over.
Thanks for the extra context.
What other companies in what other countries did this company supply?
I just discovered those apple cinnamon fruit pouches because the snacks in the office pantry had them. They aren’t the brands listed in the article though, but I’ll probably avoid them for now.
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Or know your sources. I get all my spices from Penzey’s, I absolutely trust them.
https://www.penzeys.com/shop/about-republicans/
“Going forward we would still be glad to have you as customers, but we’re done pretending the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, racism, Covid lies, climate change denial, and threats to democracy are anything other than the risks they legitimately are. If you need us to pretend you are not creating the hurt you are creating in order for you to continue to be our customer, I’m sad to say you might be happier elsewhere.”
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Probably depends if you can find out where the cinnamon you use comes from. I have the same issue with turmeric when the news came out that there was a high amount of lead in the ones that are produced in India. The problem is 90% (I think) of the turmeric in the world comes from there, and the korean curry powder I buy doesn’t say where the turmeric is sourced from.
Yeah, even my preferred source comes from India.
I guess you could run a lead test on it?
I am. These things have a tendency to grow, not shrink in scope. So we aren’t doing anything with cinnamon for now. Thankfully we never used those brands and we didn’t really have anything with cinnamon to begin with.
But it wouldn’t hurt to avoid it for now. There are so many options to choose from its such a low effort mitigation.
