Detoxing is worse than bullshit: high lead levels in "detox clay"

You know what’s even better than organic lead? Organic Mercury!

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Organometallics FTW! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

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The next time an anti-Vaxxer goes on about mercury in childhood vaccines (which virtually never have mercury in them) I’ll try to remember to mention that it’s an organic mercury compound, so it’s obviously healthy.

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Organic plutonium! Oh wait, that’s man-made.

There once was a hair & nail place near us that advertised “natural acrylic nails.” None of that awful fake stuff!

As some one else noted, bentonite itself doesn’t contain Lead. These products do. Either their bentontie is contaminated at the source, something legitimate products probably need (or care) to control for. Or they’re adding it directly (and probably improperly). Something that’s shockingly common in cosmetics. Its the cosmetic and supplement labels that let them side step whatever regulations might be in place. The cosmetic business has big problems with contamination. And to a certain extent the fact that they aren’t meant to be “consumed”, just placed in the skin gives them a little bit of a shield in terms of things like lead based colorings or other potentially (but not necessarily) harmful addatives. Supplements on the other hand are almost wholly unregulated and there are limited ways to go after them when they do violate rules. They’ve got even bigger contamination problems. And frankly I wouldn’t put it past that particular industry to add lead in volume to shit like this on the assumption that it was some how good for you.

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Gad, are we breathing lead dust? And even more serious, are our cats breathing lead dust?

We used to use Fresh Step cat litter, till they decided to include large amounts of clay dust, which got everywhere. We switched to the much more dust-less Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat.

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Am I remembering correctly that lead is used as a lightener? Bentonite clay is a medium gray; maybe they were using lead to make its color lighter so that it’d make a less murky-gray clay mask.

I do love yummy organic free-range lead.

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The dose makes the poison. Normally, bentonite contains trace amounts of lead that wouldn’t be cause for concern. Whatever the geniuses who were making this “health product” did, they somehow got extra lead in there. You can get the MSDS for whatever litter you’re using to find out whether there’s anything in it to worry about.

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Anybody want to buy my new organic clay detox place-bo’s? It will reduce your level of toxins in your t-zone.

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I don’t believe in “detoxing” but I like to eat dirt sometimes (don’t judge me it tastes good - I probably have mild pica that I think that but whatevs) so I’m definitely very concerned about this. I wonder how I could go about getting clay that is safe to consume

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They’re clearly not pooping it. They’re excavating it, carefully. No sphincters involved.

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In college, we used to use bentonite in glazes and some clay recipes. It was thixotropic, kind of the reverse of corn starch oobleck; if you jiggled a thick slip with a lot of bentonite in it, it would liquefy. Once you stopped agitating it, it would congeal almost instantly. You could get a lot of interesting effects with bentonite-rich slip.

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You might check out Georgia White Dirt.

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as far as detoxing is concerned, wouldn’t food grade diatomaceous earth achieve the same result?

Bentonite is often a by-product of coal mining. Halliburton is a major producer of the stuff.

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Most toxins are detoxed by the liver, and are detoxified via anaerobic reactions within that organ. If they are not water soluble, they are made more so and sent to the colon and kidneys. By the time they get to the colon, they’re already on their way out in whatever it is you ate.

Ideally fiber.

Eating bentonite (aka cat litter) makes me think is that you will need some multivitamins afterwards. I can’t imagine what it helps with, other than maybe some poison you JUST ATE.

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Hooray?

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Off the top of my head I think your right. Straight lead (especially way back when) was used both as a light (or white?) pigment and to sort of bleach the skin lighter (though that may been just arsenic?)

I do know lead is a component of a lot of the pigments used in cosmetics. Though usually in pretty safe/trace amounts. And I’ve heard a lot about those mineral cosmetics being prone to lead contamination. Either from getting yanked out of the ground where there’s plenty of lead contamination or natural lead deposits present. What with sketchy Chinese manufacturers not caring about doing anything to remove the lead. And any purification going against the “natural” image of the products.

As far as detoxing goes, doing a little dance and chanting “abracadabra” would achieve the same result.

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