This has not generated a mandatory recall at this point, but holy hell, we just went through this!!
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not set lead-level thresholds for spices, but three of the products exceeded a proposed cutoff set by the American Spice Trade Association, and 12 exceeded a more stringent cutoff level set by New York State.
Not sure what I can say about safety, other than why is there no standard set??
Damn it. Anyone know a good home lead testing kit? I use cinnamon in kii-kitten’s daily mixed berry smoothie. It will be less acceptable if I skip it and that smoothie does a lot of heavy lifting nutritionally for our 7 year old.
I get the cinnamon loose from the fancy-pants grocery around here and the supplier isn’t on any of the lists.
The only ones I know of are the ones looking for lead paint, and I suspect that the levels in cinnamon are far below the threshold for that technique. Thought of buying cinnamon sticks and grating them myself. Wouldn’t help if the source is natural accumulation in the tree, but would avoid the risk of adulteration. Otherwise, we are back at the mercy of the supplier. And we know where that leads. It is outrageous that the FDA does not even have a standard for this! Because that would be my preferred safeguard.
Me too. The FDA needs better random sampling programs, some standards for spices, and some teeth in the laws assessing consequences.
The market won’t regulate itself. These companies don’t care if a few hundred children die or are permanently damaged.
