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Heavy metals myth busted: Everyday vegetables and fruits have almost ZERO lead, cadmium, mercury and tungsten


Heavy metals

(NaturalNews) In response to Natural News releasing accurate, scientifically-validated information about toxic heavy metals found in rice protein products, there has been a sustained disinfo campaign to try to distort the truth by claiming everyday fruits and vegetables contain high levels of toxic heavy metals.

"There's lead in everything!" the denialists claim, hoping you won't realize the statement is false. There actually isn't lead in everything: most foods measure ZERO lead, it turns out.

In fact, a close look at the "Total Diet Study Statistics on Element Results - U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition" document reveals that the MEDIAN amount of lead in most fresh vegetables is zero.

Click here to download the FDA document yourself (PDF) and turn to page 84.

As you can see on the right-hand side in the "median" column (which means "average" in a layman's sense), nearly all the foods tested ZERO lead!

For example:

* Eggs: zero lead
* Canned corn: zero lead
* Flour tortilla: zero lead
* Corn chips: zero lead
* Lima beans: zero lead
* Banana: zero lead
* Grapefruit: zero lead
* Orange juice: zero lead
* Raisin Bran cereal: zero lead
... and so on.

Deliberately confusing the difference between "maximum" vs. "average"

The FDA, you see, tested dozens of samples of each different type of food, and they compiled the minimum, maximum and median lead found in each food.

But those who are trying to deny the truth about heavy metals in rice protein are citing the "MAXIMUM" column of this document, implying that the single most contaminated sample ever found by the FDA is what's present in all foods. Once they establish this lie, they then say, "See, our rice protein is lower!"

Except that it isn't. Even when taking the MAXIMUM column from this document, there isn't a single contaminated food tested by the FDA which has a higher concentration of lead than what we've documented in rice protein.

That's because we consistently found lead in rice protein at .300 - .500 ppm. Yes there's nothing in this chart that even comes close to .300. Even in the MAXIMUM column, most of these foods are in the range of .020 - .050, far less than what we found in rice protein. (In terms of unit conversion, mg/kg is the same as ppm, in case you were curious.)

So how did the heavy metals denialists make these foods look more contaminated than rice protein? They multiplied the maximum concentration ever found by the FDA by large serving sizes, comparing for example "one cup" of collard greens with just "one scoop" of rice protein.

Such comparisons are wholly dishonest and smack of the kind of deceit and trickery we sadly continue to see from a few of the rice protein companies that remain in a state of denial about the Table of Elements. Fortunately for us all, most companies are rapidly reformulating, and it looks like the re-launch of new, low-metals formulations is now imminent.

Natural News will be publicizing those brands that achieve low heavy metals numbers on store shelves as the products appear. Our goal in this is to help support the business of those companies producing the cleanest products.

Fruits and vegetables tested by the Health Ranger in the Natural News Forensic Food Lab

When it comes to numbers from the FDA, I don't just blindly believe their charts. I do my own research to validate the FDA's numbers.

To do so, I purchased a long list of fresh fruits and vegetables at a grocery store in Central Texas. Those samples were then prepped for the lab, and I fed all the exceed organic produce to my goats.

Here's what we found in our lab: (ALL these foods tested at zero tungsten)

Organic Cucumber: .002 ppm lead, zero cadmium
Organic Strawberries: .006 ppm lead, .002 cadmium
Organic Plums: ZERO lead, ZERO cadmium
Organic Oranges: .001 ppm lead, ZERO cadmium
Fuji Apple (flesh): ZERO lead, ZERO cadmium
Tomato: .001 ppm lead, .011 cadmium
Blueberries: .005 ppm lead, ZERO cadmium
Grapes: .001 ppm lead, ZERO cadmium
Banana: ZERO lead, ZERO cadmium

The highest lead I found, in fact, was in potatoes, which clocked in at .040 ppm lead and .019 cadmium.

As you can see from the combined results of my own lab plus the FDA's document, most fresh groceries contain near-zero lead, cadmium, mercury and tungsten. (Yes, the mercury level in all these foods was ZERO, too. The highest mercury I found was just .004 ppm in some Kale.)

So people who are claiming that all these foods are "higher in lead" than rice protein are flat-out lying to you. It's simply not true.

There isn't lead in everything: most foods contain ZERO lead

The ignorant claim that "there's lead in everything" is false. Even at parts per billion -- which is one-one-thousandth a part per million -- most foods contain zero lead.

In fact, if you take a look at our laboratory testing results for popular breakfast cereals, you'll see that nearly all of them contain zero lead.

The exact same is true for junk food breakfast cereals.

If you really want to see some lead, you have to check out the sea vegetables results which show far higher concentrations of lead in almost every product tested.

But most everyday fresh produce foods -- including fruits and vegetables -- are either zero lead or close enough to safely consider them zero.

In fact, one of the best ways to remove lead from your body is to switch to eating nothing but fresh, wholesome fruits and vegetables! If you never eat "concentrates" of any kind and only stick to whole foods, you'll probably never encounter any significant level of lead unless you're eating seaweeds.

Don't be suckered by bad science

I really want to thank Natural News readers for all your support as we have shaken up the protein industry in a good way. While there was a lot of resistance when we first started going public with this information, nearly everyone has now confirmed our lab results and realizes that the Natural News Forensic Food Lab is a genuine, legitimate and highly accurate analytical laboratory.

As one of the many voices of the rapidly-expanding Clean Food Movement, my goal is to see cleaner, more transparent foods for us all.

That's why I support removing heavy metals from proteins as well as labeling GMOs. It's why I fight for your right to know what's in your food every single day. It's why I flew to New York to appear on the Doctor Oz show and shared this message with his viewers.

I pursue this work because it is my passion... and because I don't want to see the next generation of children growing up as victims of extreme heavy metals poisoning.

As always, I thank you for your ongoing support. Lots more research results will be published this year!


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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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