According to the nonprofit Consumer Reports, several cinnamon brands were found to have high traces of lead in some companies’ spice products.
As USA Today reports, Consumer Reports focuses on assessing the safety of goods through performance reports. A recent wave of testing results found that there are abnormally high levels of lead in cinnamon powder and multispice powders from 12 examined brands, including “Paras, EGN, Mimi’s Products, Bowl & Basket, Rani Brand, Zara Foods, Three Rivers, Yu Yee Brand, BaiLiFeng, Spicy King, Badia, and Deep.”
Consumer Reports stated that this list of brands had lead levels in their cinnamon products greater than 1 part per million ppm. According to the nonprofit, any higher than this cutoff indicates that the products should be recalled. Consumer Reports food safety experts advised people to “avoid those products” due to their study’s findings.
The director of food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports, James Rogers, explained that eating a quarter teaspoon of any of the mentioned brand’s cinnamon products would expose the consumer to more lead than an individual should be exposed to in an entire day.
Rogers continued, “If you have one of those products, we think you should throw it away. “Even small amounts of lead pose a risk because, over time, it can accumulate in the body and remain there for years, seriously harming health.”
As reported by the Mayo Clinic, frequently repeated lead exposure can cause “immune system suppression, reproductive issues, kidney damage, mood disorders, cognitive issues and hypertension in adults [and] in children, lead exposure can contribute to slower growth and development, behavioral issues, seizures, and other physical symptoms.”
Following the release of the Consumer Reports findings, Paras and EGN affirmed the nonprofit that they would be moving forward with removing their cinnamon powder products from stores and discontinuing their sale.
Deep, Yu Yee Brand, and Mimis rebutted by telling Consumer Reports that they “tested their product or relied on tests from their suppliers.”
They claimed, “No lead levels exceeding 1 part per million were found in our ground cinnamon.”
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