[vasusen]

I grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those are usually really bright yellows.

Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is probably lead paint tainted turmeric.

[zargon]

Burlap and Barrel tests their turmeric for lead and publishes the results. It’s a lot more expensive than Indian store turmeric, but personally I’m no longer willing to buy untested turmeric.

(Relatedly, Lundberg publishes the arsenic levels of their brown rice, so that’s basically the only brand of rice I buy any more.)

[droopyEyelids]

Don’t know what part of the country you’re in, but in Chicago even the basic chain grocery stores carry fresh unprocessed turmeric now.

There’s basically no reason to ever use powdered or dried.

[giraffe_lady]

Except that it's a different ingredient, that tastes different and works differently. I still use cayenne for some things even though I have fresh chile peppers I don't put fresh ginger in ginger snaps etc.

[littlexsparkee]

Diaspora also lab tests theirs, plus the variety they sell has a high curcumin level

[markhahn]

isn't arsenic in rice trivial to deal with ("pasta" method)?

[zargon]

I wouldn’t call it trivial, no. Pre-boiling it only removes about 50% of the arsenic. If you start with US rice from arsenic-poisoned soils, after boiling the rice you can still have more arsenic in it than rice that had lower levels to start with (even when cooked traditionally).

[fpoling]

One needs both to soak rice for at least 8 hours and boil it in excessive water to remove arsenic.

[OJFord]

I don't think you need to worry buying it from a store that's imported it properly - the article says it was found in the US in Bangladeshi communities where it had been brought back to the US in their suitcases.

The difference could be due to sun-drying (I assume?) on your family's farm vs. industrial scale freeze/spray drying, for example. Or some (non-lead, non-colouring) additive that prevents it oxidising and dulling over time perhaps. I think argon is often used (rather than air) in packaging for that purpose.

[perihelions]

No, it's definitely in the US supermarket supply chain (though it's not nearly as bad as in SEA),

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herb... ("[Consumer Reports] tested 126 products from McCormick, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other popular brands. Almost a third had heavy metal levels high enough to raise health concerns")

You may (or not) be surprised that there's actually no general testing for heavy metals in US foods, even in categories seriously affected by them—neither by the FDA, nor the private sector.

> "Currently, about two dozen spice companies from 11 countries are subject to import alerts for lead contamination, which signal to regulators that they can detain those products. But that represents a fraction of the herbs and spices shipped to the U.S. In addition, the limited testing the FDA has done on spices has been focused on harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, not heavy metals, Ronholm says."

> "The lack of regulation leaves much of the monitoring of heavy metal levels to companies. [Consumer Reports] contacted all the ones with products in our tests to see how they limited heavy metals."

> "Of the companies that replied to our questions—Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Costco, Bolner’s Fiesta, Gebhardt, Litehouse, McCormick, Roland Foods, Spice Islands, Target, and Whole Foods—a few said they require their suppliers to have a program for controlling or testing for heavy metals. But only three—Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Bolner’s Fiesta, and McCormick—specifically said they test products in their manufacturing plants for heavy metals."

[missinglugnut]

With the exception of one brand I hadn't heard of (La Flor), every turmeric tested was either safe or in the "some concern" category.

CR does a disservice by not sharing their test levels, but I'm willing to bet my own health that "some concern" is multiple orders of magnitude less lead than what this npr article is about.

[sorcerer-mar]

The point is that this (and similar) problems are not categorically caught at the US border.

[OJFord]

But I wasn't suggesting it would be 'caught at the US border' so much as that if you're buying from big industrial process exporting around the world it's just so much less likely to be an issue to begin with. Article is about relatively small time farmers (processing and perhaps direct selling it themselves) trying to save their failed crop and their livelihood.

[sorcerer-mar]

“Less likely,” sure. But way more likely than people would probably intuit.

There are plenty of very mainstream industrial brands with all sorts of contamination.

> I don't think you need to worry buying it from a store that's imported it properly

This statement is not true.

[e40]

And it will only get worse, given the current political climate.

[zargon]

If a company doesn’t explicitly state their supply chain controls in situations like this, I’m going to assume they’re possibly inadequate. This is the Amazon era, where things like knowing where what you’re selling came from is considered too much effort.

[williamscales]

I'm curious about getting a personal XRF device for this reason. They don't look "that" expensive, I found some for $5k to $10k on Alibaba. Is it overkill? Probably yes. Am I overly paranoid about my health and would also like to generally have an XRF device? Also yes.

[account42]

What radiation source do they use? Could it potentially be a bigger hazard than the spices if you don't handle it properly?

[oharapj]

Can someone validate the water test for lead adulterated turmeric? https://youtu.be/tXWPf0HQd5U?si=-SkT4EQB9SvMx7io

[GloriousKoji]

I don't follow youtube links during work hours as a personal policy but an India government webpage outlines the water test for whole tumeric: https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/

> Test 14 : Detection of lead chromate in turmeric whole > Testing Method: > * Add small quantity of turmeric whole in a transparent glass of water. > * Pure turmeric will not leave any colour. > * Adulterated turmeric appears to be bright in colour and leaves colour immediately in water.

[oharapj]

The Youtube video was also made by the Indian Government. Validating the Indian Government's claim against the Indian Government's same claim (Test 15 in this case) probably doesn't tell us much

[mook]

Test 15 is the test for powdered tumeric. Of course, their photographs also look photoshopped (the pure and adulterated photos have the exact same pattern near the bottom), which was rather confusing…

[account42]

Even without that it's hard to make a judgement of the results without having something to compare it with.

[Aloisius]

That's for whole turmeric.

[genewitch]

article says "you can't tell when it's ground" - that is, specifically, they put lead chromate in the "buff" stage, so the roots look like they were dried properly.

In the same way that a lot of apples and the like will be buffed and then a soft wax coat applied so lots of apples are very shiny at the store.

if the turmeric is ground before sale i doubt there's any reason to use lead chromate.

[ashwinsundar]

No I think the opposite conclusion is correct - turmeric starts out whole, and can be either ground down at that point or dried and sold whole. In the whole state, it's much easier to detect that lead chromate was applied.

If the turmeric is ground before sale, it's even easier to apply lead chromate and make the whole version "appear" healthier to the next processor who grinds it down and then sells the powder. If you buy it whole, then you can more easily see the color of the original root.

[genewitch]

Then why isn't this an issue in Bharat, as mentioned in the article?

[yread]

Of course it is an issue. The government has a page to detect adulteration

https://eatrightindia.gov.in/dart/

[ashwinsundar]

I don't know why you're obsessed with whether India has the same problem. Maybe it hasn't been studied as extensively, or the turmeric there is healthier and hence doesn't need to be colored, or something else. Also the article doesn't say that India doesn't have this problem.

[genewitch]

Oh i missed "Dhaka" in the sentence after the one that said lead was found in spices in india, my brain saw "[...] spices in india, [...] despite lead free turmeric"

sorry, that's my mistake.

[toast0]

> if the turmeric is ground before sale i doubt there's any reason to use lead chromate.

If the roots are wholesaled to the grinder, and the grinder doesn't know that bright means poisoned, they might prefer brighter looking roots. The ground tumeric will be poisoned.

Similarly, if the roots are poisoned and discriminating buyers aren't buying then because they're too bright, you can still grind it and sell it, and the color will blend.