Why is Lead Exposure So Dangerous?
How Does Lead Get into Food?
Can You Protect Yourself and Your Family from Lead Exposure?
How Can You Get Rid of Lead in your body?
What Foods Can You Eat to Prevent Lead Uptake?
How Is Lead a Dangerous to Your Health?
Lead is a high-density metal that is toxic to our bodies but naturally part of our planet, so it is impossible to completely avoid it.
What makes it so problematic is that when it gets inside your body, it looks a lot like calcium. So, your body allows it to bind to proteins and move with ease through your internal membranes, even across the blood-brain barrier.
Elevated lead in your body is very difficult to remove and can cause health problems ranging from stomach pain to lowered IQ to aggression.
All Bethany’s Pantry and Nuzest products are purity tested for pesticides, mold, yeast, bacteria, and heavy metals.
Does Buying Organic Food Protect You from Lead Exposure?
Unfortunately, choosing organic does not protect you from heavy metal contamination because organic standards do not address heavy metals. If you have a concern about a product, reach out to the company and ask them if they know their product has been tested and ask to see the COA (certificate of analysis).
Is There Lead Hiding in Your Paint or Pantry?
Probably.
Lead is part of our earth, so it is impossible to avoid all exposure. But you should try to avoid high exposure to lead in gasoline, mining, volcanic soil, and lead-based paint. Leaded paint is no longer used in houses in the U.S. but can be found in older buildings. It remains the #1 cause of lead poisoning in the U.S. If your home has not been painted since the 1970’s, you likely have lead paint that can chip off and get into your system through inhaling, touching, or eating the chips of their dust.
On another note, you may be exposing yourself to high amounts of lead through products you use or consume every day.
- Makeup like lipstick (especially darker colors), eyeliner, and progressive hair dye, china plates and cups, particularly older, decorative china and lead-glazed pottery, Clay (including bentonite clay),
- Rice derived products such as rice protein, rice pasta, and plain old rice,
(our body’s natural detox system can process small levels of lead exposure, and nutrients in healthy food, like calcium, iron, and vitamin C, can prevent lead from staying in your body (see list of foods high in these nutrients below). - Green powders for drinks,
- Meat substitutes
- Pea protein powder processed in China (Bethany’s Pantry sources their pea protein from Europe, which is the cleanest source available…In fact, it’s actually illegal in Europe to spray pea crops with glyphosate so you can feel confidant there’s not even a chance of ours being sprayed),
- Food and personal care products with carrageenan (think plant-based milks, toothpaste, conditioner),
- Spices, particularly ones that are red in color like turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon.
Can Food Help You Detox From Lead?
Yes! You may be eating organic food to benefit your body and the earth. But unfortunately, it won’t help lessen your lead exposure. That’s because organic standards do not address toxic heavy metals like lead. Moreover, there likely is some tiny amount of lead in almost everything we consume.
But you have two things going in your favor. First is your body’s natural detox system. Second is that you can protect yourself by eating certain foods to help your body reject the naturally occurring lead you are exposed to. The nutrients in these foods (which are high in calcium, iron, and vitamin C) act as “natural antagonists” to lead and include:
- tomatoes
- berries
- onions and garlic
- wild blueberries
- grapes
- brown seaweed (Atlantic dulse)
- barley grass
- cilantro
- lemon
- probiotics
- green tea
- chlorella
- spirulina
- curry spices (cumin, turmeric, cayenne)
Could Your Symptoms Be Lead Poisoning?
Acute lead exposure (meaning a high level in a short period of time) can cause vomiting, brain swelling, anger, and seizures. Luckily, most of us are not exposed to acute levels of lead. We are more concerned about lead’s invisible threat at low levels of exposure over our lifetime.
You are right to be concerned about this because lead accumulates in your body. And, you may have no idea that the symptoms you are experiencing–gastrointestinal distress, depression, nausea, and fatigue–are actually caused by lead toxicity. You can ask your doctor to can run a lead test for you but it will only show acute levels, not lower levels that can still be problematic.
Here is a list of concerning symptoms that we often blame other causes for but could be caused by lead poisoning.
- dementia
- joint pain
- high blood pressure
- hallucinations
- urinary tract infections
- hair loss
- exhaustion
- anemia
- reduced IQ
- cognitive impairment
- aggression
- heart disease
Adding to this, lead can be stored in your bones for up to 30 years. At any point, it can travel to your brain and cause cognitive problems. In fact, researchers suspect toxins like lead may be the leading cause of age-related mental decline.
What level of lead build-up in your body is considered toxic?
Interestingly, two people with the same lead toxicity levels can have very different severity and types of symptoms. Scientists do not know exactly why.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established the lead toxicity guidelines below. But keep in mind that despite these recommendations, the CDC says no level of lead is “safe.”
The CDC recommends taking action to limit children’s exposure if their blood level is above 5ug/DL. Your health care provider can run this test for you.
The CDC considers adult blood levels of 10ug/DL or above to be “elevated.”
Below is Bethany’s Pantry most recent COA for the most recent production run of our protein powders. But you can always email Nuzest if you have any additional questions.
