However, you won’t find orders of magnitude differences. No competent lab would report lead at just 45 ppb or at 4500 ppb for the same sample, in other words.
In summary, it’s important to understand that ICP-MS laboratory results do have some natural variability within a reasonable range. Metals composition will also vary from gram to gram and lot to lot. Every production lot of a commercial product has a different metals composition from previous lots. Because of these simple truths, all the numbers in this book should only be used as a general guide to help you decide what to eat and what to avoid. They do not describe absolute concentrations that are consistent across all products of the same name.
It’s also true that because of the efforts already made by myself and the launch of the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, some companies are making tremendous efforts to clean up their raw materials and produce cleaner products. That’s why products sold on the market at the time you read this may be substantially cleaner than the products tested in this book. A book takes at least a year to go from manuscript to store shelves, so what you are seeing in this book is actually a snapshot of products that were available in the three years prior to publication. If you’d like to see more up-to-date results, you’ll find them at labs.naturalnews.com.
Many commercial labs deliberately produce artificially low results
Another important thing to keep in mind here is that many commercial labs that cater to food companies are in the business of producing artificially low metals test results because that’s precisely what their customers want to see. Producing artificially low results is very easy to accomplish by various means that are readily accessible to anyone who wants to commit such violations of ethics.
At the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, we use a slow digestion method that prevents the nitric acid from boiling. This retains nearly all heavy metals found in the original food sample. As a result, our metals tests are typically slightly higher than what most commercial labs produce, but they are also more accurate. Our open-block digestion cycle typically takes two hours, not the forty-five minutes often used by other labs. We also use closed cell (microwave) digestion for difficult samples to ensure complete digestion.
Any competent university lab can easily reproduce our results within plus or minus 10 percent by using appropriate digestion equipment and procedures.
How we assure scientific accuracy at our lab
In the interests of full disclosure, here are some of the methods and safeguards we’ve used in the Natural News Forensic Food Lab to ensure the best possible accuracy:
• As noted above, our lab is ISO 17025 accredited, having achieved the global standard for trusted analytical accuracy in laboratories.
• All instrumentation is calibrated and certified accurate by its original manufacturer.
• All analytical methodologies we use are derived from globally accepted methodologies published by the AOAC International or other similar scientific organizations.
• All external standard solutions are traceable to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) or other standards bodies. Custom standards are formulated and validated by highly competent, experienced custom formulations companies.
• We do not re-use sample digestion vessels or autosampler vessels. Our laboratory process relies on disposable vessels that eliminate vessel contamination concerns.
• After every tenth sample is run via ICP-MS, a blank vial and a calibration vial are run to ensure the ICP-MS instrumentation remains well calibrated. If significant analytical drift is detected (i.e., results of the midrange calibration checks begin shifting), the run is halted, the instrument is cleaned (or consumable parts are changed out), and the run is repeated from the start. Analytical drift during our ICP-MS testing has been nearly eliminated through the use of the Niagara Plus sample injection system manufactured by Glass Expansion.
• ICP-MS instrumentation is routinely maintained in accordance with manufacturer recommendations. For example, sample cones and skimmer cones are routinely cleaned. Sample uptake tubing in the peri-pump is routinely changed. Argon air is in-line filtered, as is our helium source.
• For each food sample tested, three separate samples from the same product lot are run. Results are then averaged across the three to help eliminate variability and improve reliability.
• All sample test vials are archived for a period of one year so that any challenged result can be re-validated if needed.
• The validity of digestion methods and ICP-MS analysis methods are further validated through the frequent use of Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) with known concentrations of elements verified by more than a dozen other laboratories.
• Outside labs are used to further validate and spot-check in-house laboratory results. We have at times used a third party commercial laboratory as well as a university laboratory, both of which have confirmed our findings on multiple occasions.
• The dilution water used in sample preparation is laboratory-grade deionized water produced by a high-end Thermo Scientific water filtration system specifically designed for laboratories.
• Oxidation acids used for sample digestion are trace-grade acids and are routinely tested for their purity. The very small concentrations of elements (parts per trillion) found in these acids are measured at the beginning of each sample run, then subtracted from the results of all subsequent samples.
• Samples that show curiously high results are re-analyzed a fourth or fifth time to make sure the results are accurate.
• All raw sample data for each run is archived on multiple backup servers residing at two different physical locations.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have no heavy metals limits
Neither the FDA nor USDA has any official, universal limit on heavy metals in foods, beverages, and dietary supplements sold to U.S. consumers.
This fact is, of course, astonishing. Most consumers of USDA-certified organic foods automatically assume those foods are substantially free of heavy metals because they are labeled organic. But in our lab, we’ve found USDA-certified organic foods to consistently contain far higher levels of heavy metals than many conventional foods (which tend to be aggressively processed, removing minerals and heavy metals alike).
So why don’t the USDA or FDA set heavy metals limits for the U.S. food supply? Surely they have their own explanations, but my view as a food researcher and investigative journalist is that both the USDA and FDA are far too intertwined with the interests of the industries they claim to regulate. Most of the top people at the USDA, for example, have a revolving-door history with the cattle industry or herbicide companies such as Monsanto and DuPont. Top FDA people, similarly, are far too cozy with drug companies and processed food manufacturers to make reliable decisions in the public interest.
Rather than regulating these industries for the benefit of the public, both the FDA and USDA seem far more interested in protecting these industries from public scrutiny. As a result, there is no real incentive to disclose the heavy metals contamination of agricultural products, or canned soup or beef jerky, for that matter. Because the truth of all this might “cause alarm” among consumers, government regulators essentially play along with the conspiracy of silence preferred by food manufacturers.
This is why I strongly support the establishing of heavy metals limits in foods, beverages, and dietary supplements. Without such limits, food manufacturers can get away with essentially any amount of toxic elements in their products.
It is noteworthy that, in February 2016, the nation was outraged over the discovery of 1–2 ppm of lead in the water supply of Flint, Michigan. Yet I have personally found food products with far higher levels of lead that are consumed by a consumer cross section of the entire nation. Strangely, there is so far no outcry over high lead levels in food products, even though lead in water is widely recognized as so dangerous