Lead found in juice boxes, canned fruit

[poppan]

Is anyone following this story?
http://www.examiner.com/x-7528-SF-To...ns-juice-boxes

We heard it on our local NPR station last week. At first I wasn't concerned because my kids don't drink juice boxes much, and they don't eat canned fruit. However, I finally decided to read all the info on the Environmental Law Foundation website (they are the ones who did the analysis and found the lead) and I got more concerned because it sounds like the lead could be just coming from the environment. That even organic orchards could have used lead waaaay back in the day 1925-1955 and that the lead stays in the ground and finds its way into the fruit.

I don't frequent this forum much so maybe you guys are all over the lead in our food thing already. But for me it's been a shocker and an eye opener. Just wondering how much press this is getting outside of my area, if anyone else has heard about it, and what conclusions you are drawing.

[luv-my-boys]

thanks for the article!! I hadnt heard about it and now im wondering if the lead exists also in their larger juice sizes as most of those brands have both boxes and jugs. My kids will occassionally have a juice box as we normally take them when we are out and about but still I dont want my kids sipping down lead

[poppan]

At first I thought the boxes were contaminated with lead, but as I read more on that website it seemed the lead was likely coming from the apples themselves. I guess juices would concentrate the lead the most because of how much fruit it takes for one unit of juice -- but I would be worried about things like apple sauce too. This is what the FAQ said:

Whatever its source, lead that falls onto soil sticks strongly to soil particles and remains in the upper layer of soil. Since it does not degrade over time, this contamination problem continues. It can be taken up by plants. Airborne lead can also be deposited onto plants and fruits. Last, processing can often introduce lead contamination through bronze plumbing parts, lead in water or other sources.

Apparently they used to use lead arsenate as a pesticide so that's in the soil. And there is lead pollution in the air which the plants can also absorb. And I guess there is that "lastly" in the quote -- that it can be introduced in processing through lead in the water or in the pipes.

[newmum35]

So does this mean there is lead in apples?? Geez what are they trying to do, dumb us down with fruit now?!

[poppan]

I know, it's scary! They said a lot of apple orchards used lead arsenate as a pesticide from 1920s-1950s and the lead is still in the ground being picked up by the trees and ends up in the fruit. I would guess that eating one apple at a time is OK and they did have a list of brands that tested clean, so it's not in all apple orchards. And the canned fruit also was targeted for this study -- pears, peaches and fruit cocktail which I guess is mostly pears and peaches. Plus grape juice but I think that has some apple and pear juice content? This is making me wonder what other foods I should be wondering about. ELF apparently picked these five items to test -- apple juice, grape juice, canned peaches, canned pears and fruit cocktail -- because of existing, publicly available government reports that put these as high risk for containing too much lead and they are consumed by a lot of kids. I'm wondering what else is in those government reports.