This isn’t good!
A Consumer Reports sample of various apple and grape juice brands found roughly 10% had “total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards.”
Even worse is that most arsenic levels exceeding 10 parts per billion (the limit for drinking water) were found to be an inorganic arsenic, which is a known carcinogen!
Although there are no federal limits on arsenic or lead levels in juice, one in four samples yielded levels of lead higher than the FDA’s bottled-water limit of 5 ppb.
Scientific evidence suggests chronic exposure to arsenic and lead, even at levels below water standards, can result in serious health problems, so why is the FDA strictly limiting levels in drinking water and not other liquids like juice?
After all, you know who loves juice? Kids!
The report references a poll of parents that found 35% of children under 5 drink juice in quantities exceeding pediatricians recommendations. Sounds like a lot of juice and, possibly, a lot of exposure to carcinogens to us!
Joshua Hamilton, Ph.D., a toxicologist specializing in arsenic research, makes a good point in favor of stricter FDA regulation of arsenic levels in juice, saying:
“People sometimes say, ├óΓé¼╦£If arsenic exposure is so bad, why don├óΓé¼Γäót you see more people sick or dying from it?├óΓé¼Γäó But the many diseases likely to be increased by exposure even at relatively low levels are so common already that its effects are overlooked simply because no one has looked carefully for the connection.”
The findings have sparked the Consumers Union to campaign that the FDA set arsenic and lead standards for apple and grape juice to meet, if not be lowered, the 5 ppb lead limit for bottled water.
Makes sense to us, what do U think???
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