Latest news with #cleanEating
Daily Mail
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Kourtney Kardashian ditches strict diet to enjoy a sweet treat with her kids and husband Travis Barker in Italy
Kourtney Kardashian has been enjoying a family getaway with two of her kids and husband Travis Barker in Portofino, Italy. The reality TV star, 46, was pictured sampling the local cuisine on Wednesday with the Blink-182 drummer, 49, their 18-month-old son Rocky Thirteen, and her daughter Penelope, 13, whom she shares with ex Scott Disick, 42. The Poosh founder and the musician were seen having dinner in the picturesque village, located on the Italian Riviera. Little Rocky was charmingly spotted clutching a tiny guitar while wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt, already seeming to have inherited his father's love of music. At another point the toddler was hilariously pictured reaching out for an ice cream cone that Kourtney was holding, despite being known for her clean-eating lifestyle and avoiding processed sugars. Meanwhile Kourtney showed off her effortless style, wearing a turquoise silk slip dress with black lace details, along with a studded black leather biker jacket. She accessorized her look with a vintage Christian Dior by John Galliano 'Admit It' corset lace bag, a piece that resells for around $2,250. Kourtney easily navigated the cobbled streets in a pair of flip flops, and shielded her eyes with black sunglasses. Her black raven tresses were worn in a straight style, cascading down her shoulders. Meanwhile Rocky's colorful t-shirt was paired with black and white checkered shorts and Vans sneakers. Travis showed off his tattooed arms in a sleeveless t-shirt, with a pair of sunglasses perched atop his head. Penelope, who recently celebrated her birthday, sported a grey tank top and shorts. Aside from Penelope, Kourtney also shares sons Mason, 15, and Reign, 10, with ex Scott, though they were not pictured during the outing. The trip appears to be in celebration of Penelope's 13th birthday. Kourtney took to Instagram this week to highlight the special occasion and express her gratitude for motherhood. 'My daughter is 13 today,' she wrote over a photo of a floor covered in balloons. 'My heart is exploding with gratitude and love for her.' She also shared scenic snaps from Italy. 'I am so indescribably grateful for my sweet girl,' Kardashian wrote over a photo of a balcony view. 'She inspires me every day to be a better person.' The mother-of-four also noted the trip was extra special for a sentimental reason. 'My parents spent their honeymoon here 47 years ago, so special to get to bring my daughter here,' she typed over another image featuring a riviera. Kourtney and Travis' blended family also
Telegraph
23-06-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Meet the woman trying to make America healthy again
Vani Hari started taking packed lunches to work fifteen years ago. Her boss at the consulting firm Accenture 'would cater in for breakfast, lunch and dinner': blueberry muffins and bagels each morning, a big spread like a barbecue with banana pudding every afternoon. Evenings were spent networking over a five-course Italian meal of 'very heavy' pasta, garlic bread and tiramisu. Hari had once tucked in happily, but a bout of appendicitis had put her off the additives and saturated fats she knew lurked on every table. So she'd sit it out and eat her own cooking – usually a kale salad or porridge oats with protein powder. In America of the 2010s, that was enough to make her an outsider and a health freak. Over in Britain, we tend to imagine that the only clean eaters in America are lean, tanned, image-obsessed Californian types. Hari, 46, a mother-of-two from the Republican-leaning state of North Carolina, is far from it. She eats 'everything', she says, except beef, because she's a Hindu. She cooks every meal in advance for trips away with her family or for work, but 'I'd love to go to a good Italian pizzeria where they're making their dough from scratch, or eat from a bakery or a hamburger joint that is not full of man-made chemicals,' she complains. And in her sequinned white suit standing on the White House lawn, as she was in April, Hari looks anything but alternative. Years since she made the choice to cut artificial ingredients from her diet, Hari has put the issue of food additives on the political agenda in the States. The White House has recruited a legion of friendly influencers to bypass traditional news organisations and better reach the public with its messages, and when it came to shaping how Americans eat, Hari was the obvious choice. Her blog FoodBabe, which she set up in 2011 – at first to share exercise tips and healthy recipes – has millions of readers. Search her name on any social media platform and you'll see FoodBabe, with her hair curled and pink lipstick freshly applied, pointing out the bleached white flour 'contaminated with weed killer' and 'emulsifiers and gums that wreck your gut' in the products on supermarket shelves. She wishes that they would be 'wiped from this earth,' she wrote in a caption. These ingredients, often illegal in Britain, enrage Hari because they are 'harmful to the human body' and are there to 'improve the bottom line of the food industry', she says. She seems to have a point. The average American is more likely to be overweight than they are to be within a healthy weight range. More than one in ten are type two diabetic, heart disease accounts for one in every five deaths, and rates of colorectal cancer in young people have nearly doubled since 1995. It is no wonder that the average American's life expectancy is in decline, dropping to 76 years in 2021 from 79 years in 2019. The country's health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, promised to take on this dire situation when he was sworn in earlier this year. In his sights is not only America's food industry, however. Aside from bringing in the ban on food dyes in April, with Hari at his side, Kennedy Jr has ruled that Covid vaccines shouldn't be given to children and pregnant women, and recently suggested setting up a national autism database to account for rising autism diagnoses. Kennedy has also pushed raw milk over pasteurised milk, and has said that fluoride in America's water supply is 'associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease'. (In Britain, where we also have fluoride in some of our drinking water, no such disasters have occurred). Vaccines and fluoride 'aren't my issue,' says Hari. She set up FoodBabe because 'people asked me why I try to avoid MSG in the soup at restaurants, or why I don't eat artificial food dyes,' she says, and her work is meant to help people navigate the 'unconventional lifestyle choice' of a diet free from processed foods. Her own rigorous attempts to avoid harmful ingredients are what have led to her fame. In 2012, Hari took a closer look at the ingredients used by a frozen yoghurt shop in her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. She discovered that the chain had been using artificial flavourings, despite claiming to be organic. Her post went viral, forcing the company's CEO to make a written apology. Hari then turned her attention to Starbucks. She convinced a barista to give her the recipe for a pumpkin spice latte and shared it online for the first time, along with criticisms of the ingredient list. Worst of all, she said, was an ammonia-based caramel-colour food dye. 'It's already brown, so in what world is that necessary?,' she asks, clearly recalling the outrage a decade on. Starbucks later pulled the dye from its drinks. Next came Subway. 'I thought I was eating fresh when I ate there, but when you look closer at what's in a Subway roll, there were nearly 60 ingredients in there, and one ingredient was azodicarbonamide. It's found in yoga mats and shoe rubber.' Another petition, hand-delivered, led to the ingredient's removal. Then it was Kellogg's: in 2015, the company said it would remove an additive called butylated hydroxytoluene from its American products after Hari launched a petition that attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures. The food dye ban announced earlier this year 'was a huge achievement' for Hari, she says. Greater still, though, she was invited back to the White House by the president himself just weeks later, to witness the release of the first Make America Healthy Again (Maha) report. Listed as problems were the things Hari has railed against for years: sweeteners, high-fructose corn syrup, seed oils and pesticides. 'Our food system is poisoning us, and we finally have leaders who want to make changes,' she wrote in her weekly newsletter. Her role in that has been to 'communicate different things to the public and make sure our leaders do what they say they're going to do,' she says. Hari has a legion of Maha moms behind her, who she calls her 'FoodBabe army'. She wasn't always so comfortable being a figurehead for additive-free living. 'I wanted to call the blog 'eat healthy, live forever', but my husband, the tech geek in the family, thought it was a terrible name,' she says. 'Foodbabe' was her husband's suggestion. 'People think that I was calling myself food babe, but I didn't think of myself as a babe at all. I had these cartoon characters that I hid behind for a year and a half, while I still had my corporate job. Describing myself in that way felt very foreign.' Growing up, in one of just a handful of Indian families in Charlotte, Hari ate a standard American diet. 'I grew up with two immigrant Indian parents, and when they came here to the United States, they really adopted the American food system and they were very trusting of it,' Hari says. Her parents wanted her and her older brother to fit in. 'My mom was cooking medicinal, Indian spiced cooking at home for her and my dad, but they didn't require me and my brother to eat it.' She ate fast food several times a week and 'as many processed foods as I possibly could'. Hari believes that this is why 'my brother and I both had severe health issues,' she says, 'but when they took me to the doctor, no one asked what I was eating'. She was put on nine different prescription drugs in her early twenties, shortly after she finished her computer science degree at the University of North Carolina. 'I hit rock bottom after that. I ended up having surgery to remove my appendix, when I got appendicitis, and I had to have surgery for endometriosis a few years later too.' Doctors told Hari that her appendix wasn't an essential organ, as our bodies have 'evolved not to need it'. She wasn't satisfied with that. 'It really baffled me that God would put this organ in your body that you don't need. I did my own research and found that your appendix is really there to populate your gut with good bacteria.' It was then that Hari 'started to investigate why this was happening to my body, what was causing those problems and what exactly I was eating,' she says. Processed foods were contaminated with dangerous chemicals, she found, so she 'decided to opt out of that system' and eat only whole foods. Hari also came off her medications. She lost weight, her eczema vanished, 'and I started to feel better and have better energy'. Ever since she began her work, Hari has been criticised as a scaremonger. As early as 2014, she was accused of generating controversy to drive traffic to her blog and sell copies of her healthy eating guide. Many of the chemicals she discusses are safe, if unnecessary, say some experts, like the bread ingredient that Hari's petition forced Subway to scrap. But people would understand if they 'put themselves in my shoes, and thought about how I had two surgeries in my early twenties,' she says. 'I deeply am passionate about helping Americans to avoid what I went through. I want them to know the truth about what they're eating, and that nature has provided everything we need.' In 2017, Hari set up Truvani, a food company that makes protein products. Her powders and bars are stocked in Whole Foods in the US. 'I became a mother, so instead of taking on the food industry full time, I kind of took a backseat to that, and decided to start my own thing, using ingredients that you would find in your own kitchen.' Her children are now four and eight. Then, in late 2024, Hari 'got out of retirement as a food activist', as she puts it. 'An old friend called me and asked me to help take on the food industry. When you really have a passion for something, it keeps calling.' There was another target in her sights, too: 'a really important issue that I didn't think was being addressed, which is that American companies are using better, safer ingredients in other countries and using dangerous ingredients here.' Last September, she spoke at a Washington roundtable about the issue, presenting flipcharts filled with comparisons between the American and British versions of different foods. It was this that put her on Kennedy's radar, she says. The health secretary, who unsuccessfully ran against Trump in the 2024 election (before dropping out and endorsing him), 'was really giving attention to the issues I've been working on, getting the food industry to be cleaner, use less ingredients and be more transparent, and he wanted to make that a primary focus of his mission,' Hari says. She first met the health secretary at a dinner the night before the Washington event in September, and has been there 'to support him' since. The two have 'a spiritual connection,' Hari says. Like her, he 'has been vilified for his ideas, and he's been called everything under the sun for the work he's done to try to protect citizens from the pharmaceutical industry and from the chemical industry.' Now, the state of Texas is behind them, too. A bill signed yesterday by the state's governor demands that warning labels are added where foods contain additives that are banned outside of America. Even though many nutritionists would agree with Hari that UPFs (ultra-processed foods) are bad for our health, she has joined the health secretary and a cast of other characters in a group that has been called anti-science, and that is certainly anti-convention. One such character is Dr Casey Means, the incoming surgeon general, who holds a PhD in functional (alternative) medicine rather than a traditional medical degree, and like Hari has a high profile on social media. Her brother Calley Means, now a special government employee, is an influencer, health startup entrepreneur, and former lobbyist for both major food and pharmaceutical companies. He is credited with encouraging the health secretary and the president to combine forces in the first place. Hari herself has no formal qualifications as a nutritionist. She doesn't see that as an issue. 'I don't know how many books you need to read or to write about eating healthy to make you eventually qualified to talk about this,' she says. Rather than being a Republican, however, Hari says she is an independent — and she used to be a Democrat. In 2008, she became a delegate for the Democrats, meaning that she was selected to represent her local area at the party's convention and could vote on their presidential nominee. Hari backed Barack Obama because he promised to force the labelling of genetically modified foods. In 2012, after this didn't come to pass, she sat in the first row on the convention floor and held a sign that read 'label GMOs!' during the then-agriculture secretary's speech. Going against her fellow Democrats was not a difficult decision. 'Poison is not partisan,' she says. 'When a child gets cancer, she doesn't know whether she's Democrat or Republican, or she doesn't care. Politics doesn't matter, because you have nothing other than your health.' Does Hari see a prime spot for herself in the White House, alongside Calley and Casey Means? She is a talented campaigner, with a powerful story, and the ability to communicate ideas about healthy living to a population that loves its fast food. 'It's unacceptable that we haven't had more clear communications and guidelines coming from our government, not until now, anyways,' she says. She hopes that Maha 'outlasts this President and continues to go on.' Future leaders are going to 'have to have these issues as part of their platform, or they're not going to get voted in, because Americans care about them,' Hari believes. But 'what I am first is a mom,' says Hari. 'I've got two small kids, so my business is being there for them, and then I'll continue to use my platform to inform Americans about the food industry and the food that they're eating. So I'm just going to keep doing that.'
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Off-grid mother who starved her three-year-old son to death before giving him ritualistic burial in back garden admits living in a harmful 'bubble'
A mother whose obsession with 'clean eating' led to the death of her severely malnourished toddler has expressed regret at her lifestyle saying she now realises she was living in a harmful 'bubble'. Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 43, said she now 'wished she had done more research diets' but was 'trying to protect myself from all the bad things in the world'. She and her husband Tai, 42, were jailed for a total of 44 years in December over the death of three year old Abiyah, whose remains were found buried in the back garden of their former Birmingham home. The couple, both degree-educated, lived in squalor after turning their back on society, surviving only on fruit, nuts and seeds having established a 'kingdom' in which they lived under their own religion and laws. They were found to have willfully neglected Abiyah by failing to provide him with enough food and to necessary medical attention - prioritising their 'distorted system of beliefs' over his welfare. A review by Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership, published today, suggests health and social care workers and police may have been put off challenging to couple's religious beliefs over fears of being seen as discriminatory. The report said Abiyah became 'invisible and lost from professional view' following a lack of 'exploration or curiosity' by health visitors while the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 likely contributed to the 'lack of follow-through activity'. Abiyah's birth in 2016 was registered but he was not seen by medics or professionals after 2018 and his death in January 2020 went unnoticed. Officials only discovered the boy had died almost three years later, after police were asked to conduct a welfare check on the couple. They admitted burying him in the garden after laying with his body for eight days in the hope he would be reincarnated. When his remains were exhumed, he was found to have had severe malnutrition, rickets, anaemia and stunted growth thanks to his limited diet. His decaying teeth were falling out and he had five fractures that would have caused terrible pain. The review said the case demonstrated the need for 'professionals to be confident to ask questions about different cultures and belief systems without fear of being perceived as discriminatory'. Abiyah was last seen by medical professionals in 2018 after which there was a 'catastrophic deterioration in his health and welfare between that point and his death in early 2020 due to the appalling neglect by his parents'. Report author Kevin Bell said the last months his life 'must have been unimaginably sad and painful'. Both the mother and father were said to be members of Royal Ahayah's Witness described as an 'obscure religious movement that has ties to Black Israelites and is based on the belief that mainstream Christianity is designed to subjugate the Black Community.' The sign on the front door of the couple's home in Birmingham The review said their hostility towards those in authority caused the focus of professionals to be 'diverted or distracted' from the children's welfare while the couple's numerous name changes and aliases made it more difficult for agencies to track and share information effectively. It noted that Abiyah 'was only ever seen by a small number of professionals during his lifetime, and for a limited time only'. According to records, he was seen by a health visitor in April 2016 shortly after his birth, and the following month for a check-up. There was some contact in 2018 with a local authority social worker in London and four visits to a children's centre in Birmingham, but the review said: 'Records of these contacts and interactions are very limited, reinforcing that there was very little insight into (Abiyah's) existence, health or welfare.' Abiyah's parents' trial heard police visited the Clarence Road property in Handsworth three times, including in February 2018 when Abiyah was alive. The review stated that with regard to this visit 'no details were recorded' about Abiyah, with his presence 'almost invisible on review of records'. Elsewhere, the review noted 'no exploration or curiosity' from the health visiting service, run by Birmingham Community Health Care NHS Foundation Trust, about Abiyah's mother's desire for a home birth with no medical intervention. In March 2020, health visitor records said it had been noted at a safeguarding meeting that Abiyah had not been seen by them since his six-week assessment, with appointments at the one and two-year marks since his birth not attended. He had also not received any routine immunisations. While a follow-up inquiry was planned, there was no record of why it never happened, although the review stated that the coronavirus lockdown which began that year likely contributed. The various authorities coming into contact with the child's family showed a 'general lack of knowledge or assessment of the parents' belief systems', leading to an 'insufficient understanding about the impact on his care, the review said. It added that his parents' behaviour 'often distracted or diverted professional attention' away from his safety and welfare. The review stated: 'Parental resistance of advice, support or authority ultimately resulted in (Abiyah) becoming invisible and lost from professional view.' The report included reflections that while social workers had been aware of the family's culture and parents' beliefs and lifestyle, they appeared not to have considered 'with detailed curiosity' the impact on Abiyah's safety and wellbeing, 'such as if indeed his overall needs were being met'. Tai, the 42-year-old son of a former Nigerian government official, was jailed for 24-and-a-half years at Coventry Crown Court in December while 43-year-old Naiyahmi received a 19-and-a-half-year sentence after being convicted of causing the death of Abiyah, child cruelty and perverting the course of justice. Judge Mr Justice Wall said the fact the couple had taken no photographs of the boy in the last four months of his life was 'a clear sign that you realised by then how sick he was'. The judge told them: 'Abiyah died as a result of your wilful neglect of him. He was severely stunted in his growth - at almost four years of age, he was buried in the clothes of an 18-month-old. 'It is difficult to imagine a worse case of neglect.' As part of the review, the views of both parents were sought. Tai refused to be interviewed but Yasharahyalah agreed telling the review it was now 'hard to accept that my approach did not lead to the best outcomes for my child and that it took the court process to take me out of that bubble'. She said at the time, she did not think Abiyah needed help with any illness. In a statement, James Thomas and Sue Harrison Co-Chairs of the Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership, said the review had 'identified important learning'. They said: 'Learning includes agencies working together collectively to safeguard children who become 'out of sight' and working more effectively with families who find themselves on the fringes of society, helping them to access support and intervening where necessary when children are at risk. 'Protecting children out of professional sight is a real challenge, given the limits of statutory powers to ensure all children are regularly seen. Our Partnership has made this one of our top strategic priorities to ensure that we do everything we possibly can to identify risk to those children who are out of sight.' An NSPCC spokesperson said: 'While the parents of little Abiyah are ultimately responsible for his death, this review brings into sharp focus why it is crucial that professionals demonstrate curiosity and scrutiny. 'This means asking probing questions, joining up and sharing information and undertaking quality assessments to inform an understanding of the impact of the parents' behaviour on the child. 'This is particularly challenging when parents are reluctant and resistant to engage, which in this situation took the focus away from the safety of this little boy until tragically it was far too late. 'Having the confidence to recognise and know how to enquire about ethnicity, cultural and belief related behaviours, while keeping an open mind, can help child safeguarding practitioners across agencies build better relationships with families and identify the impact and potential risks to children. 'It is acknowledged that this and the other learning points raised by the review have been taken on board by the organisations involved and changes have been made to better protect children.'
Telegraph
29-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Being called a nepo baby is hurtful, says Sainsbury's great-granddaughter
A food writer who is related to the supermarket Sainsbury family has called being described as 'a nepo baby ' unfair. Ella Mills, a blogger known for her recipe blog and brand Deliciously Ella, is the great-granddaughter of Lord Alan John Sainsbury, of the supermarket-owning family. She told Good Housekeeping UK magazine: 'I passionately wanted to do Deliciously Ella on my own. Of course, it didn't take journalists long to link the dots and I felt so bad in retrospect. 'I knew people would say I was just a nepo baby, but you don't sell 100 million products because 40 years ago Sainsbury's went public. At the same time, having that connection meant I had a subconscious wish to do something quite different, against the odds, as my great-grandfather had done.' In the mid-2010s, Mills was touted as a pioneer of the 'clean eating' movement, despite telling a magazine in 2016 that 'I would never use the word 'clean''. The concept, promoting minimally processed foods, was controversial, with Nigella Lawson telling BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour that 'behind the notion of clean eating is an implication that any other form of eating is dirty or shameful'. During this time, Mills received backlash for her gluten, meat and dairy-free recipes, as well as her personal wellness journey, which was associated with the clean eating movement. She told the magazine: 'It [the backlash] was instigated more by the media than by social media. I don't have it as bad as some people who've been trolled, but I'm aware that a fair share of people don't like me, for sure. 'I accept that if you have a public platform and you share your opinion with the world, the world is quite right to have an opinion back. If I can help people to eat more plants and have a more natural diet, then that's more important than anything a troll can say about me. 'You have this bizarre, quite ironic dichotomy – as our collective health gets worse, the wellness industry gets bigger, noisier, more confusing and more niche. If you go online, people are following these extreme morning routines, achieving so much by 9am. Plants 'changed my life' 'My concern is that too many people think that their health is synonymous with expensive powder and wildly elaborate routines. Everything I suggest is evidence-based. It's not about gimmicks or fads. I changed my diet [to plant-based] and it changed my life.' In the summer of 2011, Mills was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which is when the heart rate increases very quickly after getting up from sitting or lying down, according to the NHS website. In her book, Deliciously Ella, published in 2015, she said that changing her diet meant 'in less than two years I was off all the medication I should have been on for life'.
Daily Mail
12-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Popular health food eaten by millions found to be riddled with toxic metals linked to autism, cancer
Gluten-free may not be risk-free. An investigation has found that dozens of gluten-free products are riddled with toxic heavy metals linked to cancer and autism. The gluten-free market has boomed in the past decade, amid a wider shift toward 'clean eating', endorsements from celebrities like Victoria Beckham, and the perception that the foods under this label are 'healthier'. Cassava is a large root vegetable, popular among people on the diet because it doesn't contain gluten and is versatile; it can be ground into a flour to create gluten-free versions of snacks like cookies. The watchdog Consumer Reports tested 27 Cassava-based chips, cookies and crackers, among other products — and found some of them contained more lead than they had ever seen in more than a decade of product tests. Overall, two-thirds of the products contained more lead in a single serving than the organization's maximum level recommended — up to 2,000 percent above safe levels. Experts suggest Cassava may absorb lead from the ground, with the toxic metal either naturally occurring or left there by contaminated sewage sludge or fertilizers. Lead is dangerous because it can damage brain cells, with studies suggesting the toxic metal can leave people with learning difficulties and possibly even autism. James Rogers, the director of food and safety research at the organization, said: 'Some of these cassava products had the highest level of lead that we've ever tested, and I've been with Consumer Reports for eight and a half years. 'We never want consumers to panic, but we do want them to be aware so they can take proper measures to reduce their lead intake, since long-term lead exposure can lead to adverse health outcomes.' Eight products — mostly Cassava flour — contained such high levels of the toxic metal that the organization said people should avoid them entirely. Lead is a toxic heavy metal that is absorbed into the blood from contaminated foods and then travels to the brain, damaging cells. Studies have already linked lead exposure to a higher risk of learning difficulties and communication problems, with some even suggesting exposure in early life or in the womb may raise the risk of developing autism. The FDA says there is no safe level of lead exposure, while California says people should not be exposed to more than 0.5 micrograms of lead per day. Cassava is particularly popular among the more than 3 million gluten-free people in the US because it can be used to replicate much-loved snacks without exposing them to gluten. Among paleo-diet followers, it is a popular source of carbohydrates when many others — like bread and pasta — are off the menu. Between one and three million people in the US follow this diet, estimates claim. For the report, Consumer Reports tested one serving of Cassava-based products including chips, flour, crackers, bread, cookies, cereal, pasta, puff snacks, bars, and soda. Of the eight flours tested, four had lead levels that were so high consumers were told not to eat them. Three others had lead levels per serving between 200 and 600 percent the recommended level. Of the eight Cassava chips tested, two had levels that were so high that Consumer Reports said they should be avoided. In total, lead levels in the chips ranged from 600 to 1,700 percent. Overall, Bob's Red Mill Cassava Flour — sold in Walmart, health foods grocer Sprouts and others — was found to have the highest lead levels, at 2,343 percent higher than the recommended level. Also in the top ten were Whole Foods-own brand Sea Salt Cassava Tostones Cassava Chips, with lead levels 1,723 percent above the recommended level. Processing the vegetable into flour concentrates it, which experts say makes lead levels higher. The report tested the Cassava products for four heavy metals, with the other three being mercury, arsenic and cadmium. Mercury was found in none of the products, while there was a measurable amount of arsenic — commonly linked to pesticides, and can cause brain damage and cancer — in half. Cadmium, a toxic heavy metal that damages organs, was also detected in almost all of the products. Consumer Reports uses a much lower recommended lead level exposure of 0.5 micrograms per day, which it bases on California's safe limit. For comparison, the FDA says that exposure for adults should not exceed 8.8 micrograms per day. For children, it said this shouldn't exceed 2.2 micrograms. The difference is because California's limit is based on health concerns, while the FDA's indicates where damage has previously been observed. Rogers added: 'The negative effects of lead happen over time when there's chronic exposure, so you won't get lead poisoning if you eat one serving of these products. 'However, I would strongly urge consumers to reconsider using the seven products we listed to avoid.' Consumer Reports contacted 18 of the companies mentioned before publishing its findings, and also sent them their test results. Nine of them responded, with many saying that lead was a naturally occuring element that could not be completely avoided. Some also said that they test their ingredients or finished products for heavy metals. Several companies said that the products tested for the report have since been discontinued, with some acknowledging that concerns about lead in cassava played a role in the decision. Eight of the companies products carry warning labels on the back over higher lead levels. This is in line with California's Proposition 65, which requires any products with lead levels above 0.5 micrograms per serving to carry the warning.
