This website is dedicated to raising awareness and providing information about the presence of heavy metals, like lead, in spices. Our goal is to educate consumers and advocate for stricter regulation and testing by the FDA for spices. We provide an easily accessible database which compiles and presents data from numerous tests examining the concentration of heavy metals in a range of popular spice brands.
The data for this website comes entirely from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. It was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
PPB stands for Parts Per Billion, a unit of measurement used to quantify the concentration of substances, such as heavy metals, in various products, including spices. It indicates how many units of a substance are present in a billion units of the total mixture. Understanding PPB is crucial when discussing the safety and quality of spices.
Here is the FDA’s page on lead in food. The current max level allowed in candy is 100 PPB. FDA regulations do not exist for spices specifically, but no level is considered “safe”. New York State implements a Class II recall action level of 210 PPB. Roughly half of the tests in our database exceed this action level.
The FDA currently does not regulate heavy metals in spices. The mission of this website is to change that.
If you are a U.S. Citizen, write to your representative in congress. You can also contact the FDA or the USDA. Look at our letter template for help on what to say.