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Last month, I posted about organic canned foods containing levels of BPA comparable to levels found in cheap, nonorganic canned foods! This study served as a warning to me that while the food inside a package may be nontoxic and organic, the packaging frequently seems to be just as cheap and toxic as nonorganic varieties!
It seems that savvy parents must now be alert to the type of packaging of the foods they buy as well as the ingredients on the label!
High Levels of Lead in Many Brands of Organic Juice
Additional disturbing information regarding the packaging or manufacturing process of organic juice has now come to light. Many brands of organic juice have been found to contain levels of lead dangerous to children under the age of 6. The limit according to California Proposition 35 is .5 micrograms of lead per serving.
The list of organic juices exceeding this limit includes high quality brands such as Earth’s Best Organic Apple Juice, Trader Joe’s Concord Grape Juice, Full Circle Organic Apple Juice, O Organics Unfiltered Apple Juice, Walnut Acres Organic Concord Grape Juice, Santa Cruz Organic Concord Grape Juice, 365 Everyday Value Organic Grape Juice, and the list goes on.
What is going on here? Clearly the organic juice itself does not contain lead, so there must be something amiss either during the manufacturing process or perhaps the juice packaging? A complete list of all products tested by Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) which also includes brands of packaged peaches, pears, and fruit cocktail can be found at this PDF file.
No Safe Level of Lead for Children
While I do not agree with The American Academy of Pediatrics on a number of fronts, I do fully agree with their stance that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children (or pregnant women, for that matter as lead passes through the placenta).
Children absorb lead at a higher rate than adults and their growing bodies are more vulnerable to its effects. Lead has a particularly detrimental effect on children’s IQ.
This study does not bode well for use of these types of products by those most vulnerable to the effects of lead. Lead accumulates in the body over time so repeated, small exposures can add up to a big problem later.
Make Your Own Juices!
Studies like these convict me all the more to continue spending the time making healthy, fresh pressed juices for my family and to offer probiotic filled fermented beverages such as kombucha, kefir soda, and root beer.
Drinking a lot of processed juice, even if organic, is not a good idea anyway as 100% juice increases risk of obesity just the same as sodas. Pasteurized store juice is just a glass of sugar in the final analysis.
Perhaps this study that there is lead in with the organic juice will motivate folks all the more to prepare healthy drinks for their families at home!
Here is a fermented lemonade recipe from Nourishing Traditions Cookbook that my children enjoy (we call it Tangy Lemonade):
Fruit Punch
Juice of 6-8 Lemons or Limes (or a mix of the two)
1/2 cup sucanat or rapadura
1/2 cup liquid whey
1/2 Tsp grated organic nutmeg
2 quarts filtered water
Mix all ingredients in a 2 quart glass container. Cover and leave on the counter for 2-3 days. Skim off and discard any foam that comes to the top after fermenting and then refrigerate.
Hi Sarah, I cannot get the ELF link in this post to work. Do you have another link to try?
Thanks for the heads-up. I will fix the link. Here it is: https://www.envirolaw.org/documents/FoodNewsRelease.pdf
Cover the jars with a clean, white cloth secured with a rubber band just like with kombucha. I use flour sack clothes myself. I like them best. No paper coffee filters as they are bleached.
Thank you Sarah for your response. I have a follow up question. What is best to use to cover the jars? If the spaces in the cloth are too big then the “undesirables” can get in but if they are too small then maybe the ferment might not be able to “breath”? I think that flour sack towels are supposed to be good. Would any tea towel be good? What about paper coffee filters?
Thank you.
Hi Alina, cover the fruit punch with a cloth and a large rubber band to secure while fermenting. You need to cover it to keep molds and other invisible particles in the air from landing on the liquid, not just bugs and flies. Once you refrigerate this, you can either close the lid or not. It's up to you.
I would like to try the fruit punch. When you say cover it for 2-3 days, do you mean just to cover it lightly with some cloth so the bugs do not get in? If you do not have anything at home that can fly into the fermenting liquids do you still need to cover them?
I think that the general rule for all ferments (drinks and veggies) is to let them breathe while fermenting but once you put them in the fridge you close the lid tightly. Is it right?
Do you close the lids on tightly( once in fridge) just to keep the smell inside the jars or are there any other reasons?
Thank you very much.
I agree with you .. I think the packaging or the manufacturing process is the smoking gun. Think of the liability if its the packaging process. Much financial benefit to the companies to point the finger elsewhere.
The ELF article states that they suspect the fruit itself, although if that is the case, I don't know why they didn't test the fruit itself.
They said that the frequent use of lead arsenate as a pesticide in the 20s-50s left lead in much of the soil even still today, and we can deduce that since organic requirements require only three years without chemical application, that even organic soil could have this. They also point to leaded gasoline which was only recently phased out in the US, and is still common elsewhere.
I personally suspect processing, but they seem to be leaning elsewhere