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Arsenic in your juice: How much is too much? Federal limits don’t exist.
Consumer Reports Magazine ^ | January 2012 | NA

Posted on 12/25/2011 8:02:27 PM PST by neverdem

Arsenic has long been recognized as a poison and a contaminant in drinking water, but now concerns are growing about arsenic in foods, especially in fruit juices that are a mainstay for children.

Controversy over arsenic in apple juice made headlines as the school year began when Mehmet Oz, M.D., host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told viewers that tests he’d commissioned found 10 of three dozen apple-juice samples with total arsenic levels exceeding 10 parts per billion (ppb). There’s no federal arsenic threshold for juice or most foods, though the limit for bottled and public water is 10 ppb. The Food and Drug Administration, trying to reassure consumers about the safety of apple juice, claimed that most arsenic in juices and other foods is of the organic type that is “essentially harmless.”

But an investigation by Consumer Reports shows otherwise. Our study, including tests of apple and grape juice (download a PDF of our complete test results), a scientific analysis of federal health data, a consumer poll, and interviews with doctors and other experts, finds the following:

Roughly 10 percent of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen. One in four samples had lead levels higher than the FDA’s bottled-water limit of 5 ppb. As with arsenic, no federal limit exists for lead in juice. Apple and grape juice constitute a significant source of dietary exposure to arsenic, according to our analysis of federal health data from 2003 through 2008. Children drink a lot...

--snip--

The form of arsenic in the examples above is inorganic arsenic. It’s a carcinogen known to cause bladder, lung, and skin cancer in people and to increase risks of cardiovascular disease, immunodeficiencies, and type 2 diabetes...

(Excerpt) Read more at consumerreports.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Testing
KEYWORDS: applejuice; arsenic; grapejuice; health; lead; type2diabetes
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To: neverdem
Lady Astor: “If you were my husband, I’d put arsenic in your coffee.”
Churchill: “Madam, if I were your husband, I’d drink it!”

61 posted on 12/26/2011 12:19:37 AM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: Viking2002
Whoop de frickin' doo. Here's a quarter. Go buy yourself a sense of humor or a condom to eff yourself with.

I cast no aspersions on your intelligence until you responded like a horse's ass and showed me how low yours was.

62 posted on 12/26/2011 12:24:51 AM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: TigersEye
Better idea: Give the doorman that quarter to make sure the knob doesn't hit you in the ass on the way out.

I paid him an extra two bits to make sure it does. Now fade, will ya?


63 posted on 12/26/2011 12:32:23 AM PST by Viking2002 (My regular avatar shall resume upon returning from the holiday festivities......assuming it's sober.)
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To: Viking2002

The only knob here is you but don’t worry I don’t have any desire to pick on one-eyed gimps so you’re safe.


64 posted on 12/26/2011 12:35:08 AM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: TigersEye
What will it take to scrape you off the sole of my boot? Jeezus, just STFU and go away, will ya?


65 posted on 12/26/2011 12:59:48 AM PST by Viking2002 (My regular avatar shall resume upon returning from the holiday festivities......assuming it's sober.)
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To: Viking2002

You could try an apology for being such an ass but I’m sure that’s way beyond your capacities. Just stick with what you’re good at.


66 posted on 12/26/2011 1:05:44 AM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: abercrombie_guy_38
Yep our food is so bad we are living twice as long as our grandparents many times...what one eats or doesn't eat is purely cultural....We don't eat dogs, some cultures do, we eat beef some cultures don't. Austrialian aborigines dig for large maggots the larve of some big bug and it also supplies liquid...Its best we don't know most of what we eat is. Want pure food, get a farm and raise your own. Thats the only way to know what your eating. But always check the feed you buy for your animals to be sure its also pure and doesn't have additives....

Not an easy thing to do...

67 posted on 12/26/2011 1:06:52 AM PST by goat granny
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To: TigersEye
All right, I'm sorry that you didin't get your Flexible Flyer, or Lionel train set at Christmas, OK? That wasn't my fault. I'd have bought you the nice one if Santa gypped you on it. I'm sorry your feelings are hurt over something that might have been said after you made a snide remark at a legitimate question not even directed at you. Now climb off my back. YOU JUST GOT MORE CONDESCENSION THAN MY WIFE USUALLY GETS WHEN SHE IS WRONG. And see how magnanimous I am, not asking for an apology for you poking your beak into something that you had no credible reason to respond to?

And measure your words carefully if you do not wish a scorched earth policy enabled. I have no more time for this B.S. You're welcome. Oh, and Merry Christmas. (That part I meant.)


68 posted on 12/26/2011 1:28:07 AM PST by Viking2002 (My regular avatar shall resume upon returning from the holiday festivities......assuming it's sober.)
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To: Viking2002
My last two homes had their own well. You get use to the odor but I found if I put the water in a pitcher or empty gallon and left the lid off the smell disappears quite a bit within 24 hours. Refrigerate it and it taste good cold. Running a tub of water requires some perfume added but when I go visit and taste city water it smells like our old swimming poor did...Chlorine taste and smell is as bad as well water it depends on what your use to...City water is the water someone last week took a bath in, clorinated and sent out as drinking water....

6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other. Water softeners help eleminate some minerals like iron, the farm had such hard water that the bathroom in the utility room that didn't get used much would actually develop and a thin iron crust on top until flushed....nothing is pure by todays standards...Many people traveling west were just glad to have any kind of water...

69 posted on 12/26/2011 1:29:47 AM PST by goat granny
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To: Viking2002

That was a phony apology and no surprise there. Plus the lie about me making a snide remark. Not too surprised about that either, Yosemite Sam. So, you can take your threats about a scorched earth policy and your braggadocio about abusing your wife and stuff it up your inflated keester.


70 posted on 12/26/2011 1:32:01 AM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
QUICK! How many people can you name that have died of Arsenic in juice, lead in paint or anything (other than bullets), or Mercury in the air?

No fair. You know cigarettes (even seconhdhand smoke) trump any other source of biological evil when it comes to blaming something for a person's death.

71 posted on 12/26/2011 1:33:49 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: TigersEye
You're a chick, aren't you?


72 posted on 12/26/2011 1:36:08 AM PST by Viking2002 (My regular avatar shall resume upon returning from the holiday festivities......assuming it's sober.)
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To: Viking2002

Is that why you think you can abuse me?


73 posted on 12/26/2011 1:38:20 AM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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(I guess scorched earth went by the wayside replaced by jr. high)


74 posted on 12/26/2011 1:40:19 AM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: Larry Lucido

Terrible stuff. There is no federal limit and folks are drowning in the stuff.


75 posted on 12/26/2011 1:57:13 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: TigersEye; Viking2002

76 posted on 12/26/2011 2:32:23 AM PST by UncleHambone ("Laughter is America's most important export." - Walt Disney)
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To: GreyFriar

Bingo


77 posted on 12/26/2011 4:42:03 AM PST by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: neverdem

Food is generally considered the major source of arsenic exposure except in situations where a population is living near a point source (natural geological source or site of contamination). However, it is difficult to compare the intake of arsenic from food with that from drinking water, as the form (organic vs inorganic), valence, and biological availability of arsenic in these two sources vary.

Arsenic is concentrated by many species of fish and shellfish and is used as a feed additive for poultry and livestock; fish and meat are therefore the main sources of dietary intake (78.9%, according to a U.S. survey) (Gartrell et al., 1986).

A 1997 British total diet study found that seafood contributed 94% of the total arsenic intake for the general population (U.K. MAFF, 1999). In Canada, arsenic levels ranging from 0.4 to 118 mg/kg have been reported in marine fish sold for human consumption, whereas concentrations in meat and poultry range up to 0.44 mg/kg (Department of National Health and Welfare, 1983). While organic arsenic compounds (e.g., arsenocholine and arsenobetaine) found in most seaweed and other marine foods have been determined to be relatively non-toxic (Sabbioni et al., 1991), toxic inorganic forms have been found in hijiki seaweed (CFIA, 2001).

Levels in vegetation are generally an order of magnitude lower than those in fish, whereas concentrations in shellfish are often far higher than those in fish (Subramanian, 1988). Exogenous sources of arsenic in the diet potentially include arsenic-containing fungicides used in fruit production. In North America, however, arsenic-containing pesticides are no longer used on food (ATSDR, 2000; PMRA, 2003).

Recent estimates of the mean daily intake of total arsenic in food for adults are as follows: 42 µg (range 22.5–78.7 µg) for adults 20–65+ years old in Canada (Dabeka et al., 1993), 56 µg (range 27.5–92.1 µg) for adults 25–70+ years old in the United States (Tao and Bolger, 1998), 120 µg in the United Kingdom (U.K. MAFF, 1999), 150 µg in New Zealand (Vannoort et al., 1995), 286 µg in Spain (Urieta et al., 1996), and 182 µg in Japan (Mohri et al., 1990).

In children aged 1–4 and 5–11 years, mean daily intakes of total arsenic in food from six Canadian cities have been reported to be 14.9 µg (range 11.4–18.1 µg) and 29.9 µg (range 25.5–39.7 µg), respectively (Dabeka et al., 1993). Daily intakes of 2.15 µg, 23.4 µg, 20.3 µg, and 13.3 µg have been reported for children aged 6–11 months, 2 years, 6 years, and 10 years, respectively, in the United States (Tao and Bolger, 1998).

With regard to food preparation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that preparing foods with arsenic-containing water may increase arsenic content by as much as 10–30% for most foods; beans and grains that absorb water when cooked may absorb up to 200–250% (Mead, 2005).

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/water-eau/arsenic/exposure-exposition-eng.php


78 posted on 12/26/2011 5:16:01 AM PST by B212
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To: Viking2002

Wish I could help but I can’t. Haven’t any medical background.


79 posted on 12/26/2011 5:24:33 AM PST by decimon
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To: neverdem
Arsenic in your juice: How much is too much? Federal limits don’t exist.

"Food" is a smiley-face label we place on assemblages of chemicals we eat to stay alive. Each "food" is composed of chemicals, any one of which, in sufficient quantity, will sicken or kill us; many of which, in insufficient quantities, will sicken or kill us.

Our bodies are chemical machines that run on chemicals. They also produce chemical by-products that are very toxic. The body has ways of dealing with them that are more or less effective. There are chemicals in food that we don't need for purposes of nutrition. The body has ways of dealing with them that are more or less effective. Sometimes other chemicals are added to food and packaging to keep "food" from spoiling. Why? Because the danger posed by those chemicals is minuscule compared to the danger posed oxidation or by mold and bacteria the growth of which those chemicals are designed to retard.

In a day in which we have food of unparalleled quantity, quality, and availability in a way never before seen in history to the point that people are developing life-threatening conditions from too much of a good thing and in a day when analytical chemistry has become so advanced that parts per trillion can be detected of one chemical, it's inevitable that at least two things will occur:
1. Someone will start demanding governmental regulation to reduce your intake of food to prevent you from developing diseases arising from hypernutrition.

2. Someone will start pointing out the presence of naturally-occurring chemicals in food that, in sufficient quantity, could sicken or kill you and demand that something be done to regulate them.
Sort of like what they did back in the 1960s and 70s when people eager to get their hands on the levers of government power and remake the United States into their vision of a socialist utopia warned that we were being exposed to an ocean of man-made carcinogens against which we had no defenses (but them and their regulatory urges) and that by the 1990s there would be a cancer epidemic if we didn't regulate immediately and regulate well through something like, well, the EPA and other agencies so that we could then be free of man-made chemicals and live in peace and healthful harmony with benign nature.

They used the Ames test to show the danger of mutability posed by certain industrial chemicals that they claimed needed to be regulated for the sake of health. It was later, after the regulatory camel was in the tent, that Ames himself showed that almost anything could be used in his test to provoke mutability and others demonstrated that nature, far from being benign, was full of dangerous chemicals that could cause cancer and many, many other forms of illness, and yet people managed to keep living and reproducing.

But wherever there's a danger, no matter how slight, you will always find people eager to be frightened and to impose their fears on others. And they are usually not content to do so by using their own money to attempt to persuade others to follow what they promise will be freedom from disease and death but by getting the government to impose on other people, using other people's money, their utopian vision.

The 10th Amendment was designed to protect us from folks like this. It's beyond time to re-Constitutionalize the federal government.
80 posted on 12/26/2011 5:30:25 AM PST by aruanan
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