The ‘Boogeyman’ in Our Food: Fears vs. Facts About Lead
“Lead is everywhere. It’s an element, on the periodic table. It is a component of the earth,” said Andrea Love, PhD, a biomedical scientist and founder of , a newsletter dedicated to debunking scientific disinformation. “Pretty much any plant or food derived from a plant or even animals that eat plants or drink water, including humans, are going to have measurable but small levels of lead. You can’t escape it if you’re living on this planet.”
Knowledge is your best defense – here’s what the science and the experts say.
Lead in the Zeitgeist
Lead’s everywhere-ness is nothing new. So, why are we hearing so much about it now?
“I think part of it is because people are interested in food,” said Katarzyna Kordas, PhD, an associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions in Buffalo, New York. “They want to know what they’re eating, and with easier access to laboratory equipment, there are more opportunities to test.”
Our fear of lead in particular may have become more deeply ingrained since the federal government started mandating things like unleaded paint and gasoline in the 1970s. Those measures worked – since the 1940s, children’s blood lead levels in the U.S. have decreased by but they also drew public attention to the toxic metal.
“Lead is one of the boogeymen burned into our ‘Oh My God, there’s bad things out there’ zeitgeist,” said David Ropeik, a book author, former Harvard instructor, and expert on risk perception. It triggers the same kind of alarm as words like pesticides, radiation, mercury, and DDT, Ropeik said. “What gets left out is the nuance on any of those about dose. There’s no safe dose of lead, but low doses are not as bad as higher doses, and that’s what’s relevant.”
