A Lot of Popular Salts Contain Lead and Arsenic, New Testing Uncovers
by Claudia Fisher
Consumer-advocacy website Lead Safe Mama, which tests foods and other products to assess their toxicity, recently ran a bunch of popular salt brands through the ropes, and the findings might raise your blood pressure more than the sodium itself.
To determine what salts to test, Lead Safe Mama had its community of over 2 million monthly readers make nominations. Then, to ensure results are unbiased and not influenced by corporate pressures, a GoFundMe was set up to crowdfund the cost of the testing at a third-party lab. The site is constantly updating its results, but the most up-to-date chart currently looks at 11 salts and if there’s the presence of heavy metals lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium.
According to Lead Safe Mama and research, there is no safe level of lead exposure for humans. Lead toxicity has been a known health hazard since the days of Ancient Greece, and lead poisoning can cause terminal cardiovascular, brain, and central nervous system issues. Despite these risks, seven out of the 11 salts included in testing had some level of lead in them:
- Selina Naturally Fine Ground Celtic Salt
- Redmond Real Salt Ancient Fine Sea Salt
- Baja Gold Salt Co. Mineral Sea Salt – Fine Grind
- Jacobsen Salt Co. Pure Italian Sea Salt
- A. Vogel Certified Organic Herbamare Original
- Saltverk Hand Harvested Lava Salt (Black)
- Morton Iodized Salt.
As you can see, several of these have seemingly promising jargon in the names, like “organic,” “mineral,” and “real,” which shows that, unfortunately, reading labels alone won’t guarantee your safety. In addition to lead, exposure to arsenic, cadmium, and mercury is also associated with “gastrointestinal and kidney dysfunction, nervous system disorders, skin lesions, vascular damage, immune system dysfunction, birth defects, and cancer.”
While Lead Safe Mama obviously hasn’t evaluated every single salt on the market, if you want to play it safe, opt for the four that came up in the clear for not just lead but also traces of the other three heavy metals: Jacobsen Salt Co. Pure Kosher Sea Salt, Maldon Sea Salt Flakes, Diamond Crystal kosher Salt, and Saltverk Hand Harvested Flaky Sea Salt (White).
