Lead, Mercury, Arsenic and other contaminents in protein powders

**tbubar** · Posted On: 6/09/2010 9:01pm

Consumer Reports July 2010 issue includes a report on contaminants found in many popular protein shakes. This includes arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium.

The complete article can be found here. It includes popular brands like Muscle Milk, GNC and Optimum Nutrition.

It makes me wonder what all the many pounds of GNC protein I drank really did for me...

**dwkfym** · Posted On: 6/09/2010 10:31pm

Thanks for the heads up. I had a professor who was in the food industry, and she told us there are these chemicals in basically everything you eat. Even organic ones, and even stuff grown in your garden. She says it is all about the quantity present in the product that makes it good or bad. Keeping that in mind, looks like it is obvious which brands have too much crap in them.

**Re4** · Posted On: 6/10/2010 1:44am

good to see met-rx isn't on the list.

**SFGOON** · Posted On: 6/10/2010 1:59am

Don't **** your britches over it. It takes about 602,200,000,000,000,000,000 (a millimole) atoms of a thing to make any amount of significance. It's fuckin' everywhere. If they had tested for polonium, uranium, even cesium, they would have found that **** as well.

The food you eat has trace amounts of the entire periodic table in it. Don't worry, just chow down.

**Conde Koma** · Posted On: 6/10/2010 2:20am

I don't think it's wise to just ignore something like this. Just because they've found the contaminants in other food products doesn't negate the health risks posed by too much heavy metal consumption.

**Byuki** · Posted On: 6/10/2010 4:37am

I can't speek on behalf of SFGOON but I think he means the amonts inside are harmless and you can find very small amounts of this inside any food. Excuse me if I was wrong in my interpretation.

**dwkfym** · Posted On: 6/10/2010 7:36am

I realized my message is lost in my first reply. I wouldn't be worried about anything except for the ones that surpass the recommended amounts. SFGOON is right.

**tbubar** · Posted On: 6/10/2010 9:14am

Originally Posted by SFGOON

Don't **** your britches over it. It takes about 602,200,000,000,000,000,000 (a millimole) atoms of a thing to make any amount of significance. It's fuckin' everywhere. If they had tested for polonium, uranium, even cesium, they would have found that **** as well.

The food you eat has trace amounts of the entire periodic table in it. Don't worry, just chow down.

They didn't report it in atoms, they reported it in micrograms and several of the products exceeded the daily recommended exposure to these toxins.

When I did the velocity diet, I was doing about 24 servings of GNC protein per day which would have been about 45 micrograms of arsenic daily, which is far above the recommended limit of 15 micrograms a day. I did that diet for several weeks. Anyone who's doing a high protein diet should be careful about what product they choose.