Industry agreement prompted by Health Ranger Mike Adams seeks to improve food safety, lower heavy metal concentrations

(http://voices.yahoo.com) Because the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has no regulations in place to monitor produce for heavy metals, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and founder of Natural News, has recently conducted a series of investigations into heavy metal contamination of products in the food supply. One product tested by Adams involved vegan and vegetarian brown rice protein supplements.

In that experiment, Adams found tungsten concentrations exceeding 10,000 parts per billion (ppb), lead at over 500 ppb and more than 1,800 of cadmium in one lot of brown rice protein. Adams said, "These proteins contain the highest concentration of tungsten, lead and cadmium that we've ever found in any edible product, across all categories."

After publishing his results on Natural News, Adams prompted an industry agreement to limit the presence of heavy metals in raw vegan and vegetarian protein supplements. So far, the following standards have been agreed upon by Garden of Life, Sunwarrior and Boku Superfood:

Lead limit: 250 ppb
Tungsten limit: 50 ppb
Cadmium limit: 1000 ppb
Mercury limit: 50 ppb

"Mike Adams now seeks the cooperation of companies such as VEGA, Jarrow Formulas, Nutribiotic, Living Fuel, Nutribody Protein, Ultimate Superfood and Healthforce Warrior Food," William Malsam wrote for Yahoo.com. "The corporations involved in the pact have agreed to limit their concentration levels by July 15, 2015."