California’s Safe Harbor level for lead is 0.5 µg/day. The CDC’s safe level is 10 µg/day, and was 25 µg/day from 1985 to 1991. 12−25 times 0.5 is 6−12.5 µg, which is basically within the CDC’s safe level, and was only found in two samples. (Also, as Soylent’s own reply pointed out, they tested version 1.5, and 2.0 has a different recipe with even lower—but still safe—levels.)
As You Sow has also found lead and cadmium levels above California’s Safe Harbor threshold in 26 chocolate products, including Ghirardelli, Hershey, Mars, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods. They seem to be more about drawing attention to California’s Proposition 65/themselves, than about actually promoting safety.
Note that the standard way of dealing with Proposition 65 is to just label it as “This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.” and then keep selling it, because the other 49 states don’t care.
I’m glad Soylent responded quickly to this, and that most people aren’t taking it as an excuse to be scared of Soylent. A few have been immediately blowing it up into wild speculation, for instance, that Rob Rhinehart is going crazy from lead poisoning by dog-fooding his own product (so to speak).
California’s Safe Harbor level for lead is 0.5 µg/day. The CDC’s safe level is 10 µg/day, and was 25 µg/day from 1985 to 1991. 12−25 times 0.5 is 6−12.5 µg, which is basically within the CDC’s safe level, and was only found in two samples. (Also, as Soylent’s own reply pointed out, they tested version 1.5, and 2.0 has a different recipe with even lower—but still safe—levels.)
As You Sow has also found lead and cadmium levels above California’s Safe Harbor threshold in 26 chocolate products, including Ghirardelli, Hershey, Mars, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods. They seem to be more about drawing attention to California’s Proposition 65/themselves, than about actually promoting safety.
Note that the standard way of dealing with Proposition 65 is to just label it as “This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.” and then keep selling it, because the other 49 states don’t care.
I’m glad Soylent responded quickly to this, and that most people aren’t taking it as an excuse to be scared of Soylent. A few have been immediately blowing it up into wild speculation, for instance, that Rob Rhinehart is going crazy from lead poisoning by dog-fooding his own product (so to speak).