Can Cinnamon Cause Lead Poisoning? Applesauce Pouch Contamination Update with Helena Bottemiller Evich

Katie Ferraro (0s):

One of the benefits of doing baby-led weaning is that eventually your baby will end up being able to eat modified versions of the same foods that you and the rest of the family do. So the point is you don't have to make special foods or buy special foods or short order cook for the baby because basically you guys are all eating the same thing. And I see that coming true with this baby Ezra that I'm working with. He's my friend Carissa's baby. I'm making all of his 100 First Foods. We're moving into week 14. So like this baby is like more than nine months of age now he's got his pincer grasp, he's jamming. Mom's like Oh, my gosh, thankfully he's drinking so much less formula, getting more nutrition from food. She's like, I love it because I actually make the foods on the weekend and I bring it to their family on either Sunday or Monday.

Katie Ferraro (43s):

And I try to make as much as I can. I have this tendency to like cook too much food 'cause I'm used to making food for my family and I have seven kids. I just, I'm from a family, I'm the oldest of six. I just like naturally cook for a lot of people so I'm like, I don't wanna overwhelm you with food. But she's like, I love it. You can't send me too much food because the rest of our family is eating it to, ioncluding her preschool age son, her husband, and the baby. So now if it hasn't happened for you, I just want to remind you that you will get to the point where your baby in just a few short weeks will be eating modified foods of the same foods the rest of the family is. So the foods that we're having this week, I'm working on recipes for Ezra, well it'll be next week for him, but I'm making 'em this week. Raspberry is his new fruit of the week. The new vegetable that we're doing is eggplant.

Katie Ferraro (1m 23s):

I'm a little bit nervous because his older brother, Ollie, Ezra's brother Ollie had had some reactions to eggplant when he was a baby. So I'm gonna try baby Baba ghanoush, which is one of my favorite recipes for baby-led weaning to see how eggplant goes. I'm working on a new sorghum recipe. So that's a whole grain, it's kind of rando, but it's really high and nutritious and super cheap and affordable and easy to make safe for babies. White beans is his new protein. And then the new allergenic food of the week is clams and I know a lot of families struggle with shellfish, so I always try to think of lots of different ways for you guys to easily incorporate shellfish because it's a potentially allergenic food. So these are the exact sequence of foods that I'm offering every week to help transition Ezra to solid foods. If you wanna learn more about doing this for your baby, come check out my free online Workshop.

Katie Ferraro (2m 6s):

It's called Baby-Led Weaning For Beginners. I just redid this. It's a 75 minutes, which I know is kind of long, but like I think it's important if you wanna do a really comprehensive overview of how baby-led weaning works, what it looks like, what you should be doing, and then what you should not be doing when it comes to food preparation. It's all there inside of the workshop. Plus everybody on this free training gets a copy of my original 100 First Foods list so that you'll never run out of ideas that both your baby and hey, the rest of your family can eat. You can sign up for this week's workshop at babyledweaning.co and it's actually a prerecorded workshop so you can click on the link. Take it now, take it later today. Do it tomorrow when your baby's napping. Honestly, whenever works for your schedule, I just want you to get this info so you can walk away feeling more confident in your baby's ability to self feed can sign up again at babyledweaning.co/workshop and I hope to see you there.

Katie Ferraro (2m 57s):

Whenever parents ask about snack recommendations for Babies, I feel like they always qualify the question with Katie, I know you don't like snacks for babies or, okay, I know you don't always say babies don't need snacks, but are there any snacks you recommend for babies? And for the most part, I recommend you steer clear of packaged snacks because for babies there's too much added sugar and salt and they're highly processed. But there is a snack food that I've used with all of my own babies and that I do recommend for a low mess, no stress way to safely introduce your baby to peanut protein. So this is a snack called PuffWorks Baby. So PuffWorks Baby, they make baby-led weaning puffs for safely introducing your baby to two separate allergenic foods Peanut and treenut. So the PuffWorks Baby Peanut Puffs and they're Almond Puffs. So that's the type of tree nut.

Katie Ferraro (3m 37s):

These puffs have minimal ingredients so there's no added sugar and just a smidge of sodium for preservatives. They're the softest puff on the market so they dissolve in your baby's mouth and they're safe to offer even before your baby has teeth. So PuffWorks puffs are not like those little dangerous starchy star puff things that early eaters can't even pick up. No way. The PuffWorks Puffs are the ideal shape and size for baby-led weaning. They're also a great travel snack too. So if your baby is starting solid foods, I recommend you grab a case of PuffWorks Baby Peanut and then a case of PuffWorks Baby Almond Puffs to get started safely introducing your baby to these allergenic foods early and often. And you can get 15% off everything at puffworks.com with my affiliate discount code BABYLED.

Katie Ferraro (4m 22s):

Again, the code is BABYLED at puffworks.com and happy feeding.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (4m 27s):

And we also don't know what other countries this went to. So these pouches were made in Ecuador, we don't know where the cinnamon was from so far. FDA's extra testing of imported cinnamon has not found high levels of lead. So that's the good news in this case. All of the cases are under the ages of one to four. So these are toddlers...

Katie Ferraro (4m 47s):

Hey there. I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weaning here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leading you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning. Today's episode is a little different. There is not a lot of breaking news in the infant feeding world, but if you have been following the news, perhaps you've heard about the applesauce pouch lead contamination story. So I'm recording this episode on November 29th, 2023. At which point in the United States now 52 children have reported to have high levels of lead in their blood.

Katie Ferraro (5m 34s):

And this is potentially linked to consuming cinnamon applesauce pouches. They were made in Ecuador, they were sold across the United States. And so when it comes to lead, generally scientific consensus maintains that there's really no safe amount of lead, especially for babies and for young children. This is a neurotoxin and we know that lead exposure has been linked to various behavior and developmental problems as well as lowered IQ lethargy. It's generally associated with environmental contaminants, right, exposure to lead-based paint or children putting lead-based toys in their mouth. But in this case, the Centers for Disease Control in the United States, they regularly fund states and cities to conduct lead blood screening for young children.

Katie Ferraro (6m 19s):

And in North Carolina, the Department of Health and Human Services first noticed that there were four kids who had high lead levels. And so then through further investigation along with state officials, they ultimately linked it to these three brands of pouches. And so I've been following the story most closely by reading the email newsletter of Helena Bottemiller Evich. Now Helena has been on our podcast before. She is very well known in the world of food safety. She is a journalist and she reported extensively actually breaking very large parts of the formula recall story from last year. So she came on talking about the formula shortage, the formula recall, but she's kind of my go-to guru when it comes to things related to food safety.

Katie Ferraro (7m 1s):

And so her newsletter Food Fix is a wonderful resource. It's followed by a lot of politicians and food industry insiders, but also a lot of parents. And Helena is a mother of a toddler and she speaks very candidly in this interview using her knowledge about the current outbreak situation or the current recall situation, but also how we can balance what we're learning from this breaking story with the decisions that we're making as far as Foods that we're offering to our babies and our toddlers. And what I think is so unique about the angle of this story or the first place I heard about the link between the lead and the pouches was with regards to the cinnamon. And so the cinnamon in the pouches is very highly suspect it's thought to be possibly potentially adulterated.

Katie Ferraro (7m 47s):

And so we're gonna explore that a little bit more. So a lot of times parents ask about, you know, foods like apples and rice and sweet potatoes and arsenic toxicity. We've talked about that a lot here on the podcast. I'm gonna link some of our other episodes about heavy metals that this is an area of interest to you. And I'll also link the other previous episodes that Helena has done with us inside of the description where you're listening to this podcast. But today I wanted to have her on to talk about the cinnamon and how Can Cinnamon Cause Lead Poisoning and why do they think that's the case right now and what should We do as parents if We do have these products in our household? So with no further ado, here is Helena Bottemiller Evich from the Food Fix Newsletter talking about how cinnamon potentially cause lead poisoning in the current applesauce pouch contamination situation.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (8m 35s):

Thank you for having me, I'm glad to be here.

Katie Ferraro (8m 37s):

So we're gonna be talking about the current applesauce pouch recall situation. As I mentioned earlier, before we started, I don't usually have like breaking news types of interviews on this podcast because to be fair not a whole lot changes in how you help babies safely make the transition to solid food. So could you just give us like a real high-level overview of what's going on with regards to the applesauce pouch recall lead contamination story?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (9m 2s):

Yeah, so about a month ago, FDA issued basically a public health warning saying that four kids in North Carolina had elevated lead levels in their blood. The North Carolina officials had figured out that those were tied to cinnamon applesauce pouches or cinnamon puree pouches. They're sometimes called, there's three brands, Wana Bana, Weis, and Schnucks. Those have all since been recalled and in the last month that situation has gone from four kids in North Carolina to 52 kids in 25 states that have been reported with elevated blood levels tied to these pouches.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (9m 44s):

And so we're in a situation where we're seeing kind of a ballooning debacle if you will, where parents are now wondering, you know, what do I do if my kid had these pouches? Are all pouches affected? Are pouches safe? I mean there's just so many questions. I've been getting a lot of questions from my friends from other parents that read my newsletter. You know, there's just a lot of anxiety around this 'cause you hear this and it's really not good. These, these lead levels were very high. What we know so far is that FDA suspects but has not confirmed that it was the cinnamon in the packets. And one of the reasons they suspect this is 'cause they've tested the other flavors that didn't have cinnamon and they did not test high in lead.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (10m 27s):

And so that gives them some confidence that it's likely the cinnamon but they haven't had a chance to test the cinnamon specifically. So we're in a little bit of a gray area right now where we don't actually know the root cause and again, I think that's causing a lot of anxiety for parents.

Katie Ferraro (10m 43s):

Can we back up even just to the screening? So I mean you have worked in food safety for a very long time now is it commonplace for local public health officials to screen for lead and I mean, just to be able to already tie it back not so quickly. Obviously this took place over a while and for the families that are affected it's a tragedy but in food safety news it seems like it's moving pretty quickly. Like they figured it out exactly where it came from. How do they make that link?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (11m 9s):

Yeah, I've gotten kind of a crash course in lead blood lead screening in the last couple of weeks. I knew something about this because I live in Washington DC which I think is considered kind of a high risk area. We have a lot of older houses that use lead paint, we still have lead pipes here. The city's doing a big push to get rid of all lead pipes by 2030. My lead pipe in my house, my 1908 house, was actually just replaced last year. And so the dc, the District of Columbia, screens I believe all children before the age of two, twice, that's the goal. But every state and local jurisdiction is different. So states might have a different level that they consider concerning.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (11m 50s):

They might only target their Medicaid population, they might only target kids in certain areas. It varies widely. And so I imagine a lot of podcast listeners will be familiar with their kids being tested for lead. And then there are also probably a lot of parents who think, I don't know if my kid has been tested, but the routine screening that's done, this is all funded through CDC. That is the only reason we know about this. The only reason we figured this out is because public health officials noticed a couple of pretty high blood levels and what's going on here? they couldn't figure out anything in the homes. It's usually paint, it's usually old paint, flaking paint, some sort of environmental exposure in the homes.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (12m 34s):

But the investigators just could not figure out any environmental source. And then that led them to start looking at food and that's how we tied it together.

Katie Ferraro (12m 41s):

So, I can, again, as a dietitian, I'm thinking back to like my public health training and we used to learn about, you know, food recalls 24 hour food recalls or food frequency questionnaires. So since you've been studying this, do the officials go into the house and they're like physically rummaging through your pantry or they're like, tell me all the foods that your six month old has eaten in the last X number of days, last weeks or months?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (13m 2s):

Yeah, they might do both but they for sure do like a questionnaire to try to get a sense of what they've eaten recently. And those are really hard. It's really hard for it to be accurate. I could not tell you even exactly fully what I ate yesterday, or last week or what my toddler did or didn't eat last month. So it, it's really hard to do that. They might go through receipts if you're part of like a loyalty program or you shop at Costco or something, there are some ways you can get access to what you've ordered if you order your groceries online. So they're basically in like sleuths, right? They're investigators trying to figure out like what else could have caused this? And I really give the state of North Carolina a lot of credit because they really went the extra mile to connect these dots.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (13m 46s):

And that's the only reason we know. And once they put this out into the public and then CDC actually issued a separate alert to healthcare providers saying hey keep an eye out for this. If a kid has consumed these pouches, parents and caregivers should talk to their pediatrician about getting their kid screened for lead or get a blood test. All of that raised awareness. And now we know of 52 cases, I imagine that case count will grow as more families learn about it, which is a real tragedy.

Katie Ferraro (14m 17s):

And not limited to North Carolina anymore as the term outbreak implies, especially given our global economy and some of these big, big retailers. These things are widespread.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (14m 27s):

And we also don't know what other countries this went to. So these pouches were made in Ecuador, we don't know where the cinnamon was from. It could be in other products. The good news here is that so far FDA's extra testing of imported cinnamon has not found high levels of lead. So that's the good news. But I was really eyeballing, you know the cinnamon I have in my kitchen thinking is this okay? I mean you just don't think about these things, right? And you really put a lot of trust in retailers, food buyers, food manufacturers should be having a lot of scrutiny on their suppliers, particularly when they're making baby food or food for very young children. In this case all of the cases are under the ages of one to four.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (15m 11s):

So these are toddlers and so vulnerable, right? And lead exposure can be really serious. It can reduce your IQ, lead to developmental issues, behavioral issues. There's a really long list of concerning consequences. And so there's a real reason to make sure kids have as little exposure to lead as possible.

Katie Ferraro (15m 32s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back. And I wanted to talk specifically today with you about this cinnamon link here. Of course I was following the story as it was breaking and then reading your newsletter Food Fix was the first time that I saw you link this outbreak and the higher lead levels in these children to what is still not yet confirmed but highly suspected to be the cinnamon. Can you talk a little bit about why adulteration of spices would occur or how that lead got into Cinnamon, which you know, cinnamon is not known to be a spice that preferentially takes up lead.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (16m 13s):

It's such a good question and I have found myself asking a lot of questions about spices and the spice trade and how it works. And it's a very complicated supply chain. It's a very long supply chain. Often these spices are coming from far away. They might be coming from a lot of small farms and they might be aggregated by, you know, by different processors or aggregators in like developing countries. They might have varying levels of food safety controls and not just food safety controls like you know, keeping salmonella out but also keeping, you know, maybe they're using leaded gasoline next to the field. I mean there's just so many ways that environmental or other pathogen contamination can happen.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (16m 56s):

In the case of cinnamon in this situation, the folks I'm talking to are really suspecting that there might be intentional adulteration because the levels they're finding are so high. So in the pouches themselves, they're actually 200 to 500 times the proposed standard for lead that FDA has put out. And even that standard that FDA put out was about 10 parts per billion, public health groups and kids groups kids health advocates didn't feel was protective enough. Okay, so it's hundreds of times the level that public health advocates didn't feel was protective enough. So the lead levels are just so high that the cinnamon itself, if it were the source, would have to be very contaminated.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (17m 42s):

So the good news is this is probably a really isolated situation where something very, very, very wrong has gone like or something very wrong has happened, right? Like maybe there was something ground into it to make it heavier like economic adulteration.

Katie Ferraro (17m 58s):

Because it's sold by weight.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (17m 59s):

Yeah. So it could have been like they ground up highly contaminated soil into the cinnamon grounds or something like that, like we don't know. So this is the other thing I learned actually most of us have never had real cinnamon. The cinnamon we have commonly in the US is actually from a plant. I think it's called cassia, it's C-A-S-S-I-A. You should look this up. I did not realize this but I started talking to people in the spice industry and they were like, just so you know, this isn't like traditional cinnamon..

Katie Ferraro (18m 26s):

We think you've never even had real cinnamon.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (18m 31s):

So look that up 'cause now I'm like really curious to try quote unquote real cinnamon. But common cinnamon comes from cassia, I think I'm saying that right. And I, think cassia can take up some lead, like all plants can, right?

Katie Ferraro (18m 45s):

They're biological products.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (18m 46s):

Do more than others like sweet potatoes and carrots and things. Like root vegetables can take up more heavy metals like lead and cadmium things like that. That doesn't mean you avoid those foods, those are nutrient-dense foods. But it's just something to be aware of, right? Rice is also something that can uptake arsenic. So it's just something to know, right? When you're trying to feed a variety of foods, something to be aware of, like don't feed rice every day. Rice snacks can also be really high in arsenic. So I'm really mindful of like not overly relying on rice snacks trying to not overly rely on things with brown rice syrup. It's not something to fear, it's not something to stress about, but just something to be aware of.

Katie Ferraro (19m 28s):

And it does reinforce the idea of a varied diet, which we all know is beneficial. The thing that I just think is so new about this story is like historically, you know we've said and all, I've always taught, babies do not need to eat bland food, right? Your baby has been exposed to different taste profiles when you're pregnant via your amniotic fluid. When you're breastfeeding those flavor compounds transfer via breast milk like your baby. When we try to avoid excessive salt added sugar and super spicy things that would be injurious to the baby. But in Nepal, Nepalese Babies eat Nepalese food and in Ethiopia, Ethiopian babies eat Ethiopian food. So season as you would. But if you use cinnamon like this is kind of opening a whole new door and a new window into like, oh we kind of just assumed and I mean wrongfully s`o that these products were safe.

Katie Ferraro (20m 10s):

We do live in a global economy. There is adulteration of the food supply as much as, I mean I respect the work you do, at the end of the day we still have a very, very safe food supply compared to the other parts of the world. So, I don't want parents to freak out. But since you've been investigating kind of the spices rabbit hole essentially, you know how like in the supplement world there's like USP, like there's these third party verifications like that you can't, it doesn't mean that the supplement is going to do what it says it does, but it means the supplement's probably not gonna kill you. Like is there the equivalent in the United States for spices as far as third party verification for safety goes?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (20m 43s):

Yeah, I'm not sure about spices specifically, but there's a ton of food safety certifications that frankly retailers and these food makers should be imposing on their ingredient suppliers. I think there is varying degrees of rigor for those standards, but frankly this is just not something consumers should have to worry about, right? Like this is not something where you and I as parents should be looking under the hood to be like

Katie Ferraro (21m 10s):

Can't read a label to find out if there's lead in your pouch,

Helena Bottemiller Evich (21m 12s):

Right? This should be a non-competitive issue. There are consumer advocates who are pushing for, you know, you could mandate testing for heavy metals for at least baby food manufacturers or young kids' food manufacturers. That's something congress would have to mandate

Katie Ferraro (21m 30s):

Or California.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (21m 31s):

Yeah, so California is well on its way I think that kicks in, it's either next year or the year after. So actually that's gonna be really interesting to see what effect that has that could push a lot of manufacturers who weren't already testing to test. I should also say there are I think a lot of reputable brands that are screening, right? There's a lot of brand risk to be had for something like this happening. and I think most, you know, food makers don't wanna make kids sick or they don't wanna harm kids. A lot of times their own kids are eating the products that they're making. I think in a situation where there's just recognition that we can do better, right? I do not fear foods, I don't panic about this, but just having awareness that heavy metals can have a negative effect on children.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (22m 14s):

There's just pretty broad recognition that we could do better. The other spice, I think where there's been some issues is turmeric and it's also been led and I think in that case it was a coloring additive like trying to make it more yellow and then it was a lead like additive and it, it was bad, like the levels were high, but reputable brands should not be buying from suppliers like thatsSo I think if you wanna just stick to brands, you know, or brands that are kind of common, generally they should be minding these issues and paying close attention to them. I think a lot of spice buyers and users are watching this case very closely.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (22m 56s):

I'm getting emails about it, you know, saying do you know where the cinnamons from and I don't. But there's nervousness, right? And hopefully there will be learnings from this, right? That if you are making kids food, particularly pouches or anything targeted at babies and you're using spices, there should just be a level of scrutiny there.

Katie Ferraro (23m 16s):

Do you feel like, no offense, a broken record like this is coming on the heels of the formulary recall, which you worked on so extensively. If you are making infant milk for babies and it's the only thing that they can eat, like we should have a little bit higher standards. Like it's almost like the same conversation we had this time last year I feel like.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (23m 32s):

Yeah, I mean I think, I think there's the sense in the US right? Because you, you are so right that generally our food supply is you know, among the safest in the world, right? It is not something to panic about, to be fearful of. I mean we really do have a pretty safe food supply but there's I think a lot of assumption from parents understandably that things are more regulated than they are, right? That there's just more testing that happens or more standards that are imposed than perhaps it's true. And so when we have situations like this, it raises more conversation around, okay well do we need to have stricter rules? Do we need to have you know, more oversight because this is the United States of America, you know, one of the richest countries on in the world and can't we do better?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (24m 18s):

I think that's kind of where it comes down to. But again, it's not something to get too panicked about. I understand though why parents are worried. Just to give you a sense, we still have applesauce pouches in my house. They don't have cinnamon in them. I think if they had cinnamon in them, I would be at least asking the company, you know, to just confirm they're not part of the situation. But it's not something that's causing me a lot of anxiety even though I'm covering it. It's a real tragedy though. I mean 52 children being reported with high blood levels. That's just, that's a failure.

Katie Ferraro (24m 50s):

Hey we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back. And I wanted to ask you about the FDA response 'cause I know you've written extensively about the FDA, there's a lot of upheaval there right now slash all the time. Just go on the recalls page. It's the salmonella in the cantaloupe right now. It's the listeria and the nectarines and the plums and then the thorough outbreak. It's the lead in the applesauce pouches. You do say that you are, you're giving credit to the FDA in some regard. Like wow they have responded really quickly. But then I'm also like, okay in this day and age when like seriously Elon Musk can send people in outer space, like how come there's not a person in Ecuador that was like, yeah it's the `sentiment. Like why don't they already know this?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (25m 31s):

Yeah, it's a really good question. I, you know, I think generally FDA has a track record of being quite slow for recalls and things Like that so you know, if there's an outbreak it might take them weeks or even months to pinpoint the food. And then sometimes these foods are actually recalled after they've already been eaten or their, you know, their shelf life has gone. This is particularly hard for fresh fruits and vegetables, right? Because the, the shelf life's not a long time so they, they've gotten dinged a lot and I think, I mean understandably there's been a lot of frustration about these long timelines. Like it can't take months like this 2023, we need to be able to trace food back to its source. We need to be able to connect these dots sooner because the whole point is trying to prevent illness and if you get an A recall notice and you've already fed your kid this item for weeks or months, that's just not helpful to you, right?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (26m 22s):

Like you've already, you're not preventing the situation or the harm from happening. So it does raise a lot of questions about federal oversight. We had a big overhaul of food safety laws and standards about a decade ago and I think there's a lot of questions now, especially with all of these outbreaks and recalls that you mentioned about why we're still having these kind of the same problems happening over and over again. Like what more could be done to prevent these issues. It's not only bad for public health but it's also really bad for like the economy, it's costly for these companies. It's costly for entire sectors. It took spinach. I mean back in, I don't know if your listeners will remember this but back in 2006 we had a really bad really deadly spinach outbreak with e coli.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (27m 7s):

It took like the better part of a decade for spinach to recover from that in terms of consumption. So these have like really intense economic effects on top of the harm that they cause to people. So there are a lot of questions about that. FDA in this case did act remarkably quickly compared to really any other timeline that I've seen from the agency. They were notified I believe on a Wednesday about the issue from North Carolina. FDA scientists had confirmed the science that you know the from the state officials by Friday there was a an announcement out and you know them saying that the company had agreed wana had agreed to recall the products by Saturday.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (27m 50s):

Three to four days is like lightning speed. I mean I've seen lots of things that have taken months and so consumer advocates gave them a lot of credit for acting quickly in this situation. and I think that credit is warranted based on what I know my reporting that said, we're now a month into this and we don't know if it was for sure the cinnamon, we don't know which cinnamon it was, where else that cinnamon may have gone. And FDA won't say whether or not they've inspected the facility which

Katie Ferraro (28m 17s):

That's what I was gonna ask you is like what is the, them not saying that it's cinnamon like you know this world, what's that saying? Is that saying it's maybe not cinnamon?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (28m 26s):

I think to confirm that it's the cinnamon they need to test the cinnamon they have not gotten access to just the Cinnamon. Yeah, and I think it's as simple as that. I cannot explain to you though why FDA officials are not in that plant right now or haven't been for weeks or didn't go quickly. I, I don't know, I can't explain that. But again I think it goes back to just as parents we sort of have these assumptions about the level of sort of inspection and regulation that there is and really a lot of this is more driven by the private sector and retailers putting standards on their suppliers. FDA inspections, you know for infant formula happen every year.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (29m 7s):

But that's the most frequently a plant's gonna be inspected. Most food manufacturers are inspected every few years at most.

Katie Ferraro (29m 14s):

Unless there's a global pandemic in which case nobody gets inspected for a long time.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (29m 20s):

It's not exactly the biggest deterrent, right? You have to have other things in place that are gonna put pressure on every part of the food safety chain to make sure that everyone's doing their job. This is one of the things I think about a lot as someone who covers food safety and also feeds a toddler is just how many people, how many parts of that chain have to be responsible and have to do the right thing, use clean water, be on it, use sanitation practices. To trust they wash their hands, all the things, the chain of trust there is a lot. I think about that quite a bit. And, I don't fear food. I just, I do think it's so important to, to emphasize that because they're, it's really easy to get anxiety about this stuff.

Katie Ferraro (30m 5s):

Oh most certainly. And then the point of this interview is not to give parents anxiety about it, it's to discuss a current evolving story. Like I wanna skip ahead to like two years from now when someone wrote the book about what happened and like you see all the steps and be like exactly how come the FDA hasn't said like we are in that plant right now. Obviously there's something else going on or they, they would have, you know, what is it we wanna know but the story is fluid, it's evolving and I wanted to ask you have the retailers come out and said a 100% for sure this product is not on our shelves anymore. Because as I understand it the distribution change especially for some of the dollar stores is much different than for somea of the other retailers. Are these guys across the board saying this stuff is outta the food supply?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (30m 43s):

Yeah, it was also sold on like Amazon. I mean it was, I think it was also on Sam's Club. It was at a couple national retailers. The only retailer I've heard still carrying pouches as these recall pouches as at least a week or two ago with Dollar Tree and FDA actually took the unusual step of calling out Dollar Tree in their last update and saying we know they're still on the shelves. Which is I don't think anything I can recall seeing from FDA and that forced Dollar Tree to make a statement saying, I think they said they locked their point of sale system so that if you tried to buy one it wouldn't let you. But again, like these should not be on shelves like they should

Katie Ferraro (31m 20s):

Especially that this far into the story.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (31m 22s):

Yeah and we're a month in, there's no excuse for any retailer to have recalled product, especially something that has really high levels of lead and like really could harm a child. Like there's just no excuse for that. So hopefully they will figure that out. I think this is a case though where parents may eventually hold retailers to account, right? Because retailers do have some level of responsibility to make sure they're not selling dangerous products. So,

Katie Ferraro (31m 51s):

And that's where it kind of diverges from the formula story because parents never felt that they had to hold the retailers of the formula especially, I mean we were dealing with formula shortage slash contamination and they were going right to the manufacturer where you could, it wasn't, we weren't going to Ecuador, we were going to where were you Michigan?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (32m 9s):

Yeah

Katie Ferraro (32m 9s):

And so I think it's a little bit different there. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out and for those parents who are particularly anxious, I know one thing I really appreciate about your food fix newsletter is that you take, I mean the food safety world itself is very convoluted, very hard to discern and now while I'm interested in it, I certainly don't have time to read all the source documents myself. So thank you for doing that. Summarizing it, putting it out there. Where should parents go if they are like, well Helena has applesauce pouches on her shelf and she's not really worried. Should I be worried about the ones on my shelf? Where should parents go to learn whether or not they are affected by this particular cinnamon lead applesauce pouch situation?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (32m 47s):

Yeah, great question. So I think fda.gov is still your best source in this situation. Like the most up-to-date information on what exactly was recalled, which brands where lot codes, pictures, all of that. And you can sign up to get FDA recalls straight to your inbox.

Katie Ferraro (33m 4s):

No you can sign up Helena because that sounds so stressful and you tell us when to start worrying.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (33m 11s):

I was gonna say you can. So generally I think it's a question of will this help you make decisions and get things outta your kitchen or will it make you more anxious and I think that's just a good thing to think about before you do that. 'cause there's a lot of recalls and a lot of them are for like undeclared allergens. So like if your kid has really intense allergies it may be worth it because

Katie Ferraro (33m 32s):

Oh I completely agree with you from a food allergy situation, right?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (33m 35s):

Or if you have a kid with special medical needs or immune compromised and you wanna know ASAP if there's like a salmonella issue or e coli issue where they're much more susceptible. Totally makes sense to get on these lists. The only reason I hesitate is there is a lot of recalls and So I mean you can also get not on the food side but the consumer product safety bureau, whatever that entity is called, that other agency, I don't cover this agency. You can also sign up to get like toy recalls also

Katie Ferraro (34m 5s):

Stressful.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (34m 5s):

I know, I know. Well I realized this recently and I was like Oh my gosh I would have no idea if I had a recalled toy in my house as an example. So there are ways to get these alerts and I think, you know, if you wanna have the information, it's a great tool to be able to have that. There's also some websites, there's a website called E Food Alert that does a lot of food recalls on a regular basis. You can track those. There's food safety news which is actually where I started writing about food safety many years ago. So there's sources again, it's a balancing act.

Katie Ferraro (34m 37s):

There's so much data out there and one thing that I thought was interesting kind of on the other side of the recall right now, the salmonella with the cantaloupe situation, it was over the Thanksgiving break. I got an email from Walmart, I do a lot of Walmart grocery delivery saying hey, just a heads up within the last year. So giving me a timeframe, November, 2022 to November, 2023 you purchased the brand of cantaloupe that's affected by the sick now thank you first of all Walmart, thank you for using my data in a way that actually helps me. I know everyone has my data and it never helps us, right? Like okay that's interesting. I didn't know I actually bought you're

Helena Bottemiller Evich (35m 8s):

Monetizing your data without you.

Katie Ferraro (35m 10s):

Exactly. But then they're also like hey throw me a bone like you might be affected. Which I mean we can go into like well if I bought the cantaloupe a year ago, is that really helping me to get the email today? 'cause again I could have been feeding this food to my kid over and over and over. Also if you freeze it, like we know that there's like you don't necessarily kill all these potentially harmful pathogens. Exactly. Using 'em in smoothies or whatever the case may be. But I was actually surprised like okay this day and age everyone's tracking your data all the time. Like thank you for an email that told me that I actually bought the cantaloupe that was potentially contaminated. It made me just pay attention. Obviously I'm paying attention to this story but like I also am buying food and feeding seven small children every single day. I can't make every single decision based on like thousands of pieces of data.

Katie Ferraro (35m 51s):

Like it is so overwhelming sometimes you just wanna throw your hands up and be like, what is safe to feed my kids? You know? And the answer is not a hundred percent wholesome unprocessed foods because obviously listeria in apricots and nectarines and the salmonella and the cantaloupe and it's not processed foods because guess what those apples sauce pouches are processed. Like the answer is a variety of foods for lots of different reasons including food safety. But then thanks to the work that people like you are doing, it's like we have to acknowledge that not all these foods are safe.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (36m 18s):

Yeah, I mean in some ways it is like an ignorance this bliss situation. Most of us have solid immune systems that hopefully if we saw one of these pathogens we would fight it and just like, or maybe we'd get a little bit sick but we wouldn't get super sick. I mean there's so many factors at play. People ask me all the time, they're like how do you eat anything? Like you just know so much and you kind of get to a point where you're like, information is good to have. You wanna be an informed consumer. But also it's good to like put it in perspective. You were totally right. Fresh foods like have a lot of benefits. There's a lot of, there's a lot of research that promotes like eating more whole foods or less processed foods. Our friends in the food industry don't love to hear this but, but it's one of those things but with fresh food you don't have a kill step, right?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (37m 1s):

So there is some level of inherent risk that comes from eating fresh fruits and vegetables. That is just the reality of the situation And there's a lot of benefits, right? So you can't only focus on the potential risks, you know, I personally still eat like bagged lettuce and bagged kale pre-washed stuff, right? Because I figure the the benefit is worth it. But that's not something I would give raw to like a baby

Katie Ferraro (37m 23s):

Or Yeah or if you had an immunocompromised child or a child with severe food allergy, I totally

Helena Bottemiller Evich (37m 27s):

It's just like good information to know like we've had a lot of issues with leafy greens being contaminated over the years and just knowing that that risk is there is just, you know, it's good to know.

Katie Ferraro (37m 37s):

Hey we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back. One thing that I was thinking about the other day too was with regards to sprouts. 'cause someone was saying like how come beans sprouts aren't your 100 First Foods list? and I was like, oh dude nobody eats beans sprouts. Like I remember working on something going to grocery store and asking the produce manager like how come there's not beans sprouts? He's like I'm not allowed to carry be sprouts. Like as far as foods that are a potential source of foodborne pathogens, you don't wash sprouts. So if you can't wash sprouts because washing them makes them soggy and not washing them is gonna harbor the potentially harmful pathogens. We're not selling 'em in the store. And then I started noticing like most grocery stores don't carry a lot of the sprouted, some sprouted stuff like like different, you know, sprouted lentils or legumes and stuff Like that.

Katie Ferraro (38m 24s):

But actual like straight up bean sprouts like for your salad. My mom used to buy 'em all the time. You can't really buy 'em anymore. Have you noticed that too?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (38m 31s):

I have never noticed that. Those definitely have had some issues. I mean I think like cooked in a stir fry or something.

Katie Ferraro (38m 37s):

Good point. Yeah you're right. If you cook 'em in a stir fry fine. But if you put 'em in a salad and you don't wash 'em, no.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (38m 43s):

Yeah. So food safety news, the site that I used to work for and I helped launch was started by a food safety lawyer named Bill Marler and he refuses to eat sprouts. He said too many, I

Katie Ferraro (38m 52s):

Think I read that he refuses to eat sprouts and I was like I'm I'm on Bill's side with this.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (38m 55s):

That's a different list, right? Like he's seen the worst of the worst. Right? And So I guess I don't buy a ton of sprouts but I mean it's true that sprouts have had a long history of issues. So

Katie Ferraro (39m 7s):

Yeah like raw and undercooked shellfish.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (39m 9s):

Yeah.

Katie Ferraro (39m 9s):

And we have some seafood shellfish on our 100 First Foods list like fish and shellfish are two separate potentially allergenic food categories. There is some data to suggest early introduction helps reduce the risk of food allergy down the road. Should you be serving raw and undercooked shellfish to your baby? No. Like obviously because if you look at the data there are foods that you're, you're more inclined to get sick from. Not all the time. If they're prepared properly and you know where they're sourced from, great. But if you don't, especially with the baby and they're still developing immune system like why take the risk.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (39m 36s):

Yeah, there's a lot of things Like that like if you're preparing raw chicken in your home, you should assume that that's contaminated and just be really careful. I wouldn't let a little kid help you with that or touch the counters or the cutting boards and you know, just stuff Like that keeping that separate is really important.

Katie Ferraro (39m 56s):

So just assume the worst is what you're saying?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (39m 59s):

Well raw chicken has, can have high levels of salmonella and so but it's cook cook it, it's fine.

Katie Ferraro (40m 4s):

But cook it to its proper internal cooking temperature which you cannot eyeball and you do need a thermometer to do that.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (40m 9s):

I know all the things of meat thermometers are your friend. Well

Katie Ferraro (40m 12s):

Just don't cook with your toddlers in the kitchen 'cause it's...

Helena Bottemiller Evich (40m 13s):

I was gonna say yeah cook with toddlers but when it's like a low risk situation, right? No raw poultry.

Katie Ferraro (40m 19s):

You can cut the tofu over here. Okay. With the dull butter knife. I wanted to ask in just summary, for our audience looking to learn more, 'cause obviously you are a wealth of knowledge about food safety and these are issues that affect us all and I always appreciate your insight both as you know kind of a policy nerd, a food safety expert, a mom like living in the world today. Where can our audience go to learn more about your work?

Helena Bottemiller Evich (40m 43s):

Yeah, so if you are interested in food policy, food safety, nutrition, that kind of stuff, you can go sign up for my newsletter. It's free every Friday. It's called Food Fix. You can Google Food Fix newsletter or you can actually go to foodfix.co and you can sign up. It's a great weekly read about what's going on in food policy world. So one week I might cover like school nutrition standards being updated and another week I might cover the applesauce lead pouch situation. Another week I might cover, you know, Jose Andres or celebrity chef saying something about food. It's, it's a mix of things like that.

Katie Ferraro (41m 19s):

My favorite part of your newsletter is what Helena is reading. Sometimes I scroll to the bottom and I'm like, 'cause she just summarizes like interesting well-written pieces from the internet that I probably miss that are somewhat related to food that are always just well-researched and I I feel like the older I get and also the shorter form that content becomes, I so much appreciate like traditional journalism and well-written articles and newsletters and full-length pieces and you are like a conduit for that for me and I don't come from the journalism world, so, I like that you kind of like pick my reading list of what to read. So please if you could lengthen that like I, I bookmark all of them and I read everything that you are also reading 'cause I'm like well she said it was good.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (41m 59s):

Yeah, a lot of people like that section. I put together like a curated list of what I'm reading on the internet

Katie Ferraro (42m 4s):

And also, sorry that I send you every single thing related to baby food. I'm like, did you know about this? Did you know about this? I know you're covering the whole lifespan.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (42m 10s):

No, yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean it's hard 'cause there's so much on the internet like there's so much crap to sift through there's, but there's also a lot of really great reporting. So that's what I try to do. I try to curate that information for, you know, I have a lot of parents on my list, I have a lot of policy makers, right? I have people who work at FDA and USDA and the White House and Capitol Hill and like they might work on these issues. But then I always want it to be relevant and readable to parents. And even my mother-in-Law who is visiting right now, she, if my mother-in-law doesn't find it interesting, I'm failing, right? It has to be really substantive but also really interesting just for anyone who eats so I try to do that.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (42m 52s):

I think one thing I meant to say is if your kid had these pouches, you should talk to your pediatrician about getting their blood levels tested for lead. The other thing that I learned, which really surprised me about this situation that I meant to mention is that these levels of lead are really high but they're not high enough to cause noticeable symptoms. And so if you're a parent who's like, oh my kid seems fine and they had these, I still would talk to your pediatrician because you probably wouldn't see symptoms at these levels, but there could be long-term effects. And so that's one thing that really caught my attention as a parent because I sort of assumed like, oh, if these levels are really high, like your kid will act funny.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (43m 33s):

They might have the typical signs of lead poisoning, which are like weakness, abdominal pain, different things. And that's, they're not quite high enough to cause those symptoms. So if anyone is out there affected by this, I would still talk to your kid's doctor asap.

Katie Ferraro (43m 48s):

Well thank you so much Helena for coming on. I really appreciate it. We kind of scheduled this last minute, and I know the story is still evolving. I will link to all of the resources that you mentioned in the Shownotes page for this episode. And I have like five other episode ideas I want to interview you about because I think so much of of what we talked about today is really relevant to parents and it doesn't stop with just Applesauce pouches and cinnamon.

Helena Bottemiller Evich (44m 9s):

Yeah, I'm always happy to come back. I love what you're doing and keep it up.

Katie Ferraro (44m 14s):

Well. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Helena. I'm sorry it went much longer than I anticipated. However, I thought it was a very useful conversation. She is so incredibly knowledgeable about food safety. Honestly any opportunity or chance I have to talk to Helena and I always come up with like 20 extra questions and I'm like, wrap it up and oh, what about this and what about that? If you want to support Helena and her work, check out her newsletter foodfix.co. She sends it out twice a week. I get the paid version of it. I don't know which day it comes out, but there's also a free version of it. So you get once a week if it's free or twice a week if you do the paid version. I really admire her work. I admire her investigative journalism. I'm very interested in the topics that she's reporting on, not only as an expert in food safety, but also as a mom.

Katie Ferraro (44m 57s):

I will link to everything that Helena covered today, including where you can sign up for her newsletter. That will be on the Shownotes page for this episode, which you can find at BLW podcast.com/389. I also want to say a special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the listening opportunities from AirWave. Thank you guys for listening to this show and I'll see you next time. If you're interested in doing baby-led weaning, but you're not exactly sure, like what does that mean? What does it look like? Where do I start?

Katie Ferraro (45m 37s):

My online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie ferraro has everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods and get them to eat over a hundred foods before they turn one, whether you're terrified of choking or maybe you've started but you feel like you're feeding your baby the same foods over and over 'cause you don't know what to feed next or you're looking for guidance on how to prepare foods safely for your baby's age and stage. My program has exactly what you need. There's five hours of concise self-paced video training. You can knock this thing out during nap time this week. You also get access to my 100 First Foods content library so you can see and learn exactly how to prep all of the 100 foods as well as my original a hundred days meal plan. I've been refining this program for the last seven years. Just today, a mom wrote to me and told me that the 100 days meal plan has been a quote game changer for her busy lifestyle.

Katie Ferraro (46m 23s):

When you join the program, you also get access to over 100 phase two combination food recipes. So you're gonna try out the trickier textures, push your baby's palate. And what's cool about these recipes is your whole family will enjoy them. So everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods is inside of the program. It's created by me, a Registered Dietitian who specializes in infant feeding. If you're tired of hunting and pecking around the internet trying to piece this stuff together on your own, I put it all in one convenient place for you. I invite you to check out the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program that's at babyledweaning.co again, that website is babyledweaning.co and click on program to learn more.