"How Much Lead Is in Organic Chicken Soup (Bone Broth)?"
“Lead poisoning still occurs in the United States
despite extensive prevention efforts
and strict regulations.”
Ayurvedic supplements, for example,
specifically marketed to pregnant women,
exceeded safety levels by up to 4 million percent,
making Ayurvedic medicine use
and lead poisoning a continued concern
in the United States.
Heavy metals are intentionally added to the supplements,
but don’t worry, Ayurvedic practitioners claim,
the lead has been detoxified with cow pee.
Calcium supplements can be an additional source
of lead contamination,
something we’ve known about for about a half a century now.
Calcium supplements made from bone
may have the highest lead levels,
but just regular calcium supplements
were found contaminated too,
including a number of big national brands.
Diet-wise, the greatest contributor
to the lead intake of children and their parents may be dairy,
but the most concentrated source
may be wild game shot
with lead-containing ammunition.
Concerns have been raised by hunters, though,
that lead-free bullets wouldn’t have
the same wounding capacity,
but CT scans of kills show
just as much damage is inflicted,
demonstrating that lead-free bullets
have equivalent killing effectiveness
even against ballistic soap,
which evidently has a similar density
to vital organs.
Workers in like battery plants
can be exposed to a lot of lead,
but the #1 non-occupational lead
exposure is shooting firearms.
Not eating lead-laden meat,
just target practice in indoor firing ranges;
75% of target shooters have
elevated lead levels in their blood.
Even outside, airborne lead
released by the friction of the bullet
against the barrel or lead-containing
primers can lead to substantial
lead exposure both in the people and in local wildlife,
as well as the soil, with lead levels higher
than that found next to an industrial lead factory.
Most lead in urban soil, though,
is from the decades of lead paint and leaded gasoline,
raising concerns about urban gardens.
Most of the lead doesn’t get taken up
by the plants, though,
but can stick to the leaves and roots.
This is bad news in that even crops
from raised beds using clean soil
may get contaminated in an urban environment,
but the good news is that
the lead can presumably just be washed off.
The health benefits of gardening
and fresh produce would likely
more than compensate for the risk at most sites.
Eggs from backyard chickens, however,
should be tested for lead,
since the lead gets inside the egg;
and so, it can’t be washed off.
Most of the lead ends up in the birds’ skeleton, though
which raises the question:
What happens when you try to make chicken soup?
There may be an upswing in people
boiling bones due to encouragement
from paleo diet advocates.
The problem is that lead is a neurotoxin
and, not just a neurotoxin,
it adversely affects the bone marrow,
and digestive tract, and kidneys,
and circulatory system,
and hormones, and reproduction.
Symptoms of too much lead exposure
include impaired cognition, anemia, abdominal pain, kidney problems,
high blood pressure, miscarriages, memory problems, constipation,
impotence, depression, poor concentration, etcetera.
And, we know from human studies
that lead is sequestered in the bones.
When there’s a lot of lead turnover,
like at menopause or during pregnancy,
lead levels in the blood can go up.
This bump can be minimized during pregnancy
by getting enough calcium
and lowering sodium intake.
When astronauts lose bone in space,
the lead is released into their bloodstream,
but ironically, since they’re no longer
exposed to all the lead on Earth,
their overall lead levels may go down.
Bones are so good at sucking up lead,
they can be like sprinkled on firing ranges
to prevent lead from leeching further into the environment.
So these researchers were concerned
that the boiling of farm animal bones
might release lead into the broth.
So, they made three types of organic chicken broth—
one with the bones,
one with just the meat,
and one with the skin and cartilage.
All the soups exceeded the maximum
allowable dose level for lead,
even the boneless.
Surprisingly, the skin and cartilage
was the worst, exceeding the safety level
per one cup serving by like 475%.