What Happened
Following the successful adoption of state laws around baby food transparency, Unleaded Kids encourages states to consider legislation requiring spice companies to make publicly available their lot-by-lot test results for arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury in their products.
The result with baby food has been a more transparent national marketplace that empowers consumers to make informed decisions and incentivizes companies to find ways to drive levels of these toxic elements closer to zero, consistent with FDA’s goal. Where established companies have fought transparency, new innovators have gained a foothold in a competitive marketplace.
Because FDA has not made it a priority to set action levels for these toxic elements in spices, we also encourage state legislators to develop a process where state agencies can efficiently adopt limits based on the test results provided by the companies. Those action levels should progressively drive contamination closer to zero by restricting the sale of products that have the worst levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury contamination.
Why Spices?
Spices typically have levels of lead in the range of 400 to 3,000 parts per billion (ppb).1 In this range, the source of lead is the environment; a combination of natural occurring levels and human activities, including the use of leaded gasoline for autos and airplanes.2 The higher levels suggest spice processing practices that may contaminate the product or sourcing spices from areas with particularly bad environmental contamination. Extraordinarily high levels, such as those in cinnamon applesauce pouches that harmed more than 500 people in the United States in 2023, are from economic adulteration where lead chromate is added for color.
FDA has not set action levels for lead in spices, preferring to rely on case-by-case responses, such as the public health alerts in 2024–25 for 19 cinnamon products that had more than 2,000 ppb. In 2021, the European Union (EU) set action levels for spices ranging from 600 to 2,000 ppb with the latter for cinnamon.
Codex Alimentarius, the international standard-setting body, is also moving forward with its own, albeit weaker, standards. These limits are designed to remove the spices from the marketplace with the highest 1% to 5% levels based on testing results providing by countries around the world. They are not based on the health risk or an evaluation of whether the spices were grown, harvested, and processed consistent with Codex’s Code of Practice for the Prevention and Reduction of Lead Contamination in Foods.
Recognizing that FDA has no action levels for spices despite persistently high levels of lead found, New York State set a limit of 1,000 ppb for cadmium, lead, and inorganic arsenic in spices in 2016. Five years later, it proposed lowering the levels to 210 ppb for lead and inorganic arsenic and 260 ppb for cadmium. The lead limit was designed to avoid a one IQ point loss in young children. The cadmium and inorganic arsenic limits were based on the 90th percentile of spices found on the market—meaning 10% of the spices on the market would be subject to a recall. It used the 90th percentile because the limit based on the state’s analysis that reducing the cancer risk to less than 1 in a million was so low that many spices would have to be recalled.
The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) raised serious objections to the New York State’s methodology and claimed that half the spice market would not be able to meet the new limits and that 95% of ginger, 86% of cinnamon, and 79% of oregano would fail. New York State put the proposal on hold and continues to enforce the 2016 limits.
Why Include Arsenic, Cadmium, and Mercury?
In 2018, FDA identified cadmium, lead, mercury, and inorganic arsenic as toxic elements that threatened children’s health, particularly their developing brain, and launched a task force to evaluate the risks and set levels to reduce exposure. In 2021, the agency launched its Closer to Zero program with a goal of setting action levels in food that would be regularly updated to further reduce exposure.
FDA made baby food (essentially food intended for children younger than 2 years) its top priority and focused first on lead. It finalized action levels for lead in baby food in January 2025 and committed to proposing action levels for cadmium and inorganic arsenic in baby food by the end of 2025.
Starting with California in 2023, Maryland in 2024, and Virginia and Illinois in 2025, states required baby food brands to report toxic element levels to 6 parts per billion (ppb) or less. They did not require additional testing to separate and quantify the inorganic form of arsenic—the form that poses the greatest risk—from the organic form since FDA has only validated a method for rice and fruit juice.
Why Prioritize Transparency?
The action levels set by EU, FDA, Codex, and New York State are based on removing the worst of the spice products from the market based on publicly available test results. They are not based on the health risk.
The test results they rely on are usually based on academic or government studies designed to reflect what was on the market in the past. They may or may not reflect what is currently on the market, or what could be achieved if the spices were grown, harvested, and processed consistent with Codex’s Code of Practice for the Prevention and Reduction of Lead Contamination in Foods.
As a result, the action levels tend to lock in past practices and provide little incentive for the spice companies to develop and implement methods to lower arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury levels.
In contrast, a transparency approach, like that used for baby foods, requires companies to make publicly available on their website the lot-by-lot test results for each of their products currently on retailer shelves. Consumers can conveniently access the results from home or in the store.
The approach empowers consumers to prioritize companies with the lowest levels and greatest transparency, balancing their choice with other factors such as cost, availability, and quality. Even for a product as important as the food they gave their babies, we see no signs that parents panic when learning measurable levels of lead are in the products, undermining claims by the industry that they would.
We think it mattered that companies provided context on the levels that built their credibility. This context includes explaining efforts to lower the levels and providing amounts per serving, not just concentration. These companies respected the judgment of potential customers and, as a result, became more trusted and credible.
We also saw new companies entering the marketplace who were willing to compete with others based on having the lowest levels of toxic elements in their food. Consumers rewarded this effort by favoring those brands.
Given the success with baby food, we think the transparency approach will yield similar results for spices.
Why Set Action Levels?
Transparency alone is not sufficient to protect consumers since many will lack the bandwidth to do the research, especially those with young children. Action levels provide an important backstop to get the worst-of-the-worst off the market. They complement each other.
Because FDA has chosen not to set action levels for these toxic elements in spices, states can fill the gap by using the test results posted by the companies to use the same formula that FDA, EU, and Codex use to set limits. They do not need to conduct detailed risk assessments. They can obtain lot-by-lot, product-by-product testing results from the companies, determine the average levels for each product, and compare them to similar products on the marketplace. They can set action levels that remove those products with the highest levels, using the 10% level proposed by New York, or the 5% used by FDA, EU, and Codex.
The key is that they are making decisions based on products currently or recently on the market and have a process that can be adopted with little administrative burden and regularly updated to drive levels closer to zero.
Unleaded Kids Commitment
We are willing to provide technical and policy support for the state effort. As a small organization, our resources are limited, but we can also make connections with our networks and testify as appropriate. For more information, please contact Tom Neltner at tneltner@unleadedkids.org.
- See ASTA Guidance Levels for Heavy Metals in Spices, May 3, 2025 Version. Note that the guidance addresses cadmium, lead, and inorganic arsenic and refers to them as heavy metals. Arsenic is neither heavy nor a metal. For that reason, FDA uses the term “toxic element.” Unleaded Kids uses the proper term when describing the three elements. ↩︎
- Note that the industry often describes lead as naturally occurring background without any attribution to human activities. FDA says “[t]hese contaminants may occur in the environment naturally (as elements in the earth’s crust) and from human activities. Levels in the air, water, and soil used to grow crops, process foods, and raise animals can vary depending on natural geographical differences and proximity to past or current pollution.” ↩︎