Action item: Are Whole Foods employees intentionally misleading customers about toxic heavy metals in rice protein products?

Tuesday, May 06, 2014 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: Whole Foods, rice proteins, toxic heavy metals

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(NaturalNews) Go to Whole Foods today, pick a rice protein product off the shelf, and ask the store manager why they are selling rice protein containing toxic heavy metals at such high levels that they often exceed California Prop. 65 limits by over 1,000%! The answer you get may shock you: some Whole Foods employees and store managers are falsely claiming there are no heavy metals in the products they sell!

One store employee told a Natural News contributing writer, "Oh, that's just somebody on the internet. We would never sell something if it had heavy metals in it." (Really? Then they are sadly misinformed...)

A store manager at another store actually said, "That's been debunked. Mike Adams doesn't even have a lab. There are no heavy metals in the proteins we sell." (Except that there are, see results below...)

Some Whole Foods employees, in other words, seem to have no clue that the products they're representing -- including "organic" products -- contain concerning levels of toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. They may have even been instructed to provide false and misleading answers when customers ask about the issue. What they don't seem to be telling customers is that just one scoop of a rice protein sold at Whole Foods can expose you to over 1,000% the daily lead limit defined by California Prop. 65.

Join the action campaign: Go to Whole Foods today and ASK

To set the record straight, I'm asking you to go to your local Whole Foods store TODAY and ask the store manager this question: "Why are you selling rice proteins containing such high levels of toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten?"

Email the response you get to [email protected], and be sure to include the city of the store. (We won't use your name, don't worry. But we are collecting responses from various Whole Foods stores to see how many are informed about this issue.)

Nearly all the rice protein sold at Whole Foods, by the way, comes from China and other Asian countries where environmental standards are rarely enforced. Just recently in fact, the Chinese government declassified a once-secret document admitting that 20% of China's farms are contaminated with toxic heavy metals.

This is where a lot of the rice protein sold at Whole Foods really comes from. But instead of admitting these products contain toxic heavy metals, some Whole Foods managers appear to be routinely misleading customers.

Confirmed: Whole Foods keeps selling rice protein products containing high levels of toxic heavy metals

Just to make sure this is still going on, I went to the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin Texas last week and purchased nearly $700 worth of products (see the scan of my receipt, to the right). The receipt appears to be in two parts because Whole Foods prints items on the FRONT and the BACK of each receipt, so I had to stitch together two photos.

The results of testing these rice proteins in my ICP-MS laboratory -- the Natural News Forensic Food Labs -- once again confirms alarming levels of lead, cadmium and tungsten in multiple rice protein products sold by Whole Foods. If you're curious how I found tungsten in these products, click here to see the videos from our lab.

Here are just some of the results we found from rice proteins purchased at Whole Foods last week (1,000 ppb = 1 ppm)

Brown Rice Chocolate Protein (Lot #50696014) purchased at Whole Foods
Lead: 312 ppb (over 1,000% higher than California Prop 65 daily intake limit, based on serving size)
Cadmium: 1015 ppb
Tungsten: YES ("YES" means tungsten was detected at significant concentrations)

Raw Rice Protein Chocolate (Lot #I3553A #I3562) purchased at Whole Foods
Lead: 311 ppb (over 1400% higher than California Prop 65 daily intake limit, based on serving size)
Cadmium: 1731 ppb
Tungsten: YES

Rice Protein (Lot #31105010) purchased at Whole Foods
Lead: 302 ppb (over 750% higher than California Prop 65 daily intake limit, based on serving size)
Cadmium: 1791 ppb
Tungsten: YES

Rice Protein Vanilla (Lot #04914-2) purchased at Whole Foods
Lead: 277 ppb (over 800% higher than California Prop 65 daily intake limit, based on serving size)
Cadmium: 1345 ppb
Tungsten: YES

Click here to see more complete results of other rice protein products at the Natural News Forensic Food Labs.

Note that these high levels of toxic heavy metals were only found in RICE proteins and not whey protein, hemp protein, pea protein or any other protein source. Tera's Whey Organic Whey Protein, for example, measured near-zero on lead, cadmium and tungsten. Life's Basics from LifeTime also came out very clean because it's made mostly from pea protein and hemp seed, with only a small amount of rice. The Unsweetened variety (Lot #3793), for example, had relatively low levels of lead and cadmium compared to other products made entirely from rice.

Also keep in mind that rice proteins are digestible foods, unlike dietary substances such as zeolites which may contain some heavy metals but aren't digestible (and therefore pass right through you). Thus, the heavy metals in rice can and does go right into your bloodstream where it is circulated and deposited in tissues and organs such as your brain, kidneys, liver and heart.

Why isn't Whole Foods answering customer questions with the truth?

The big question here concerns why some Whole Foods managers have been misleading customers who ask legitimate questions about toxic heavy metals in rice protein products they purchase at Whole Foods stores. How widespread is this practice of deceiving customers with inaccurate information that could seriously contribute to worsening long-term health outcomes?

I wonder, too, how many pregnant women are buying these "organic" rice proteins at Whole Foods, not knowing that lead can cause brain damage to their babies. How many raw food enthusiasts are buying "raw" proteins at Whole Foods while not realizing they are eating significant quantities of cadmium which can contribute to kidney damage and hardening of the arteries?

Did you know that lead, cadmium and mercury have no nutritive function in the human body? They are universally considered "poisons" and "toxins" that damage healthy body function. And did you know that the levels of these metals found in rice protein products are not "naturally occurring?" In fact, as this video shows, high levels of toxic heavy metals in food are the result of industrial contamination of farms and waterways. Anyone claiming these levels are "naturally occurring" is scientifically illiterate and a "Table of Elements denier."

Help Natural News explore the full scope of the apparent cover-up taking place at Whole Foods right now: Visit a Whole Foods today and ask them why they are selling rice protein products containing toxic heavy metals. Email us what they tell you to [email protected] (and include the store location, please).

See what answers you get, and know in advance that if they tell you, "We don't sell proteins containing heavy metals," they are LYING to you.

Because YES, Whole Foods is right now selling rice protein products containing toxic, cancer-causing heavy metals. This fact is irrefutable and scientifically proven. There is no denying it, and YES, Whole Foods is fully aware they are doing this, as I will explain in a follow-up story.

Much more to come on this investigative story in the weeks ahead...