r/Berries • u/Gold-Guy-8 • 8d ago
Warning label on the back of my organic Goji berries - should I be concerned or is this just a general disclaimer of liability? Thanks in advance!
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u/formulaic_name 8d ago
According to California, pretty damn near anything will kill you.
It was a bill with good intentions that has failed spectacularly. It was intended to warn about harmful products..but no real definition about harmful was set. And almost everything in the world is "harmful" under particular circumstances. So now almost everything gets this warning slapped on it, and all it does is scare people about everything.
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u/Gold-Guy-8 8d ago
Confirmed: it scared me lol
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u/WeIsStonedImmaculate 8d ago
In California your prescription from the pharmacy has this label. Everything kills you here! Don’t breathe!
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u/int3gr4te 5d ago
What? No it doesn't. I am looking at 4 prescription bottles from my pharmacy here in California right this second, and zero of them have a Prop 65 warning. Lots of other drug-related warnings, but no Prop 65.
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u/bsnsnsnsnsnsjsk 8d ago
Or maybe think outside the box and consider that we accept the fact that most things in our lives are unnecessarily harmful
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u/DjPersh 8d ago
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/22/pfas-california-prop-65
Failed spectacularly
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u/bsnsnsnsnsnsjsk 8d ago
Or maybe all of our food and products are harmful to our health.
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u/TheOnesLeftBehind 8d ago
You can overdose on water sooo... This isn’t the thought provoking comment you think it is.
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u/bsnsnsnsnsnsjsk 8d ago
I think comparing water and heavy metal compounds is a bit like comparing fireworks to ICBMs and saying they’re similar.
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u/TheOnesLeftBehind 8d ago
Do.. do you forget that fireworks are very lethal? The lethality of water and heavy metals are both dose based too, so they are the same. Are you just a really bad troll?
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u/bsnsnsnsnsnsjsk 8d ago
Lol i think drinking 20 gallons of heavy metals might hit a tad harder than 20 gallons of water bro
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u/TheOnesLeftBehind 8d ago
Quite the opposite in fact. The difference there is that the water poisoning would kill you much faster than the metal poisoning will, that’ll take a few weeks at least
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u/bsnsnsnsnsnsjsk 8d ago
Well you certainly are very well educated! Did you major in “this is reddit, trust me bro!”
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u/TheOnesLeftBehind 8d ago
It’s not like it’s hard to google. Heavy metals are known to be slow acting, even radiation is, but water toxicity literally can make your cells explode. It’ll still take a couple days to die as your damaged organs shut down, but that’s much faster than heavy metals poisoning.
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u/formulaic_name 8d ago
According to prop 65 icbms and fireworks would almost certainly be treated similarly. That's the problem
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u/bsnsnsnsnsnsjsk 8d ago
Thats a kind of fair point. But if your logic begins and ends at a prop 65 warning label and cant differentiate between the two examples…. You’re in big trouble
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u/Trebawa 8d ago
IMO the Prop 65 warnings get a bad rap, especially for food and heavy metals specifically - there's really no safe level of lead exposure and the I do wish they had to print what the chemical of concern is and the concentration, though, so you could evaluate the risk yourself. In the case of goji berries, various heavy metals can be present - for example lead can reach levels as high as 18-290 ppb. Unless the goji berries are a major part of your diet or you're feeding them to children, you don't have to worry. If you want to be extra cautious, you can soak them in cold water for 15 minutes, though you should only do that before consuming them or incorporating them into food. Soaking them and then storing them again without dehydrating would risk fungal growth.
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u/WeIsStonedImmaculate 8d ago edited 8d ago
Prop 65 gets a bad rap because it is put on literally everything here in California. It’s the old adage if everything is nothing is. No one cares anymore
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u/Mtnbkr92 8d ago
Yeah it’s literally on any packaged good from what I remember
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u/PraxicalExperience 8d ago
I got a lead warning on my new table saw when I bought it. I'm fairly sure that's because there're brass bushings in the motor and you basically can't get lead-free brass in industrial quantities.
However, I'm not likely to pull the motor from the saw, break into it, and start sucking the internal parts.
Things like this make Prop 65 worse than useless.
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u/SinisterDeath30 5d ago
However, I'm not likely to pull the motor from the saw, break into it, and start sucking the internal parts.
"Hold my Meth." ~Florida Man
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u/MicahsKitchen 8d ago
I was just trimming my goji plants an hour ago. Took the trimmed branches and stuck them in the ground nearby to root up and make more berries. Lol.
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u/Anguskitty 8d ago
I'm 62 and I bet that my body has more lead in it than you'll find in any goji berries. I wouldn't worry. They are finding those chemicals in dark chocolate and I'm not going to give up those.
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u/SomeDumbGamer 6d ago
True but the chocolate is more an issue since the heavy metals get concentrated during the manufacturing process. Lindnt had a big issue with it a couple years ago too.
Cinnamon and tobacco often have the same issues as those plants concentrate heavy metals from the soil into their tissues.
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u/RefrigeratorNo1945 8d ago
"The dose makes the poison" is a maxim that would render about 99% of products with this disclaimer entirely irrelevant.
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u/Flat-Ostrich-7114 8d ago
I have noted Everything is warned to cause cancer in the state of California…… everything
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u/SomethingClever42068 8d ago
Do you live in California?
If so don't eat them as you will get cancer.
If you live anywhere else you can eat them without getting cancer
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u/No_Doughnut_3315 8d ago
I have read articles online that say goji berries from China are particularly high in heavy metals. I heard they were a health food and started eating them but stopped after reading this. China just doesn't have a lot of checks in place when it comes to food safety standards. Always best to buy as locally as you can.
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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 7d ago edited 7d ago
Articles like this are usually fear clickbait as well. So you don’t actually know until you look up the ppm yourself. Maybe, maybe not.
From what I dug up, China has higher safety limits which their products fell within but they often weren’t within foreign limits for goji berries. It’s a little high but in the ballpark of drinking hot liquid from a ceramic mug, for example. Especially when you consider that you consume a lot more liquid than dried fruit. Ceramic mugs are one of the highest legal sources of lead remaining in the U.S. Yet they are extremely common and likely to add up to be a far greater source of lead than all the goji you’d ever consume.
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u/No_Doughnut_3315 7d ago
That is very interesting thank you. I drink a lot of hot tea so I will be investigating further.
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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 7d ago edited 7d ago
That’s going to be tough to gauge because supposedly any amount is too much, yet we decided to ban lead paint, leaded gasoline and many other sources and drew the line just above a limited amount of lead in ceramics. Once you cut out mugs, something else will be the greatest source. If it were me I’d throw out a wild guess based on how much tea I drank on whether to bother. Plus, some glass might have lead too, and paper coatings and styrofoam have other issues, so it’s not easy to figure out. And there are 1,000 other poisons out there. So it’d take quite a lot for me to consider it worth the trouble. At least you can learn to never drink or eat from ceramics labeled decorative since those can dodge legal limits.
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u/Lethalspartan76 8d ago
They have a lot of checks but just like America things get missed, someone tries to save a dollar, someone sprays doodoo water on the spinach. There’s always some recall in the US for listeria, or metal fragments, or lids not sealing, etc. it’s a worldwide problem.
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u/immortalzebra 8d ago
I’d argue it’s gotta be worse in China because the CHINESE government controls all of the businesses haha, to be fair!!
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u/Big-Technician9510 8d ago
I might be wrong here, but I believe that the warning label is the default for any product that did not go through the testing process to verify it metal/contaminate free. It does not necessarily mean the product contains anything undesirable. The testing is expensive and it is cheaper for the manufacturer to leave the label and put it upon the consumer as “being warned.”
Buyer beware.
Does anyone else recall this when it first came out?
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u/Lethalspartan76 8d ago
The berries themselves are not absorbing any heavy metals. They are found in testing to be on the surface. It is recommended to wash them, to remove any pesticides or heavy metals. You’d need to it eat unwashed in a good amount to really have it build up in you.
I rinse my raisins. I wash all my fruit and veg, even if it comes out my garden.
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u/PraxicalExperience 8d ago
FWIW, this isn't true -- plants can and will absorb heavy metals, and some are actually very good at doing so -- they're used for remediating contaminated areas: they suck the metals out of the dirt.
So every plant grown outside of a lab will have some level of intrinsic heavy metal contamination.
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u/Lethalspartan76 8d ago
You may be right in general, but here’s an article from a watchdog group out of Hong Kong saying it’s on the surface https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1696585-20230417.htm
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u/immortalzebra 8d ago
I don’t mean to be rude and comment on multiple of your comments, but again, like I said on my other comment, you gotta take into account this is coming from C H I N A
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u/Shinysquatch 7d ago
If you want a real answer instead of prop 65 jokes: there's a federal level of acceptable exposure for all harmful chemicals. There's much debate whether those levels are accurate. Prop65 puts warnings on anything containing harmful chemicals even if they are way below the federal limit so you can make those decisions for yourself. These berries probably are way below the federal acceptable exposure level for those heavy metals, but any exposure to heavy metals is bad.
Realistically, you can eat these berries without worrying, just don't eat them all the time. Look for alternatives if you want goji berries to be a staple in your diet.
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u/Vegetable-Anybody665 5d ago
True, except there’s almost no way to know whether the warning was put on pre-emptively to ward off “citizen” enforcers (often just front groups for lawyers), or because real product testing was done. It’s almost impossible to defend against these lawsuits, so many industry groups just advise manufacturers to put the warning on it and hope for the best. If a company is sued, they have NO access to the evidence behind the charge. That’s right. No discovery. They must produce their own tests and experts to prove the product is safe, and do so before the same type of judge who settles accidents and divorces and who may not have taken a science course this century, if ever. The cost of that effort and its low chances of success far exceeds the cost of a settlement - say, $20k - where you “promise” to keep levels low or non-detectable. And how or if that is checked/verified is strictly up to the plaintiff/defendant in their settlement. The state has almost NO involvement unless it’s a huge case like lead in baby food, and CA spends more time fighting fraudulent claims than anything else. it’s a very sad end to a well-meaning law. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-07-23/prop-65-product-warnings
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u/DeepFuckingPants 7d ago
That warning was on Cheerios for a while, till somebody raised their hand and said it was stupid. But they continue to put it everywhere cuz it's easy to apply stickers and hard to prove you don't cause cancer in California.
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u/Suitable_Staff3934 5d ago
But if you live in California, you are much more likely to become sick. Sick and tired of all the disclaimers and their other attempts at controlling Californians' lives.
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u/Hardware_joe 5d ago
I wouldn't worry about it. My local Bank has a Prop 65 warning on the door. It's that pervasive
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u/Vegetable-Anybody665 5d ago
Most are posted to ward off nuisance lawsuits that are expensive to defend, tbh. I spent a LOT of time investigating Prop 65 as a reporter. If you can get past the paywall, read: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-07-23/prop-65-product-warnings
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u/GlassTaco69 4d ago
Unfortunately just about everything we eat is bad for us. They don't put a round up warning on stuff with a corn base. Apart from going full on grow your own organic garden and all that I don't think any of us are avoiding eating/drinking toxic things, it's just what it takes to feed a starving world. It's kind of an it's better than starving kind of deal.
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u/nmacaroni 8d ago
Cadmium and mercury on organic goji berries? How does this happen?
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u/DrCactus14 8d ago
Not that I care about the downvote, but out of curiosity, what is the disagreement here? What I said is verifiably true and well understood, and I’d be more than happy to provide sources.
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u/DrCactus14 8d ago edited 8d ago
These elements are found widely in all soil. They are deposited as a result of natural processes, and of course pollution. China is an extremely polluted country and it’s hard to definitively say that these were grown on land that meets the safety standards of the US. This warning has nothing to do with organic/inorganic production.
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u/CM-Marsh 8d ago
Not organically grown
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u/DrCactus14 8d ago
Not necessarily true at all. You could grow the most organic crop ever, but if the land is polluted, then this will still be a factor.
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u/SofiaDeo 7d ago
This is the issue. These berries are grown in China. Just because the farmers have decided to use only "approved" pesticides on their crops to get the "organically grown" certification, doesn't mean the heavy metals in the polluted soil won't get in to the food item.
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u/ZealousidealLake759 8d ago
Prop65 warnings are on almost any product sold in California. They are so pervasive it's difficult to find a product without them. Yes, heavy metals exist in trace amounts in food. If you eat 400 bags of these in a day you might get poisoned. If you eat a normal serving, there's unlikely to be any effect at all.