{"id":231039,"date":"2025-10-17T07:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/231039\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T07:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:57:13","slug":"the-protein-craze-is-heavy-metal-literally-bombshell-investigation-finds-unsafe-lead-amounts-in-two-thirds-of-top-powders-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/231039\/","title":{"rendered":"The protein craze is heavy metal, literally: bombshell investigation finds unsafe lead amounts in two-thirds of top powders for sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can never have too much of a good thing, the saying goes. For months now, Americans treated protein<\/a> that way. What started as a fringe supplement used mostly by \u201cgym bros and fitness-obsessed teens,\u201d as Consumer Reports journalist Paris Martineau put it, has transformed into a full-blown mass-market wellness movement. There\u2019s protein pastas<\/a>, protein cereals<\/a>, protein sodas<\/a>, and even Starbucks<\/a> protein cold foam<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But an extensive investigation<\/a> by Consumer Reports (CR) published on Oct. 14 reveals an inconvenient truth: much of this protein comes contaminated with toxic heavy metals.<\/p>\n

Martineau led CR\u2019s new round of testing on protein powders and shakes, the publication\u2019s first since 2010. Back then, CR found \u201cconcerning levels of heavy metals,\u201d but the category still felt niche. Now, she told Fortune, \u201ceverybody, seemingly, is taking protein powder, and this kind of protein mania has emerged where people seem to believe that more protein can always be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

That shift was precisely why CR decided to look again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to take a look at this industry again, now that it has blown up so much,\u201d Martineau said. \u201cAnd surprise, surprise, we found out that it seems like the risks have been growing right alongside the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We advise against daily use\u2019<\/p>\n

CR tested 23 of the most popular protein powders and ready-to-drink shakes sold in the U.S. The results were unsettling: more than two-thirds of the products contained more lead in a single serving than CR\u2019s food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day. Some had 10 times that amount. One powder\u2014Naked Nutrition\u2019s Vegan Mass Gainer\u2014contained 7.7 micrograms of lead per serving, which is 1,572% of CR\u2019s level of concern. Another top seller, Huel Black Edition \u2013 a favorite among tech bros \u2013 registered 6.3 micrograms of lead, or 1,288% of CR\u2019s limit.<\/p>\n

CR\u2019s chemist Tunde Akinleye, who led the testing, concluded in the report: \u201cWe advise against daily use for most protein powders, since many have high levels of heavy metals and none are necessary to hit your protein goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martineau herself was taken aback not just by the levels, but by the sheer consistency of contamination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised that protein powders contain detectable and concerning amounts of lead,\u201d she said. \u201cI was surprised that more than two-thirds of the products we tested had high levels of lead.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What concerned her most was how these products are used: unlike candy or hot chocolate, other products CR has tested, \u201cthe core user base often takes these products daily, or multiple times a day, which is a real risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even worse, the contamination has increased, not improved, since CR\u2019s earlier testing. \u201cWe found higher levels of lead and a higher average level of lead,\u201d Martineau explained. \u201cEven\u2026 the worst product we tested this time contained twice as much lead as the worst product we tested 15 years ago.\u201d She said that you might intuitively expect that safety standards would evolve as an industry matures, \u201cbut it\u2019s not always the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many readers, she said, assumed contamination must come from negligent manufacturing, but the truth is more complicated. The problem starts at the source: plant-based protein powders were overwhelmingly the most contaminated category, with the average lead in these products about nine times the amount they found in dairy proteins like whey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why? Plants act like sponges, Martineau explained. They absorb whatever is in the environment around them; and if there\u2019s lead of cadmium in the soil, they\u2019ll suck those metals up too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CR found that contamination can also intensify during processing.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtein supplements are highly processed food,\u201d Martineau explained. She emphasized she wasn\u2019t being ideological about \u201cprocessed\u201d as a buzzword, just factual: machines isolate and process the pea plant over many steps to convert the plant into a powder.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state of regulation<\/p>\n

If heavy metals in food sound illegal, that\u2019s another widespread assumption Martineau dismantled during her reporting.<\/p>\n

The state of regulation for the protein powder industry was one of the things that \u201creally shocked\u201d her. Since protein powders are considered dietary supplements, they usually operate in a regulatory gray area with limited oversight before they go on the market.<\/p>\n

There is no federal limit for how much lead is allowed in a protein powder. Companies are expected to self-regulate, and many don\u2019t disclose any testing at all. The FDA does not approve supplements before they\u2019re sold: \u201ca strange setup,\u201d Martineau said.<\/p>\n

How strange? The FDA inspected just 600 of the 12,000 registered supplement manufacturers last year. Only 90 of those inspections were foreign plants, even though much of the U.S. supplement supply chain runs through overseas factories.<\/p>\n

This regulatory vacuum leaves consumers blind. Some brands point to NSF safety certifications as proof of purity, but CR notes that NSF allows 10 micrograms of lead per day\u201420 times CR\u2019s limit of 0.5 micrograms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCR takes a really conservative approach\u2026 there\u2019s no known safe amount of lead,\u201d Martineau said. She pointed out that some companies can produce products that have really low levels of lead and more should do that, \u201cif not all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as the science unfolds, Martineau was staunch on one point: people do not need protein powder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people don\u2019t need as much protein as they think they do,\u201d Martineau said. \u201cUnless you\u2019re kind of in special groups\u2014specific types of athletes, people who could be pregnant, older adults\u2014you probably only need 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day\u2026 which is really easy to get by just eating whole foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvard Health agrees<\/a> that the recommended amount of protein each day is just 0.8 grams per kilo of body weight. That means a 140-pound adult only needs about 53 grams of protein per day, an amount easily reached with a cup of Greek yogurt and a chicken breast, or a serving of tofu with beans.<\/p>\n

The RDA isn\u2019t a target to exceed, but rather the minimum needed to avoid deficiency, and most Americans surpass it without trying: on average, protein already makes up about 16% of daily calories in the U.S. diet, above the recommended 10%.<\/p>\n

The problem, she noted, is cultural: \u201cWe basically have this kind of health halo around protein.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Protein has become a branding tool\u2014an excuse to turn processed foods into wellness objects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSlapping protein on something does not make it a shortcut to health,\u201d she said. \u201cThe unsexy advice is actually a shortcut to health\u2014eat whole foods\u2014but that\u2019s way less fun than protein-maxxing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can never have too much of a good thing, the saying goes. For months now, Americans treated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[21653,28,8112,12334,246,21952,337,97,6270,21652,5119,13201],"class_list":{"0":"post-231039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-and-wellness","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-diet","11":"tag-dietary-supplements","12":"tag-fda","13":"tag-fda-approval","14":"tag-fitness","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-investigation","17":"tag-personal-health","18":"tag-protein","19":"tag-sugar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}