Do I Tell or Not?
June 21, 2010
If you follow Mommy Goes Green regularly, you read last week that many fruit juices and packaged fruit have lead in them. I sent the info to every parent I know and made sure to ask our parents to refrain from serving these things to our children. Then I talked with the director at my children’s preschool and asked them to check into the food and drinks they served during snack time. She said she would. I also made reiterated my request to not serve juice to my daughter. In the meantime, I noticed that Del Monte packaged peaches were sitting in the classroom for snack. I was mildly relieved because my son doesn’t have snack at the school (yet). HOWEVER…..there are many other children in the classroom that ARE eating these possibly lead filled fruits.
So the question is….do I pester the director again? It’s been a week since I spoke with her and she hasn’t said anything to me. If she decides not to do anything about it, do I say anything to the other parents? I only *know* one of the other parents. The other parents are acquaintances. I don’t want to be the crazy mom but if I were in their position, I would want to know if my children were eating food that might be tainted with lead!
I need some Mom Advice – what are your thoughts?
Comments
Oh, that is such a tough position to be in! I feel like I come off as “the crazy mom” where just my family and friends are concerned, so addressing mere acquaintences could definitely earn that label. I think that any parent who keeps up with this sort of thing will already know about it – I saw the news on just about every blog I read.
If it helps, I thought Z Recommends had an interesting take on it (http://www.zrecommends.com/detail/the-juice-box-lead-scare-parents-as-pawns-again/) and this is a really good point: “But the organization has provided no evidence that these lead levels in any particular brand are stable over any period of time – they tested 398 samples of 146 different branded products, but what would they find if they did the same testing six months from now? Ingredient suppliers can change rapidly in the food business. In some it is a true commodities market, with the mix of suppliers changing on a daily basis. What basis do you have for believing that a brand that had no sample hit the 0.5 microgram threshold in these tests would meet that standard two months from now?”
Good luck deciding what to do!
Hi Amber,
The ZRecs article has a good point concerning lead coming from many sources, not just juice. However, I disagree with this comment implying that there IS some safe level of lead: “While the ELF assures us that “scientists agree” that there is “no safe level of lead,” the FDA, the rest of the world’s regulatory bodies, and the WHO take a more practical approach.” The CDC says this, in regards to lead : “no safe blood level has been identified”. http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/tips/water.htm.
So maybe I’ll chill out a little but my kids still aren’t having juice – they don’t need the sugar anyway. In the meantime, I’ve got a garden in the background and I’ve been thinking about having the soil tested for lead – no sense in growing organic lead filled veggies!