Recent headlines about a new study from Consumer Reports have created a scare about protein powders. For example, CBS has a typically alarmist opening paragraph:
Let’s leave aside the pros and cons of protein powder for this post and just grant for the moment that:
a) people can get all the protein they need from a well balanced diet and don’t need protein powders, and b) some people, for a variety of reasons, find benefit to including protein powders in their diets.
For those who fall into this later category, should they stop using protein powders simply for fear of lead contamination?
The answer, unequivocally, is no. Let me explain.
It’s true that Consumer Reports tested a variety of popular protein powder brands and found many of them to have lead contamination, but this leaves out an important point of context: naturally grown foods have trace amounts of lead in the them too.
It’s impossible, if you plan to ever eat again, to have a completely lead free existence. And while high levels of lead can be dangerous (especially to growing children), trace levels are not harmful, especially in adults.
Consumer Reports for this study used a threshold that is ONE-ONE-THOUSANDTH of the level that is considered dangerous to humans by most scientists. This is an impossible standard to meet, and if you decided to avoid any foods that don’t meet it, you’d have to disqualify virtually everything that grows from the earth, whether it’s a protein powder or an organically grown artichoke. Consumer Reports could just as easily have run a study showing that every single item in the grocery store is contaminated by lead.
Had Consumer Reports tested for the level of lead contamination that is actually considered harmful to human health, not a single protein powder they tested would have come even remotely close to failing their standard. Which of course would not make for much of a headline.
My verdict: this is yet another example of the “academic media” complex that I’ve so often previously discussed. If you can get all of your protein needs without the use of protein powders, feel free to do so. On the flip side, if the use of protein powders is helping you to achieve some nutrition or dietary goal, you don’t need to stop based on this absurd report.
